CAIRO: The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) won a sweeping victory in the first round of the People's Assembly (PA) elections, according to preliminary results. On the other hand, none of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated candidates won any seats, while Al-Wafd opposition party got five. Fourteen Brotherhood candidates will compete again in the runoff scheduled for Dec. 5. The nine ministers who represented the NDP in the polls won in the first round, reports said Monday. Some NDP members will run again against each other in the runoff. The NDP said it won't release any statements until the results are officially announced on Tuesday. In 2005, the Brotherhood won 88 seats — almost 20 percent of the 454 seats, which established it as the largest opposition group in the PA over the past five years. “There was [direct] judiciary supervision over elections in 2005 … which paved the way for results that reflected reality … the judiciary supervision prevented ballot-rigging,” head of the MB parliamentary bloc Saad El-Katatni told Daily News Egypt. “All elections held afterwards followed the constitutional amendment that ended judiciary supervision.” About 130 group members joined the race for the PA seats; almost half of them were MPs in the previous parliamentary round. “The fact that no opposition figures or group members won any seats is rather weird,” El-Katatni argued. The group accuses the authorities of forging the results of the polls in favor of NDP candidates, an accusation rejected by the NDP and the interior ministry. In a press conference held Sunday during the electoral process, NDP senior member Mohamed Kamal described the Brotherhood as “an illegal group.” “The presence of these candidates who belong to an illegal group is in itself a manipulation of law and … a ballot-rigging,” Kamal said. Candidates of the MB, which is officially banned from politics, typically run in parliamentary elections as independents. Interior ministry spokesman Tarek Attia declined to comment on allegations of violations raised by some candidates during a press conference Sunday evening after the polls closed. The MB did not win any seats in the Shoura Council (Egypt's Upper House of Parliament) elections held in June. The group at that time accused the interior ministry of being biased to NDP candidates. Meanwhile, preliminary results indicated that five Al-Wafd candidates won seats in Port Said, Cairo, Ismalia and Giza. Al-Wafd fielded 200 candidates nationwide. Three candidates will compete over seats in the runoff, two in Cairo and one in Daqahleya governorate. Neither the party president Al-Sayed Al-Badawy nor the secretary general Mounir Fakhry Abdel-Nour were among the winners. Margret Azer, head of elections committee at Al-Wafd, told Daily News Egypt that the party will not release any official statements until the runoff is over. According to Amr El-Chobaki, senior researcher at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, the outcome was “expected.” “The Muslim Brotherhood were expected to get fewer seats in this parliamentary round for two reasons. The first has to do with being targeted by security bodies, while the second entails the frustration of the ordinary citizens that the group can constitute a sound alternative,” El-Chobaki argued. “The struggle has always been between the group and the authorities. The ordinary citizens were not part of it.” El-Chobaki believes that there is no real opposition in Egypt. “[Rather], the competition is always between independents and the NDP which represents the regime.” The PA results will be officially announced Tuesday. This year's elections are the first to be held following the constitutional amendments enacted in 2007, which allow any political party to put forward a presidential candidate provided that it has a minimum of one seat in the PA. Police officers carry ballot boxes to a counting center, after polls closed in the Abdeen neighborhood of Cairo, Sunday, Nov. 28. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
