On Saturday the Higher Election Committee (HEC) announced that seven electoral coalitions will contest the first stage of the parliamentary polls scheduled between 17 and 28 October. HEC spokesperson Omar Marawan told a press conference on 3 October that competition for 60 party-based seats in the first stage will be held in two constituencies: Nile Delta West and Upper Egypt North, Middle and South. Upper Egypt North, Middle and South includes eleven governorates — Giza, Fayoum, Beni Sweif, Minya, Assiut, New Valley, Sohag, Qena, Luxor, Aswan and the Red Sea — and will return 45 MPs. The three governorates of Nile Delta West — Alexandria, Beheira and Marsa Matruh — will elect 15 MPs. Three electoral coalitions — The Call of Egypt, For the Love of Egypt and Independent National Re-awakening Bloc — are competing for the 45-seat Upper Egypt constituency, fielding a total of 135 candidates. “The Egyptian Front and Independence Current [alliance] was removed from the list of competing coalitions after failing to submit the required registration documents,” said Marawan. “The HEC has referred officials responsible for the alliance in Upper Egypt to prosecution authorities for questioning over fraud and forgery charges.” The HEC's subcommittee in Upper Egypt alleges that some of the registration papers the alliance submitted are fake. Ahmed Al-Fadally, chairman of Independence Current, insisted at a Sunday press conference that “party lists submitted in alliance with the Egyptian Front were rejected not because registration papers were forged but because the list became invalid after some candidates decided to withdraw.” He pointed out that the Supreme Administrative Court ruled on Friday that alliance candidates should be allowed to stand in Upper Egypt. “We urge the HEC to respect the ruling so that we can contest this important constituency,” Al-Fadally said. Both the Egyptian Front and Independence Current are associated with the Mubarak regime. The Egyptian Front includes the Egyptian National Movement, led by Mubarak's last prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, and Masr Baladi (Egypt My Homeland), led by Qadri Abu Hussein, a Mubarak-era provincial governor. The Independence Current coalition, led by Al-Fadally, includes 14 political parties, all of them licenced under Mubarak as part of the regime's exercise in democratic windowdressing. The three electoral coalitions standing in Upper Egypt are supportive of the incumbent president, Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi. The For the Love of Egypt coalition is led by former intelligence officer Sameh Seif Al-Yazal. It has held public rallies in towns across Upper Egypt during which large posters of Al-Sisi are conspicuously displayed. In a rally in Qena on 29 September Al-Yazal said the coalition intends to “act as a back-up force for Al-Sisi in parliament and to cooperate with the president to save Egypt from terrorists.” The Call of Egypt, formed in December, includes 17 political parties and revolutionary movements. Led by Tarek Zidan, its avowed aim is to press the demands of the revolutions of 25 January and 30 June. Zidan says the alliance will join other forces to act as a bulwark against Islamist factions. The Call of Egypt is an active member of the No to Religious Parties campaign. The Independent National Re-awakening Bloc was founded in 2014 by Mohamed Abdallah Al-Aswany, a cleric from Upper Egypt. Its platform calls for the economic and social development of Upper Egypt. “The development of Upper Egypt is our one priority which is why we are only standing here,” said Al-Aswany. The bloc includes religious figures from Al-Azhar, representatives from Sufi groups and the Coptic Church. The Salafist Nour Party is not contesting the Upper Egypt constituency. It will, however, be battling for the 15 seats in Nile West Delta. The Nour Party's manifesto, released last week, said the party's goal is to build a modern state while maintaining Islamic Sharia as the major source of legislation. The Nour Party's power base covers the three West Delta governorates of Alexandria, Beheira and Marsa Matruh. Many of the candidates who won seats in the 2012 parliamentary elections are hoping to repeat their earlier success. Among those standing are Nour Party Chairman Younis Makhyoun, Deputy Chairman Ashraf Thabet, Second Deputy Chairman Mohamed Ibrahim Mansour and leading official Talaat Mansour, all of whom were elected in 2012. While Nour's list includes several women candidates, party officials have decreed that their photographs cannot appear on posters or campaign literature. When the female candidates have made an appearance at public rallies they are dressed in full niqab. As in Upper Egypt, the lists contesting the West Delta are broadly supportive of Al-Sisi. Alongside the Nour Party, the electoral coalitions For the Love of Egypt, Egyptian Front and Independence Current, and Knights of Egypt will be fighting for the constituency's 15 seats. For the Love of Egypt and Egyptian Front and Independence Current both contain figures from the Mubarak-era National Democratic Party (NDP). Many of them command clan and tribal support in the area or are businessmen who employ thousands. They include the Alexandrian food industrialist Mohamed Farag Amer, businessman Farag Saadawi and businesswoman Sahar Talaat Mostafa. The former NDP MPs — Ahmed Raslan and Youssri Al-Moghazi — are standing on the For Love of Egypt list, in Marsa Matruh and Beheira respectively. Knights of Egypt, founded in January 2014, is made up of retired army officers who supportive of Al-Sisi. Abdel-Rafie Darwish, who served in the army as a lieutenant general, says the party is a civil one despite the fact most of its founders are former army personnel. “We believe it is necessary for civil forces to work in cooperation with the military for the benefit of the country,” says Darwish. “We cannot countenance a return to the situation under Islamist president Mohamed Morsi when the executive's differences with the army threatened the unity of Egypt.” The four electoral coalitions standing in the West Delta are fielding 15 candidates each.
