The parliamentary elections' first phase concluded Wednesday. The Supreme Electoral Commission (SEC) will announce the results later in the evening but polling stations and sub-electoral commissions in governorates have issued preliminary results. Competition in the runoff elections was intense and marked by increased disputes between candidates' supporters near polling stations, as well as candidates attacking each other on local media. Runoff elections took place because none of the candidates obtained a majority of votes in the first round, with the exception of four candidates in all 103 constituencies in 14 governorates. Elections observers and the media have highlighted candidates and their supporters' violations of the electoral silence, with hundreds of illegal forms of campaigning as well as direct bribes to voters, amid demands to SEC to reinforce the law that applies penalties on violators. "If SEC banned just one candidate from the elections due to exceeding legal limits of electoral campaign expenditure, it would have directly resulted in a decrease of the phenomenon," Ayman Okeil said Wednesday in TV statements. Before and during the elections, most politicians were unhappy with parliamentary laws since they saw it enhanced the use of political money in the elections. Participation turnout rates did not score high for different reasons, including voters' unfamiliarity with candidates, an opposed political stance by the youth, and resentment of government performance, according to the geo-politics of each area. In the first phase, SEC said there was a 26% participation turnout and the governorate of Giza scored the lowest, despite several hotspots in the governorate. The Agouza and Dokki constituency witnessed a race between three "controversial" public figures. Journalist and TV host Abdul Reheem Ali, famous for leaking people's personal phone calls, and an opponent of the 25 January Revolution, won easily, leaving another seat for the constituency for candidates Ahmed Mortada Mansour and Amr El-Shobaky to compete over. Mansour, son of provocative President of Zamalek Football Club Mortada Mansour, announced Wednesday night winning over his rival by 500 seats. Moratada Mansour, similar to Ali in terms of political views, led a defamation campaign against Al-Shobaky, accusing him of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had negative political connotations since the 30 June uprising in 2013. Preliminary results showed Al-Shobaky in lead in a dozen polling stations during the counting process but shifted later to suggest Mansour had passed Al-Shobaky. In the first round, Mansour obtained 24,692 cotes compared to 20,191 votes for Al-Shobaky. Other sources suggested Mansour, who is running in the name of the Free Egyptians Party (FEP), obtained 21,817 in the runoff against 21,029 for Al-Shobaky, who is running as an independent candidate. Political parties announced their winners with parliamentary seats on Thursday. FEP was declared with highest number of winning candidates and its spokesperson Shehab Waguih said 41 party members won, 36 on individual seats and 5 among the winning electoral list ‘For the Love of Egypt.' The Conference Party announced seven winners in Alexandria, Luxor, and Sohag. Al-Nour Party announced the winning candidates in the parliament. According to preliminary results stated by head of the SEC in Alexandria Abdullah El-Khouly, two of Al-Nour members won seats in the constituency of Amreya and Borg Al-Arab. The candidates are Ahmed Khairallah and Ahmed Al-Sherif. Al-Nour also won six seats in the governorate of Beheira and a number of seats in Matruh. Other preliminary results are yet to include voters' count of Egyptians living abroad. SEC will announce the final results within hours, according to its electoral schedule.
