CAIRO - While Egypt's newly elected Parliament was holding its first, mostly procedural session, in which Ahmed Fathi Sorour was elected as Speaker, former MPs and opposition figures protested outside the State Council Court against violations during the recent parliamentary vote, that handed the ruling party a huge victory last month. Sorour was elected as Speaker of the People's Assembly (the Lower House of Egyptian Parliament) for the 21st year in a row, garnering 505 of 506 correct votes. "Two other MPs from the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP): Abdel-Aziz Moustafa and Zeinab Radwan, were elected deputies to Sorour, as 512 MPs read the constitutional oath," the official Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported Monday. It pointed out that four MPs were still to be elected and an MP affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood did not attend the session, while another elected deputy died last week. Parliament convened anyway, after President Hosni Mubarak said on Sunday that the country's recent elections were 'consistent with the law,' admitting to only minor problems in some constituencies. Away from the Parliament's premises in downtown Cairo, dozens of former MPs protested outside the State Council Court against the new Parliament, which they slammed as 'void'. "We have filed a new lawsuit against the validity of the legislature," said former Wafd MP Mohamed el-Omda. The Higher Administrative Court said that the elections were void, after officials ignored its order to halt voting in areas where opposition candidates were told they could not run. Human rights groups said the elections for the Lower House of Parliament were rife with violence and rigging that favoured the NDP, which won over 80 per cent of the vote. Former independent MP Moustafa Bakri read a statement on the stairs of the State Council Court on the creation of the ‘People's Parliament', to be an alternative to the People's Assembly. Bakri and other legislators, including a number from the opposition Muslim Brotherhood and the Al-Wafd Party, stood on the steps leading to Egypt's State Council. The MPs pledged allegiance to the Constitution and said their alternative parliament would reflect the will of the people. Two dozen protesters also joined the lawmakers outside the court, some of them holding placards saying the November 28 and December 5 parliamentary elections should be nullified. Some of the protesters held up a white banner that read: "This is the coffin of fairness and transparency". A coalition of rights groups which monitored the vote has called for the dissolution of the new Parliament. The NDP clinched control of more than four-fifths of the new Parliament, securing 420 out of 508 seats, while independents garnered 70 seats and the opposition trailed far behind with 14 seats. Al-Wafd secured six seats, although it boycotted the second and last round of voting along with the Muslim Brotherhood, on December 5. The Brotherhood won a fifth of the seats in Parliament in the previous elections in 2005, but none in the most recent polls.
