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Egypt's parliamentary election run-off for first phase begins With only four of the 56 candidates securing seats from the get go,the remaining candidates battle it out at the polls today, hoping to grab a seat in Egypt's first post-Mubarak parliament
The run-off for the first round of Egypt's parliamentary elections kicked off at 8am Monday. The election run-off will take place in 27 constituencies across nine governorates including Cairo, Alexandria, Assiut, Damietta, Kafr El-Sheikh, Port Said, Fayoum, the Red Sea and Luxor where 104 candidates will compete for the remaining 52 seats. Among them are 48 candidates from the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP); 36 from the Salafist Al-Nour Party; 14 from the Egyptian Bloc, a coalition of liberal parties; one from the liberal Wafd Party and one from NDP offshoot the National Party of Egypt, which was founded by the late Talaat Al-Sadat and four independents. The first phase of elections for the People's Assembly (Parliament's lower house) began on 28 November in which candidates contested 56 seats across the 27 governorates. Only four candidates managed to secure seats: Akram El-Shaer of the FJP won the individual seat in Port Said; Ramadan Omar also of the FJP took the workers seat in Helwan; liberal activist Amr Hamzawy, who ran as an independent, won the professional seat in Heliopolis; and Mustafa Bakry, who also ran as an independent, won Helwan's professional seat.
