Egypt's High Election Committee announced on Saturday that Mohamed El-Shora won the seat of sacked MP Tawfik Okasha in the Talkha and Nebarouh districts in Daqahliya governorate after counting the votes of a by-election. El-Shora garnered over 32,000 votes, while the runner-up, Gamal Abdel-Zaher, received over 28,000 votes. El-Shora, 36, is considered popular amongst the youth of his district. He works as a manager in El-Shora's for Cement Company. The new MP is expected to take the oath and start his parliamentarian responsibilities in the next session. Okasha, a media figure, received the highest number of votes among independent candidates nationwide during the initial elections in late 2015, with over 90,000 votes in the Talkha and Nebaroh voting constituencies. He was voted out of the parliament for meeting with the Israeli ambassador to Egypt without “approval from the parliament or a state authority.” The meeting with Israeli ambassador Haim Koren in February sparked an outcry in the media and in parliament, with one MP assaulting Okasha with a shoe. Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, but relations between the two countries have remained cold, with many political forces, including workers and professional syndicates, rejecting any normalisation of ties. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/205799.aspx
