Fireworks erupt at his rallies, his face is plastered across the streets of his Cairo constituency and children wear T-shirts printed with his image.
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The vote is staggered, with polling in half of Egypt’s governorates set to start Sunday.
The country has been without a parliament since the previous legislature, elected in 2011, which was dissolved in June 2012 after a court ruled key electoral laws to be unconstitutional.
Egyptians living overseas began to vote in the country’s parliamentary election Saturday, the first since the 2013 ouster of elected President Mohamed Morsi. “The parliament will represent the state’s needs – it’s for the executive rather than the people”, said Ahmed Morsy, a former fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for global Peace.
“The exception is likely to be financial and economic policies, as big business interests will play a big role in parliament”.
For now no candidates or lists are allowed to promote their parliamentary bids. Human rights abuses by the police go mostly unpunished or even investigated and authorities have shown little concern over recent cases of young activists opposed to El-Sissi’s government or linked to the Brotherhood disappearing. In that regard, Mahmoud al-Alaily, a member of the party’s supreme leadership committee, stated to the press that “Sawiris’ achievements in the investment sector give us great credibility”. “But the country can not be run on good intentions”.
A general view of a meeting with the two chambers of Egyptian parliament, Cairo, June 12, 2012.
“The Brotherhood will stay outside the political game as long as President Sisi is in power”, said Hazem Hosny, professor of political science at Cairo University. “They don’t want the state to intervene in anything”.
Many Egyptians are exhausted of political turmoil since the 2011 toppling of veteran leader Hosni Mubarak and feel apathetic toward the two-phase vote.
Democracy worldwide has been accredited by Egypt’s High Election Commission to observe the polls but the USA based group said in a statement that “some visas for accredited core team members and short-term observers have not been issued and most visas have not been issued for the duration necessary to observe the entire election process”.
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But experts said it is unclear how much influence the party will be able to exert, regardless of the vast wealth behind it. “He is not going to make the regime angry”.
