The ruling NDP won more than 40 per cent of seats in the People's Assembly in the first round. The final figure, writes Gamal Essam El-Din, will be far more than double Opposition parties and the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood suffered their worst defeat in years as the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) swept to victory in the turbulent first round of the People's Assembly elections held on 28 November. The Wafd and Brotherhood announced that they might withdraw from the run-off round, claiming rigging, fraud and thuggery meant the contest could not possibly be fair. The leftist Tagammu Party refused to withdraw, insisting it would contest the second round. With a record number of candidates, 5,033, competing for 508 seats, and a modest turnout, officially set at 35 per cent of the nation's 41 million voters, the NDP, according to initial estimates, won 209 seats in the first round, or 40 per cent of the total. Those elected include at least 80 NDP members of the outgoing assembly. They represent a mix of new business money and old guard politicos, the latter representatives of the party's veteran wing, the former businessmen close to Gamal Mubarak, the 47-year-old son of President Hosni Mubarak. The list of NDP candidates who emerged victorious includes nine cabinet ministers; Speaker of the People's Assembly Fathi Sorour; and head of President Mubarak's staff Zakaria Azmi. NDP businessmen who made it to the assembly in the first round include Ahmed Ezz, an iron steel magnate and NDP secretary for organisational affairs; Mohamed Abul-Enein, an industrialist, a member of the NDP's secretariat-general and chairman of parliament's Industry Committee; and Tarek Talaat Mustafa, chairman of parliament's Housing Committee and brother of construction magnate Hisham Talaat Mustafa who is currently facing trial on murder charges. A number of NDP female candidates competing for the 64 seats reserved for women have also won. Most prominent are Zeinab Radwan, deputy chair of the People's Assembly; Madiha Khattab, chair of the NDP's secretariat for family and population affairs; professor of medicine Moemena Kamel and Hayat Abdoun, a TV presenter. Several high-profile candidates, however, lost in the first round. Among these are three chairmen of committees in the outgoing assembly: Mustafa El-Said of the Economic Affairs Committee and a former economy minister; Sherif Omar of the Health Committee and Farouk Taha, chairman of the National Defence and Security Committee. From the left only the Tagammu won, and then only a single seat. Two liberal-oriented parties, the Wafd and Ghad, won three seats between them, two for the Wafd and one for the Ghad. Another low-profile party -- the Social Justice Party -- surprised commentators by winning a seat. The candidates of 12 low-key political parties failed to win a single seat. Topping the list of leftist and Nasserist opposition losers are Mustafa Bakri, the editor of the weekly newspaper Al-Osbou ; Hamdeen Sabahi, the founder of Karama (dignity) Party; Gamal Zahran, a Karama Party member and professor of political science at Suez Canal University; and El-Badri Farghali, a veteran member of the Tagammu. Six Tagammu candidates have made it to the second round. Most prominent are Diaa Rashwan, an Al-Ahram journalist and prominent analyst of Islamist movements, in the Upper Egypt governorate of Qena and Mohamed Abdel-Aziz Shaaban, a veteran Tagammu MP, in east Cairo's district of Hadayeq Al-Qubba. The failure of the Nasserist Party's 44 candidates to win a single seat surprised many, though the party has had no parliamentary representative since 2005. Of the Wafd's 222 candidates just two won, including Safir Nour, a former ambassador, in Giza governorate's district of Doqqi. A number of high-profile Wafd candidates failed at the polls, foremost among them Mounir Fakhri Abdel-Nour, the Wafd's secretary-general, Taher Abu Zeid, a former national football player and film actress Samira Ahmed. Some Wafd candidates have made it to the second round. They include Fouad Badrawi, the Wafd's deputy chairman, in Daqahliya governorate's district of Nabarouh; Mustafa Sherdi, a journalist and the Wafd's media spokesman, in Port Said; Mohamed Abdel-Alim Dawoud, a journalist, in Kafr Al-Sheikh's district of Fiwa; and Roman Catholic business tycoon Rami Lakah, in north Cairo's district of Shubra. The Wafd said yesterday that it would withdraw from the race to protest flagrant rigging. A lot of high-profile independent candidates lost to the NDP. Prominent among them is Gamila Ismail, a TV presenter and the ex-wife of political activist Ayman Nour. Just 14 independents will compete in the second round. The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood received a deafening blow. Its 130 candidates in the first round failed to win a single seat. The complete defeat of the Muslim Brotherhood took many by surprise. The Brotherhood charges that the vote was rigged in favour of NDP candidates. The group's supreme guide, Mohamed Badie, told a press conference on Tuesday that "the Brotherhood expected that there would be a lot of fraud in the election, but it did not expect it to be on such a scale". NDP officials flatly deny charges of fraud. Al-Ahram analyst Amr El-Shobaki says, "the fact that most of the Wafd and Brotherhood's leading figures lost in the first round makes it impossible for the parties to continue." But the withdrawal of the Wafd and Brotherhood, he argues, will be ineffective in placing pressure on the NDP. "It was clear from the beginning that the ruling party intended to sweep the polls whatever the costs," he says.
