CAIRO - Curtains fell down on runoff ballots in nine governorates late on Tuesday to bring to a full end the first round of Egypt's first post-revolution parliamentary polls, which saw the nation's Islamists leading with more than 60 per cent of the vote and the liberals lagging behind with a staggering 20 per cent. Voter turnout continued to be low at polling stations in the nine governorates of the first round, but civil society observers, who were allowed by the Higher Election Commission (HEC) to watch the electoral process, referred to several violations, including the presence of religious propaganda by Islamist forces. One NGO, Egyptian Society for the Support of Democracy, said Islamists continued to defy HEC rules, which ban campaigning outside polling stations, by sending agents to the polling stations and advising the voters to choose specific candidates. The society said in a statement that these violations happened in almost all the governorates of the first election round, especially in the coastal city of Alexandria, the southern governorates of Faryyoum and Assiut. The HEC, however, said it was ready to bring candidates who used religious propaganda to court upon receiving complaints in this regard. Commission head, Justice Abdel Moez Ibrahim, said complaints against the use of religious propaganda would be sent to prosecutors as soon as they arrived at the Commission. Another NGO, One World Foundation, referred to the low-voter turnout at most polling stations. The organisation, which sent hundreds of observers to polling stations across the nine governorates of the first election round, said its observers saw a small number of people coming to the polling stations to cast their ballots in the runoffs. Around 104 individual candidates, including some who belonged to political parties like the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, and the Egyptian Liberals Party, contested 52 seats in the runoffs. Only four individual candidates had managed to end the competition in their favour in the elections on November 28 and 29. Away from polling stations, the nation's political forces and figures engaged in tense debates on whether the party with parliamentary majority would be liable to form the next government. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which took over after Hosni Mubarak stepped down in February, said previously that the formation of the government was a sole SCAF business. This, however, did not seem to be a good thing for many people, including Essam Sultan, deputy chairman of the semi-Islamist Al-Wassat Party, who said on Tuesday that the military council had to co-operate with the Parliament on forming the next government. "This will give both the Army and the Parliament the chance to reach consensus on the new government," Sultan was quoted by the official Middle East News Agency MENA as saying. "This will serve Egypt's best interests," he added. Potential presidential candidate Amr Moussa agreed. He said co-operation with the political forces making the next Parliament was a prerequisite for achieving Egypt's best interests. "We should accept the results of the elections, regardless of how they look like," Moussa said. "As we call for democracy, we should be ready to accept what this democracy brings us," he added.
