Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis still lead third electoral round Cairo – Mohamed Shennawy Primary indications of the vote count in the first run of the third and final round of the parliamentary elections show that Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) is still on the lead, followed by Salafist Nour Party, whereas Wafd party, al-Wasat party, and the Egyptian Bloc compete over the third place. Meanwhile, a run-off over individual seats will be done in most electoral districts in all nine governorates of the third round.
Egyptian Supreme Judicial Elections Committee announced that FJP list won in South Sinai governorate with 14334 out of 36053 votes, with the attendance of 33625 voters. Wafd party followed with 5614 votes, trailed by the Reform and Development with 5545 votes.
Vote count of more than 30% of the ballots indicated that run-offs on individual seats will be conducted in all three districts of Qalyubia governorate, where Islamists took over the largest percentage of parliamentary list seats.
In Banha, the first district of Qalyubia, indications showed that FJP took over 2 parliamentary list seats out of 4, whereas Salafist Nour Party won one seat, leaving Wafd and Egyptian Bloc competing over one final parliamentary seat in the district. As for the individual seats in the same district, indications showed the run-off will be between FJP’s Mohsen Rady and independent candidate (with Salafist support) Abdel Fatah Khedr over the professional seat, and between FJP’s candidate Hany el-Arabi and Nour’s candidate Sheikh Ali Wanees over the workers seat.
In the second district of the same governorate, located in Shubra al-Kheima, indications showed that FJP are winning 4 out of 8 seats in the district, whereas Nour Party are taking over 2 seats, and Wafd and al-Wasat Party are contesting over the two last seats.
Primary indications in the Qena also showed that FJP leads the vote count, followed by Nour Party, with Freedom Egypt party in third place.
A change in power balance however is seen in New Valley governorate, where Nour Party leads the vote count by significant number of votes. Nour has 10349 votes so far in its favor, while FJP counted 8508 votes, followed by the Egyptian bloc with 2156 votes. Indications show that Farafra ballots, which have not yet been counted, would also reveal success of Nour over FJP due to the power of Salafist movement in Farafra.
In Dakahlia, FJP still leads the vote count, followed by Nour party, this time trailed by the Revolution Continues alliance, which received 20532 votes in its first district alone so far.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s National Party list – topped by Tawfik Okasha, owner of Faraeen Channel – finished at the bottom with the least number of votes, indicating that it might be driven out of the competition.
On a different note, Egyptian Bloc representatives addressed the head of the counting committee in the first district in Dakahlia (Mansoura) with complaints, demanding the invalidity of the individual seat in the district, due to placing Egyptian Bloc candidate Mohamed Rizq Howaidy as number 14 in the ballot cards, while his original number in the list was 5, which they considered an attempt to mislead voters.