Egyptian parliamentary election, 2005

The Egyptian parliamentary elections of 2005 were held in three rounds of elections in which the lower house, called the People's Assembly, was diagnosed in November and December 2005.

The elections were the Eighth Assembly since the adoption of the Constitution of 1971. They were considered as part of the then political reform. Although the ruling National Democratic Party ( NDP) maintained its majority, and thus also dominated the Assembly, won opposition parties and independents big profits: Having had already signed a strengthening of the Muslim Brotherhood after the first rounds of voting, the final round was overshadowed by violent attempts by the security forces whose trailer to prevent it from entering the polling stations; while 12 people were killed. The success of the Muslim Brotherhood was due primarily to their social commitment in the Cairo slums, which was tolerated by the NDP.

Initial situation

The number of seats in the Assembly was 454, in the parliamentary elections of 2000, the ruling NDP still won 417 of them. The largest opposition party, the New Wafd Party, had only six seats, closely followed the National Progressive Unionist Party followed. One seat each had the Arabic Democratic Nasserist Party and the Liberal Party. Independent had 14 seats and another 10 seats were appointed.

Participant

More than 7,000 candidates competed in 22 constituencies for the seats 444 elected to the Assembly.

There were a total of eight recognized political parties, which included a broad political spectrum, as well as various interest groups, such as how the Kifaya movement ( "Enough !") And the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood.

Implementation

The official election observers of the elections were the judiciary and the National Council for Human Rights ( NCHR ) by the executive. More than 30 human rights organizations, civil society groups and NGOs promised to observe the elections.

The Justice called upon the civil society to form a " National Authority for Election Observation ", which then should also monitor the parliamentary elections. Also, this authority would ( which have been introduced this year) the wooden ballot boxes with transparent replace, install surveillance cameras in polling stations - which will ensure the monitoring of the electoral process (which was also partly done by the media ) - and radiate vote counts live on state television.

Results after the first ballot

Of the 164 seats, the National Democratic Party won 112 seats ( about 75 %), the secular political parties and Independents 5 seats total of 47 seats. Of the selected 47 independent candidates were 34 of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was considered as the main surprise of this election. In addition, the Brotherhood has doubled its presence in the Assembly alone in the first ballot.

According to official figures nearly 2.3 million registered voters cast their votes, which resulted in a turnout of a total of about 23%.

Run-off elections

Run-off elections were held in 74 constituencies of 133 seats, with the number of registered voters reached about 9.99055 million. As a result, had the run-off election that the candidates of the National Democratic Party won 85 seats, the candidates of the New Wafd Party 2, the National Progressive Unionist Party - 2 also, the al - Ghad party and independent candidates a 43

The run-off election of the third and final round was held on Wednesday, December 7 for the remaining 127 seats. Eleven seats went to the Muslim Brotherhood and the NDP held was 111, with 5 seats still remained free. The results in some constituencies were announced later and 12 seats were decided in further ballots.

Overall result

The officially banned Muslim Brotherhood, whose candidates competed as independents, now had a total of 87 seats in the 454 -seat assembly, nearly six-fold seats, which they previously held. The ruling National Democratic Party won at least 311 seats, significantly less than the 404 seats it won in the 2000 election, but nine seats on the critical two-thirds parliamentary majority (302 seats) that are required to change the constitution.

Opposition parties and other non-attached Independent together won 36 seats. With the results of some constituencies that were announced later, and seven candidates still competed in elections, this group won more seats.

The 454 seats of the Eighth People's Assembly:

Importance and impact

Triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood

One of the most surprising election results was the quintuple the number of seats the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). The Muslim Brotherhood thus form the largest opposition bloc in parliament. They received these seats without that they have a program or a clear policy, and invited the other parties out with a slogan, "Islam is the solution ".

Concerns about the Brotherhood captivate especially the Copts as well as the moderate Muslims as well as secular groups, as the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood still remained vague.

Many argue that now - with the Muslim Brotherhood in the Legislature were underground, they now must represent fully the public opinion of their ideas, where their vision is now a debate, criticism and revision must be subjected. This must be combined to more secular with the transformation of most of their extreme ideas, which makes the usual group of the political arena. Those intellectuals argue that the suppression of religious movements do not weakness, but strength even further. The results of this election seem to signal the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood by a popular underground organization towards a civilian political party.

Religion and Politics

Many political pundits and writers argue that the main slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood constitutes a violation of the Egyptian Constitution, which freedom of religion and the equality of citizens guaranteed. While the Muslim Brotherhood continually claim that, since the Constitution adopted the Islamic Sharia as one of the sources of legislation and Islam as the state religion, the slogan, therefore, is also on the line of the Constitution.

Even through the steps taken by the National Democratic Party extensive campaigns on the support aimed to curb this slogan and instead to maintain the separation of state and religion, the NDP and other groups either Islamic or Coptic religious figures to help has contracted to support for their winning programs.

Some analysts fear that such could be an introduction of religion into politics jeopardize the reforms towards a more secular and liberal country, and unsettle their Coptic Christian population.

Failure of secularism

The official political parties and especially the socially liberal left have lost their seats as their ideological influence by the voting population. In addition to the symbolic and leading figures who lost their seats, as Aiman ​​Only from al - Ghad Party and Monir Fakhri Abdel Nour of the New Wafd Party, brought the failure of their ideas as well as their lack of mobility and real political activity to less than 10 seats, which is a percentage rate of only 2.2 %.

The main political parties formed the United National Front for Change ( UNFC ), provides that ambiguous programs for political and constitutional reform, but without any connection to the grassroots electorate what losses wholesale for their on field skillful candidates ' absence.

The political failure includes not only the opposition with one, but also the National Democratic Party. The NDP lost in this election than 100 of their seats, with some of its most influential reform figures and long serving political figures. The NDP has also failed to increase the turnout. The low turnout, which was estimated at about 25 % is associated with the fact that about half of the vote was a protest vote against the NDP for the Muslim Brotherhood.

The NDP continues to hold a comfortable majority of 68 % of the seats in the Assembly, which enables it to advance its program of economic liberalization. However, the process is not smooth as can run before.

Arab Democratic Nasserist Party Liberal Socialists Party Officer of the court Ayman Nour Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour Shura Council
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