Ahmed Fahmy, a university professor and the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, was elected head of the upper house of parliament at its first meeting on Tuesday in an unopposed poll Ahmed Fahmy of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) was chosen speaker of the Shura Council at the first session of the parliament's upper house held on Tuesday. Fahmy has been a professor at the Zagazig University since 1993 and a member of the Egyptian Pharmacists Syndicate for 20 years. The poll was uncontested as no other members nominated themselves for the Shura Council position. Fahmy, an MP from the governorate of Sharqiya , succeeds notorious Mubarak-regime figure Safwat El-Sherif, in the first post-Mubarak parliament. The FJP Secretary General, Mohamed Saad El-Khatatny, had previously been elected the speaker of the People's Assembly in the opening session of the parliament's lower house on 23 January. As with the inaugural session of the People's Assembly, at the opening session of the Shura Council, MPs did not stick to the standard oath. Islamists added that they would not "oppose God's doctrine." Mohamed Hassan El-Meligi, who chaired the Shura Council session on Tuesday, stressed the importance of reciting the standard oath without additions, but to no avail. Earlier in the session, the MPs observed a minute's silence for the martyrs of the revolution. The FJP has won a majority of the seats in the Shura Council in elections that ended last week. The Muslim Brotherhood's political arm had earlier also secured the lion's share of seats in the People's Assembly.
