Egypt Round One Results

The results of the first round of Egyptian elections appear to be more or less as expected: round one saw 221 seats filled; the other 287 face a runoff on Sunday. Of the 221 decided, the National Democratic Party won 209. Sebe4n indepe de ts were elected, but they were not apparently among the independents fielded by the Muslim Brotherhood. (Other independents often join the NDP in Parliament.) The Wafd won three seats, the leftist Tagammu‘ one, the Musa Mustafa faction of the Ghad Party one, and the small Social Justice and Democratic Peace Parties one apiece. Although 26 or 27 Muslim Brotherhood candidates still have a chance in the runoff, they haven't one a single seat outright (compared to 88 in the outgoing Parliament). The Brothers were also shut out of the Upper House elections earlier in the year, and are threatening to boycott the runoff.

The government claims a 35% turnout (at least they're not insulting everyone's intelligence with the old 90% + claims), but independent estimates suggested 15%.

Unless there are surprises in the runoff, this will be the poorest showing in an election that wasn't outright boycotted by the opposition parties, and might even be worse than some that were. Obviously the NDP wants everyone to know who's in charge for the Presidential elections.

I'll have further thoughts between here and the runoff.