Egyptians vote in runoff elections for Parliament

Cairo: Egyptians today voted in a series of runoff elections for the country’s first Parliament since the ouster of autocratic president Hosni Mubarak earlier this year. The two-day vote, which continues into Tuesday, comes exactly a week after Egyptians cast ballots for the first time since last February’s toppling of Mubarak. [caption id=“attachment_148272” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The runoff elections will determine the individual winners of 52 seats in Parliament’s 498-member Lower House. AP”]  [/caption] The runoff elections will determine the individual winners of 52 seats in Parliament’s 498-member Lower House. The phased election runs over six weeks, ending in January. The first round of voting last week witnessed only four conclusive winners for individual seats. Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party is facing the Salafi Nur Party for 23 individual seats. The two parties are competing with other parties for another 28 individual seats. Meanwhile, results for the party-list contests announced yesterday by Egyptian authorities show Islamist parties captured an overwhelming majority of votes. Liberal Brotherhood and radical Salafists have surged ahead in the first round of parliamentary polls, together pocketing 65 percent of the vote and relegating the secular parties to the periphery of the country’s new political landscape. Muslim Brotherhood’s new Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) received roughly 40 percent of the vote and the main Salafist Al-Nur party between 20 and 25 percent, the state media reported today. The main liberal coalition, the Egyptian Bloc, won only 15 percent of the vote, a development though not completely unexpected, has somewhat alarmed the country’s minorities, mainly the Coptic Christians who comprise an estimated 10 percent of the population. PTI