Egypt: Egyptians voted in the third round of a parliamentary election on Wednesday that has so far handed Islamists the biggest share of seats in an assembly that will be central in the planned transition from army rule.
Islamist groups came late to the uprising that unseated President Hosni Mubarak in February, but were well placed to seize the moment when Egyptians were handed the first chance in six decades to choose their representatives freely.
The Muslim Brotherhood led after the first two rounds, and the strong showing by Islamist parties has sown unease among Western powers that only disowned Mubarak once his three-decade rule was crumbling.
The ballot has been overshadowed by the deaths of 17 people last month in clashes between the army and protesters demanding the ruling military council hand power immediately to civilians. The army says the poll process will not be derailed by violence.
The concluding vote to parliament’s lower house takes in regions of the rural south, which has the largest proportions of Christian voters, the Nile Delta region north of the capital Cairo, and the restive Sinai desert region to the east.
Turnout in earlier rounds was far higher than in Mubarak’s day, when ballot stuffing, thuggery and vote-rigging guaranteed landslide wins for his party.
“I woke up early to go to vote in my village before going anywhere else,” said Mostafa Mohamed Ali, a factory worker from Mahalla el-Kubra in the industrial heartland north of Cairo where labour unrest was a precursor to the wider protests that brought down Mubarak.
“This is the most important thing for me now, of course, and for all of the country as well,” said Ali.
The concluding vote to parliament’s lower house takes in regions of the rural south, which has the largest proportions of Christian voters, the Nile Delta region north of the capital Cairo, and the restive Sinai desert region to the east.
The ballot was overshadowed by the deaths of 17 people last month in clashes between the army and protesters demanding the ruling military council hand power to civilians immediately. The army says the elections will not be derailed by violence.
Turnout in earlier rounds was far higher than in Mubarak’s day, when ballot stuffing, thuggery and vote-rigging guaranteed landslide wins for his party.
Brotherhood banners in Mahalla carried its motto “Islam is the solution” alongside its FJP party logo, in defiance of a ban on religious slogans.
Flyers for al-Nour carried names of influential local families who had lent their support. Residents said such sponsorship boosted the popularity of the ultra-conservative party, which has also opened shops carrying its name.
Monitors praised the first two rounds as relatively free of irregularities, while noting that many parties had defied a ban on campaigning outside polling stations in election day.
But police raids on pro-democracy and rights groups last week have disrupted the work of leading Western-backed election monitors and drawn accusations that the army was deliberately trying to weaken oversight of the vote and silence opponents.
The government said the raids were part of an investigation into illegal foreign funding of political parties and not aimed at weakening rights groups, which have been among the fiercest critics of the army’s rule.
The United States called on Egyptian authorities to halt “harassment” of the groups involved. Egypt’s government said some of the groups had no permits to operate in the country.
The US-funded International Republican Institute (IRI) said it was invited by Egypt’s government to monitor the election and gave no funding to parties or civic groups.
It urged the government to let staff return to their offices and obtain the official permits they had long requested. (UNI)