Cairo - As anticipated, Egypt's ruling National Democratic
Party (NDP) won a majority of the 88 contested seats in mid-term
Shura (parliament's upper house) elections, according to official
results issued Wednesday.
The Muslim Brothers, the NDP's biggest threat, emerged empty-
handed.
The Higher Commission for Elections announced the winners
Wednesday afternoon after more than a 24-hour delay.
A total of 58 seats were filled by NDP candidates, one was won by
left-leaning Tagammu and another by an independent. A total of 11
seats in 10 constituencies were pre-decided since their candidates
ran uncontested.
Run-offs will be held for 17 seats, said Adel Andrawes, Higher
Commission for Elections (HCE) head, on Wednesday.
Allegations of fraud, vote rigging, collective voting and bribery
circulated following Monday's election for the Shura Council, the
consultative upper house of Egypt's parliament. Its duties are
limited to ratifying constitutional amendments, treaties and bill
proposals.
The banned Muslim Brotherhood group fielded 19 candidates despite
a fierce clampdown on its ranks. But no seats were won by the
Brotherhood in this round.
According to Mohammed Fiki, a Brotherhood senior leader and a
losing candidate from Giza, the NDP candidate in their constituency
got 92,000 votes 'through rigging.'
'Believe me, if a prophet from God descended in this area, he will
never reap this amount of votes,' a bitter Fiki told Deutsche
Presse-Agentur dpa.
The announcement of the election results reflected the chaotic
way in which the voting was carried out in many constituencies.
On Tuesday, reporters were left to wait for more than six hours
at HCE headquarters as conflicting statements were issued and
commission employees started leaving for home.
The official announcement of the results was postponed to
Wednesday afternoon because results were still coming in, according
to the HCE but observers said that 'conflicts and discrepancies' may
have been the real reason for the delay.
For instance, the Brotherhood hotbeds in Giza province must have
represented a problem since there was no mention of Giza in
preliminary results published by the state-owned newspaper at
midnight Tuesday.
On Monday - election day - polling stations were illegally closed
in Giza where Muslim Brotherhood candidates were on ballot papers.
Heavily armed security officers in black uniforms barred voters from
entering the stations, telling them that voting had been cancelled,
witnesses said.
Complaints of fraud, rigging, collective voting and bribery flowed
into monitoring and human rights offices, some reports said.
In areas where NDP candidates ran, supporters were allowed in
without voting cards and were allegedly allowed to vote several
times in a row.
The contests turned deadly when a candidate's supporter was shot
dead in Sharqiya province and more than six others were reported
wounded in a firefight.
Muslim Brotherhood members got the lion's share of harassment with
their supporters said to have been manhandled by security police and
forcefully banned from voting.
Meanwhile, the HCE said Wednesday that 23 per cent of Egypt's 23
million eligible voters participated in the election. However, the
independent monitoring body Shayfeen.com and others said that no more
than 5 per cent participated.
HCE chief Andrawes said a 'few individual violations in some
polling stations' were reported.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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