Cairo, Egypt
AP
Egyptians cast ballots Saturday in the first stage of the country’s parliamentary election, a vote which is highly likely to produce a toothless lower chamber packed with supporters of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
The election took place place as the Arab world’s most populous country faces a slight increase in coronavirus cases, with authorities warning that a second wave of the pandemic lies ahead.
A woman casts her ballot on the first day of the parliamentary election inside a polling station in Giza, Egypt, on Saturday, 24th October. Egyptians began voting Saturday in the first stage of a parliamentary election, a vote that is highly likely to produce a toothless House of Representatives packed with supporters of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. PICTURE: AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty.
Like the Senate election in August, Egyptian election authorities said face masks would be handed out to voters for free and polling stations were disinfected.
Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly urged Egyptians to take part in the vote that he described as having a “democratic atmosphere,” as he cast his own ballot early in the morning in a Giza suburb.
Since coming to power in 2014, el-Sissi has presided over a rolling crackdown on dissent that has discouraged public criticism of the government. Security forces detained thousands following small, sporadic street protests against corruption last year.
Most Egyptian media are supportive of el-Sissi and regularly berate critics as traitors or supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamist group that is officially designated as a terrorist organisation.
“The previous parliament allowed the government to do what it wanted,” said voter Amr Abdel-Wahed while waiting to cast his ballot at a polling center neat the Cairo University. He added that people were “tired” of a parliament that followed the government’s line so closely.
Egyptian officials push for people to turn out in high numbers for elections. Election authorities have reiterated previous warnings that individuals who boycott voting could be fined up to 500 Egyptian pounds ($US32).
Polling stations closed at 9pm local time on Saturday. They were scheduled to reopen Sunday for the second and last day of first-round voting. Some 63 million voters were eligible to vote in the two-stage election, with results announced in early December.
Only 14.23 per cent of voters participated in the Senate election in August. The government restored the upper chamber to the country’s constitution following a referendum last year that sought to extend the presidency’s powers and term limits.
A total of 568 seats in the lower chamber are up for grabs in this month’s parliamentary election, with over 4,000 candidates running as individuals competing for 50 per cent of the seats. Prominent, wealthy government-affiliated power brokers have an advantage.
The other 50 per cent of seats in the House of Representatives are reserved for over 1,100 candidates running on four party lists. El-Sissi will name 28 seats, or five per cent, bringing the total number of seats in the lower chamber to 596.
The first stage of voting was scheduled to take place Saturday and Sunday in 14 of Egypt’s 27 provinces, including Giza and the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria. Egyptian expatriates abroad voted earlier this week.
AT LEAST 14 CIVILIANS KILLED BY BOOBY TRAPS IN EGYPT’S SINAI
More than a dozen civilians, including women and children, were killed in Egypt’s restive northern Sinai Peninsula over the past two weeks from explosive devices laid down in their homes by militants, security and medical officials said Sunday.
Islamic State militants in July attacked several villages in the town of Bir al-Abd, forcing people to flee their homes. The military then secured the villages in August and allowed residents to return to their homes a few weeks later, the officials said.
The militants, however, had laid booby traps in several houses that killed at least 14 people, including six from the same family late on Saturday, officials said. The casualities included women and children.
At least ten others have been wounded since 12th October and were taken to the town’s hospital for treatment, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media.
Bir al-Abd was the site of a horrific extremist attack on a mosque in 2017 that killed over 300 worshippers, some of them fathers praying with their young sons. The tribes of North Sinai have been heavily targeted by militants who view their veneration of Muslim saints and shrines as heretical, forcing a mass exodus of residents from the impoverished area that has long been underdeveloped by the government.
Violence and instability there intensified after the military overthrew the country’s Islamist President in 2013 amid nationwide protests against the Muslim Brotherhood group’s divisive rule. Extremist militants have since carried out scores of attacks, mainly targeting security forces and minority Christians.
The conflict has largely taken place out of public view, with journalists and outside observers barred from the area. The conflict has so far not expanded into the southern end of the peninsula where popular Red Sea tourist resorts are located.
In February, 2018, the military launched a massive operation in Sinai that also encompassed parts of the Nile Delta and deserts along the country’s western border with Libya. Since then, the pace of Islamic State attacks in Sinai’s north has diminished.
– ASHRAF SWEILAM, AP
Voting in the country’s 13 other provinces, including the capital Cairo and the two provinces in Sinai Peninsula, will take place on 7th and 8th November. Each stage of the vote will be followed by runoff elections.
The new chamber is expected to hold its inaugural session shortly after final results are announced in December.
In the run up to the election, Cairo and towns across the country were awash with banners advertising candidates, mostly pro-government businessmen and politicians. In Giza, for example, the main front-runners are staunchly pro-government candidates including businessman Mohammed Abu el-Enein.
In Alexandria, lawmaker Haitham el-Hariri, who was one of the few opposition figures in the outgoing parliament, urged his supporters to vote. He said that he faces “a fierce battle” against what he called “candidates of political money,” in an apparent reference to businessmen loyal to the government who are running against him.
In recent years, authorities have ratcheted up their crackdown on dissent, targeting not only Islamist political opponents but also secular pro-democracy activists, journalists and online critics. The tactic has left the president and his supporters with no formal political opposition.
Last year, police arrested eight people, including former lawmaker and Social Democratic party member Zyad el-Elaimy, after they met with political parties and opposition lawmakers to hash out how to run in the 2020 parliamentary elections. The arrested were accused of spreading fake news and conspiring with an outlawed group to commit crimes, a reference to the Muslim Brotherhood.
El-Sissi’s government has also pushed through sweeping reforms and austerity measures to overhaul the country’s battered economy. The reforms, which included floating the currency and slashing key subsidies, won the Egyptian government praise from its key allies abroad and international financial institutions. But the economic overhaul dramatically hiked prices for everything from electricity to drinking water, squeezing the poor and middle class.
Critics say the 596-seat legislature will be like the previous one, which was little more than a rubber stamp for el-Sissi’s policies, leaving the general-turned president with almost unchecked power.
The pro-government Mustaqbal Watan, or “Nation’s Future,” party has the largest number of individual candidates, with 284 individual candidates in the two stages.
The election’s outcome is highly unlikely to produce a parliament that can form its own legislative agenda or hold the government accountable, according to Ahmed Abd Rabou, a visiting assistant professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver.
“The coming Egyptian House of Representatives will just continue to remain a puppet in the hand of the government,” he said.
