By Will Kelleher*, Think Africa Press – The first democratic elections in Egypt in over 50 years drew to a close on Wednesday, January 11 with the final runoffs held in some of Daqahleya, Qena and South Sinai’s constituencies. Following the regional trend set by last year’s parliamentary elections in Morocco and Tunisia, Egypt’s Islamist parties are emerging as the clear victors of this political contest.
**Image: courtesy of Gigi Ibrahim | Source: Think Africa Press.
By its own estimates, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) has secured between 40-45% of the vote, making it the most popular party by some distance. The Al Nour party, which subscribes to the more rigid and conservative form of Salafist Islam, again defied observers who predicted its policies would be unpalatable to the electorate by securing around 20% of the vote.
Secular parties, whose supporters were integral to the anti-Mubarak protests in early 2011 and the anti-SCAF [Supreme Council of the Armed Forces] protests last December, have again largely underperformed and will further suffer from Naguib Sawiris’ decision to withdraw his Free Egyptians Party (FEP) from the forthcoming elections for the Shura Council, the upper house of Egypt’s bicameral Parliament.
Egypt remains in a state of political flux. Now the elections are drawing to a close, it remains to be seen which parties will form a lasting coalition with the Muslim Brotherhood and how this coalition will negotiate the transition of power from the SCAF-controlled interim government.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 