Egypt: Elections ends and more

Egypt: Elections ends and moreFinally the elections of the People's Assembly (the lower house of the Egyptian Parliament) are over. With a bloody end and surprising results, that would probably heat the political debate in Egypt for the next five years.

Summary and results

With a 26% voter turn out and out of the 444 contested seats, Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) secured the majority (77%) of seats in the Parliament. The Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) gained a surprising 20% of the seats and the secular opposition and independents were heavily defeated and only secured the remaining few seats. President Mubarak appointed 10 members, among them 5 women and 5 Christians as they are remarkably under represented in this term. There are still 12 seats to be decided.

Only 33% of the candidates running as NDP won, the remaining were independents who ran against NDP candidates but rejoined the party as soon as they won.

On another side a total of eleven persons died, more than 600 injured and around 1300 of the Ikhwan were detained.

The final day of the elections

The re-run of the third stage being the bloodiest of all, 8 died and 500 injured. War like scenes were shown on TV and other media.

Baheyya says:

As many feared, the last day of voting today saw security forces intensifying their use of violence against voters to thwart any further gains by opposition candidates, especially the Muslim Brothers. Security forces did not confine themselves to blockading roads and closing off polling stations, but fired tear gas and rubber bullets into crowds of voters.

Baheyya also posts lots of photos of the Intifada like scenes.

Sandmonkey posts lots of photos too.

Boody reports that in his city of Zagazig police blocked the polling stations from the early morning. He witnessed thugs exchanging rocks with Brotherhood members. While the anti-riot forces used tear gas.

Previous GlobalVoices coverage of the elections:

Kefaya protests the thuggery and forgery

Freedom for Egyptians mentions the protests which have seen from 1000 to 2000 persons marching in downtown Cairo.
While Sandmonkey asks if, after the loss of secular opposition in the elections, the movement lost steam.
More photos of the protest

Telecom Egypt IPO

Telecom Egypt's initial public offering made a storm in Egypt. Ikhnaton2 says that he doesn't know much about finance but he heard people who never dealt with the stock exchange before selling their valuables and buying as much as they can in this IPO. He says that people see this a very valuable stock to own with a big potential. He says that this IPO however might hurt small investors. (Arabic)

Zein takes some photos with his mobile of masses of people trying to get in a stock broker's office.

Abo Islam
We have mentioned before the arrest of the Egyptian journalist Abo Islam. You can follow what the Egyptian blogosphere is writing about Abo Islam.

Football
Mo Nassar analyzes in detail the defeat of the Ahly (representing Africa) against Saudi Itihad in their first match of the World Club Championships.

Finally something positive
The Lady Ostrich (El Set Na'ama) writes in Arabic with photos about a project that improved the conditions of parts of a slum area in Cairo.

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