Egyptians are voting in the nation’s first parliamentary election since the military’s 2013 ousting of Egypt’s first freely elected president.
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Independent monitoring of the elections is expected to be limited as many global groups have been pushed out of Egypt.
Sisi has urged a large turnout, saying that “active participation of all segments of the society is important for the election”, a presidency statement said on Tuesday.
The party is fielding 200 candidates and “is operating in the same space that was given to the Brotherhood under Mubarak”, Sayyid said.
An ensuing government crackdown targeting Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood movement – which had swept all elections since Mubarak’s fall in 2011 – has left at least 1,400 dead and tens of thousands imprisoned.
Egypt’s 2015 parliamentary makeup is taking shape as elections officially get underway to form a long-awaited Council of Representatives. There will be 15 candidates elected from lists seeking to represent the Western Delta’s three governorates, and 15 more in the Eastern Delta’s seven governorates.
“Secondly, the coup’s constitution and presidential elections were marred by fraud and were not in line with global standards”.
The party has gone out of its way to downplay any differences with Sisi supporters and the state, and analysts say Salafists are looking to become a conservative ally of Sisi, a relationship that may see the president grant “concessions” on social issues in return for their support. Mr Essam said he favoured a local candidate from the Al-Wafd Party, founded in 1923. “But he’s also ready to spend money to fix things”, he explains.
The main parties in the race are: “For the Love of Egypt”, a coalition of 10 liberal parties, staunchly backing el-Sissi’s administration and the “Egyptian Front”, a secular bloc associated with the former regime of deposed president Hosni Mubarak, which also backs el-Sissi. “I am urging you, not just to go out and vote, but to carefully choose those in whose hands you will entrust Egypt’s presence and future”. However, a few are hopeful for the new parliament’s potential, but as a traditional provider of municipal services, not democracy.
They are hopeful that the resulting new parliament will pave the way for a new era of stability and prosperity after four years of political and economic strife.
Dr Mohammed Anwar, 27, a surgeon in central Cairo, dismissed the election as “basically Kabuki theatre”.
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Voting for the new parliament, the first since 2011, will take place in the absence of any real opposition. But that hope has long since withered, and he now says he is not expecting much from this parliament and has no intention of voting. “What else would they vote for, other than that?” “But isn’t a country at the end of the day its people?”
