The High Committee for Elections announced yesterday that the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) has won 6 seats in the runoff midterm elections for the Shura Council. Independents, on the other hand, have won 4 seats in the governorates of Sohag, Qena, Aswan, Red Sea, and South Sinai. Runoff elections had taken place in nine constituencies over ten seats. A total of 20 candidates participated: 11 NDP candidates, eight independents and one from the Wafd Party. Results were announced yesterday at a press conference headed by Entessar Nessim, head of the committee, who said that complaints of election fraud had been dealt with. She added that an attempt to seize balloting papers in Qena had been thwarted. Nessim said that votes were counted with no problems. Foreign correspondents and civil society representatives were allowed to observe the voting process. In the Red Sea governorate, NDP candidate Abul Hassan Sedeeq Ramadan got 10,113 votes versus 9214 votes for his contestant Hamdoon Ali. In Qena, independents got three seats versus two for NDP candidates. In South Sinai, NDP candidate Hussein Sobeih won the workers seat with 60,062 votes versus 5739 votes for his contestant Awwad el-Gebali, whose supporters accused the NDP of rigging elections. In Aswan, Shar'ee Mohamed Saleh got 14,754 votes versus 11,296 votes for his contestant Saleh Mansour Meshalli, both of whom are NDP candidates. In Sohag, Mahmoud Abdel Reheem, an NDP candidate, won the professionals seat with 18,761 votes, defeating his independent opponent, Ahmed Hareedi. In Belina and Dar el-Salam, Wefqi Zein el-Abedeen, who joined Wafd Party just hours before the runoff elections had kicked off, got 19,883 votes versus his contestant Mahmoud abdel Wahed who got 14,000 votes. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
