The head of Egypt's National Elections Authority (NEA) Lasheen Ibrahim announced on Wednesday the results of the run-offs for Egypt's Senate elections, which saw 52 candidates competing for 26 seats. During a press conference, Ibrahim said there were 28.817 million citizens eligible to vote in the Senate run-off elections, out of whom 2.834.750 voters participated, with a turnout percentage of 10.22. The seats that were up for grabs in the run-offs are in 14 governorates: Qalioubiya, Menoufiya, Kafr El-Sheikh, Giza, Beni Suef, Assiut, Sohag, Qena, Luxor, Aswan, Damietta, Port Said, Ismailia and Marsa Matrouh. Ibrahim said that “the epidemic has not stopped [the Egyptian people] from performing their duty in casting ballots in the Senate elections," adding that the NEA worked day and night to ensure that the elections were administered according to the highest standards of integrity and transparency. He also hailed the efforts exerted by all state bodies to successfully hold the election, including the Ministry of Justice, police and Armed Forces. Some 174 senators representing different constituencies countrywide were officially named last month after securing votes during the first round of elections. There are 63 million eligible voters out of the country 100 million plus population. Only 8.95 million (14.23 percent) cast their ballots during the first round in August. In the first round, the majority of seats were grabbed by the pro-government coalition "National Unified List", which is led by the Mostaqbal Watan Party (Future of Homeland), claiming, along with its allies, the majority in the newly reconstituted 300-seat upper house of parliament. The pro-government Mostaqbal Watan Party won 118 (around 60 per cent) out of the 200 contested seats. Mostaqbal Watan won 68 individual seats and 50 party list seats in the first round, according to the NEA. The Senate, which was created in accordance with constitutional amendments approved last year, will act as an advisory chamber to the House of Representatives. It will sit in place of the Shura Council, the upper house of parliament that was dissolved in 2014. Two-thirds of the members are elected via the individual candidacy and the closed party list systems, and the rest will be appointed by the president. The first session of the new body, when senators will be sworn in, is set to be held in October. The first five-year term of the Senate will end in 2025.
