Islamists Win Overwhelming Majority in Egypt Elections
Islamist political parties have won an overwhelming majority in Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliamentary elections, Saturday.
Results have revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) won the largest number of seats, with the hardline Salafist Nour party coming in second. Both the secular Egyptian Bloc coalition and the liberal New Wafd parties came in far behind the two majority parties.
Over the past six weeks, Egypt has gone to the polls to vote in three separate phases in efforts to elect the 498 members of the People’s Assembly. In addition to the 498, another 10 will be appointed by the ruling military.
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In the elections no women won individual seats, so that only about 1 percent of the final body will be female.
The head of the ruling military council, Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, has reportedly already elected the final 10 members of the 508-seat chamber, and his selections included three further women as well as five Coptic Christians.
The final results will place approximately 70 percent of the seats in the assembly with Islamic parties, although the final numbers will soon be confirmed.
The new assembly will convene for the first time ever on Monday.
The FJP has already announced that it will nominate Saad al-Katatni as the assembly's speaker, who has pushed for the new assembly to be “reconciliatory.” He has said, “The priorities are meeting the demands of the revolution, including the rights of the injured and those killed in the uprising.”
Despite these results, a new president for Egypt is scheduled to be elected by June, and it will be this president who will choose Egypt’s ultimate government.
Banned under former President Hosni Mubarak and his predecessors, the Muslim Brotherhood has emerged as the biggest winners now from his overthrow. The FJP has so far offered a promise that all Egyptians will have a voice in the new parliament, but Islamists will wield the major influence over a new constitution to be drafted by a 100-strong body that the new parliament will help pick.
