The Egyptian Front, led by Mr Ahmed Shafiq, Mr Mubarak’s last premier, is another key coalition, and the openly pro-Sisi Salafist Al-Nur party that backed Mursi’s ouster is the only Islamist party standing.
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“This parliament will be very supportive of the president and his legislative agenda – there will be no conflicts there”, says Safwat al-Anhas, outgoing secretary general of the Egyptian National Movement. Certain cities were seen guarded by the troops with soldiers setting up machine guns in position.
Voter Nayra Botros in Giza stressed the patriotic point of casting her ballot.
With Egypt’s largest opposition movement excluded and the secular opposition weakened by internal divisions and funding problems, few analysts or politicians expect turnout to exceed a third of the electorate.
Morsi, the ousted president, hailed from the Muslim Brotherhood, which won every election since Mubarak’s February 2011 ouster and until his removal in July 2013.
Salafi Al-Nour party, an Islamic group which also runs in the election also supported the ouster of Mohammad Morsi, the president ousted by El-Sissi.
“Sisi is our soul… without him we would have been migrants like those from other countries around us”, said Buthaina Shehata after she cast her vote. If not enough people show up to vote, the country will fall into the hands of the Brotherhood and the Salafis. “We need new blood”, said Fatma Farag, an elderly woman.
Another retiree in Giza, Mamdouh Abdel-Aziz, 72, walked 30 minutes to reach his designated polling center and waited another 30 in line to cast his ballot.
In the face of the government’s crackdown on dissent, lesser-known pro-democracy activists who burst onto the political scene in 2011 have either sought exile overseas, withdrawn from public politics or been jailed.
Voters in the remaining 13 provinces will head to the polls during the second stage scheduled to take place from November 22-23. Each stage of the vote will be followed by a runoff.
Parliament is expected to be formed in early December.
Egyptians voted on Sunday in a long-awaited parliamentary election, the final step in a process that is meant to put the country back on a democratic course.
Political parties are heavily disadvantaged by an election law, passed by presidential decree past year.
“It is hard to tell how serious such talk is, but at a minimum it de-legitimises the parliament before it has even been elected”, said Nathan Brown, professor at George Washington University.
The army’s roadmap also included a constitutional referendum and a presidential election, the latter of which brought Sisi to power a year ago. More than 55 million Egyptians are eligible to elect 448 candidates for individual seats and 120 for lists. I don’t think it will be implemented.
“I personally just voted for the first guy I saw. They require unity”, he said.
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Many parties that emerged since the 2011 uprising with either Islamist or democratic reform agendas are boycotting the elections, with most charging they are being conducted in an atmosphere of political repression. It has lost much support among Islamist sympathisers, however, since endorsing the army’s decision to remove elected President Mohammed Mursi, a Brotherhood member, from power in mid-2013. Apathy is running high among young people, with many angry at the ruling government and its policies.
