Egypt's ruling party wins Shura elections (Roundup)

By Pakinam Amer Jun 13, 2007, 15:11 GMT

Cairo - As anticipated, Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) won a majority of the 88 contested seats in mid-term Shura (parliament's upper house) elections, according to official results issued Wednesday.

The Muslim Brothers, the NDP's biggest threat, emerged empty- handed.

The Higher Commission for Elections announced the winners Wednesday afternoon after more than a 24-hour delay.

A total of 58 seats were filled by NDP candidates, one was won by left-leaning Tagammu and another by an independent. A total of 11 seats in 10 constituencies were pre-decided since their candidates ran uncontested.

Run-offs will be held for 17 seats, said Adel Andrawes, Higher Commission for Elections (HCE) head, on Wednesday.

Allegations of fraud, vote rigging, collective voting and bribery circulated following Monday's election for the Shura Council, the consultative upper house of Egypt's parliament. Its duties are limited to ratifying constitutional amendments, treaties and bill proposals.

The banned Muslim Brotherhood group fielded 19 candidates despite a fierce clampdown on its ranks. But no seats were won by the Brotherhood in this round.

According to Mohammed Fiki, a Brotherhood senior leader and a losing candidate from Giza, the NDP candidate in their constituency got 92,000 votes 'through rigging.'

'Believe me, if a prophet from God descended in this area, he will never reap this amount of votes,' a bitter Fiki told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The announcement of the election results reflected the chaotic way in which the voting was carried out in many constituencies.

On Tuesday, reporters were left to wait for more than six hours at HCE headquarters as conflicting statements were issued and commission employees started leaving for home.

The official announcement of the results was postponed to Wednesday afternoon because results were still coming in, according to the HCE but observers said that 'conflicts and discrepancies' may have been the real reason for the delay.

For instance, the Brotherhood hotbeds in Giza province must have represented a problem since there was no mention of Giza in preliminary results published by the state-owned newspaper at midnight Tuesday.

On Monday - election day - polling stations were illegally closed in Giza where Muslim Brotherhood candidates were on ballot papers. Heavily armed security officers in black uniforms barred voters from entering the stations, telling them that voting had been cancelled, witnesses said.

Complaints of fraud, rigging, collective voting and bribery flowed into monitoring and human rights offices, some reports said.

In areas where NDP candidates ran, supporters were allowed in without voting cards and were allegedly allowed to vote several times in a row.

The contests turned deadly when a candidate's supporter was shot dead in Sharqiya province and more than six others were reported wounded in a firefight.

Muslim Brotherhood members got the lion's share of harassment with their supporters said to have been manhandled by security police and forcefully banned from voting.

Meanwhile, the HCE said Wednesday that 23 per cent of Egypt's 23 million eligible voters participated in the election. However, the independent monitoring body Shayfeen.com and others said that no more than 5 per cent participated.

HCE chief Andrawes said a 'few individual violations in some polling stations' were reported.