Politics and Blogging in Egypt

Finally the elections of the People’s Assembly (the lower house of the Egyptian Parliament) are over. With a bloody end and surprising results, that would probably heat the political debate in Egypt for the next five years.

Summary and results

With a 26% voter turn out and out of the 444 contested seats, Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) secured the majority (77%) of seats in the Parliament. The Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) gained a surprising 20% of the seats and the secular opposition and independents were heavily defeated and only secured the remaining few seats. President Mubarak appointed 10 members, among them 5 women and 5 Christians as they are remarkably under represented in this term. There are still 12 seats to be decided.

Only 33% of the candidates running as NDP won, the remaining were independents who ran against NDP candidates but rejoined the party as soon as they won.

On another side a total of eleven persons died, more than 600 injured and around 1300 of the Ikhwan were detained.

The final day of the elections

The re-run of the third stage being the bloodiest of all, 8 died and 500 injured. War like scenes were shown on TV and other media.

Baheyya says:

As many feared, the last day of voting today saw security forces intensifying their use of violence against voters to thwart any further gains by opposition candidates, especially the Muslim Brothers. Security forces did not confine themselves to blockading roads and closing off polling stations, but fired tear gas and rubber bullets into crowds of voters.

Baheyya also posts lots of photos of the Intifada like scenes.

Sandmonkey posts lots of photos too.