CAIRO: The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) faced off Monday in the run-offs with the Salafi (ultra conservative) Al-Nour Party as they both competed to snatch more individual seats in the parliamentary elections. The competition was heated even when both parties' candidates were not running against each other. Forty-seven of the FJP candidates made it to the run-offs; as opposed to 27 from Al-Nour. The liberal Egyptian Bloc, spearheaded by the Free Egyptians Party, had only nine candidates. A total of 104 candidates are vying for over 52 seats in the first of three rounds of parliamentary elections. Each candidate must secure 50 percent plus one of the votes to win in the first past the post system. The run-offs were held in 27 constituencies out of the 28 of the first round of elections on Nov. 28-29. Only four candidates secured their seats in the first round. The low turnout in nine governorates compared to last week, did not seem to slow down the competition between Islamists candidates. Yousry Hamad, spokesperson of Al-Nour Party, accused the FJP of striking deals with Copts to vote for them in certain constituencies where the only alternative was an Al-Nour candidate. "It's because their vice president is a Copt and there's this vicious campaign portraying Al-Nour as an extreme Islamist party, while FJP is considered more liberal," he told Daily News Egypt. However, political analyst Nabil Abdel Fattah from Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies doubted that this took place. "Most of the Copts refrained from voting in constituencies which would end up [in the hands of the] Islamists," Nabil told DNE, adding that this was part of Al-Nour's campaign to tarnish the FJP. In Alexandria, the picture was different, as two FJP-backed candidates were running against Al-Nour's Abdel-Moniem El-Shahhat and former member of the disbanded National Democratic Party (NDP), Tarek Talaat Mostafa. Calls were made on social networks for liberal-leaning voters to support the FJP against Mostafa, for his affiliation to the former regime, and against El-Shahhat, who is particularly known for his extreme views that include religious rejection of the practice of democracy. Blogger Mohamed Mansour said all political parties discreetly supported FJP candidates against Salafi competitors in Damietta. Competition was heated between the two parties in that Nile Delta governorate. According to Mansour, representatives of Al-Nour Party kicked their FJP counterparts out of polling stations number 774, 775 and 776. "The FJP candidate will file a complaint to stop the voting process in these polling stations," he said. On the other hand, Hamad accused the FJP of violating campaigning laws and influencing voters outside polling stations. He said that military forces confiscated microphones from FJP members outside a polling station in the second constituency in Kafr El-Sheikh governorate to prevent them from violating election regulations. However, the FJP distanced itself from these practices in a statement saying that "unknown people" were hired to pose as FJP supporters and campaign for the party holding flyers listing candidates' names in front of polling stations. The main violation observed on Nov. 28-29 was of distributing parties' promotional flyers right outside stations. The FJP, which set up booths outside stations to guide voters, took the lead in the leafleting complaint, even though most parties were reported to have done so. But it wasn't all competition. In Port Said, where the FJP had secured the professional seat but didn't make it to the run-off for the workers' seat, the party supported Al-Nour's candidate in what seemed to be an alliance between the Islamist parties against liberal or leftist streams. "The FJP told us that they would support our candidate (Ali Abdallah Hassan) against Badry Farghaly," said Hamad. Farghaly is a former opposition MP and a leading member of Al-Tagammu Party, which is a member of the Egyptian bloc. "The Egyptian Bloc and other liberal forces mobilized support for El-Farghaly, while the FJP is clearly supporting the Salafi candidate,” member of the April 6 Youth Movement operation room in Port Said, Mohamed Moustafa told DNE. Although Al-Nour and the MB were vigorously competing over parliamentary seats, they had common ground when it came to their religious beliefs which created a certain bond between them, against more liberal parties, Abdel Fattah explained. The FJP, however, said in a statement that they do not support any candidates from other parties and any support would be confirmed through an official statement. The liberals also formed alliances of their own. The media coordinator of the Free Egyptians Party, Sherif Samir, told DNE that the Egyptian Bloc supports seven other liberal independent candidates in the run-offs including Mostafa A-Naggar of El-Adl Party. Al-Naggar is running against FJP-backed candidate Mohamed Youssry in Nasr City, Cairo. It was expected that the Muslim Brotherhood, the most organized and biggest opposition power during ousted president Hosni Mubarak's reign, would snatch the most seats in parliament. However, the votes Al-Nour Party garnered, coming in second place in the preliminary results, came as a surprise to many. "I believe the Salafis succeeded in infiltrating the poor and more suburban areas ever since Mubarak's [ouster]," Abdel Fattah said. The Al-Nour Party espouses a strict interpretation of Islam similar to that of Saudi Arabia's Wahabism. However, Hamad denied accusations that Al-Nour would ever oppress people's freedoms and impose a strict Islamic regime if it won a large number of seats in parliament. "Nobody can enforce anything on the Egyptian people in this new era," he said. Al-Nour Party was established following the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. Under Mubarak's reign, the Salafis suffered oppression and were systematically detained and tortured by security forces. They had generally shunned politics. The MB, an officially banned group since 1954, was allowed to field independent candidates in the parliamentary elections, under Mubarak's reign. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, the MB won 88 seats and thus represented nearly 20 percent of the parliament for the five-year round. Low turnout Having the competition limited to two Islamist candidates is believed to be a key factor in the low turnout on Monday, at least in some areas. In Luxor, the turnout did not reach even 1 percent of that registered last week in the first round, according to member of the Luxor Youth Coalition Ahmed Sayed. "Voters are tired," he said. The southern governorate has four candidates competing over two individual seats: one from the ultraconservative group of Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya, which is in an alliance with Al-Nour; one FJP candidate; one independent candidate who used to be a member of the dissolved NDP; and another independent candidate who is expected to join an alliance with the Egyptian Bloc. "We conducted a poll including 100 people from different socioeconomic classes on Sunday to ask whether they will vote or not, and all of them said they won't," Sayed said. The motive behind such reluctance was believed to be due the feeling of Coptic voters that the race has already ended in favor of Islamist candidates. Others said that they won't vote after realizing that the LE 500 fine was not taken seriously by authorities. In Assiut, there was an exception in voter turnout. According to Haitham El-Masry, member of a popular committee supervising the elections, scores of Coptic voters showed up in the morning to vote for the candidate backed by the Egyptian Bloc, who's competing against Al-Nour's candidate.
