The Muslim Brotherhood's candidate list for Doctors Syndicate elections is close to winning, according to early results of the elections, which took place Friday for the first time in 20 years.
Doctors complained of chaos during the electoral process, which one candidate blamed on election commission members who are part of the Muslim Brotherhood. Elections results are expected to be announced Saturday evening.
Al-Masry Al-Youm witnessed cases of voting outside polling stations because of overcrowdedness and chaos inside the stations. Candidate representatives and voters argued with judges monitoring the elections, developing into more serious arguments because of the small number of committees and supervisors.
Tarek Ghazaly Harb, a candidate on the "Independent Doctors" list for the position of syndicate chairperson, told Al-Masry Al-Youm the election was chaotic and ill-organized.
"The success of the supervising committee in organizing the Doctors Syndicate elections does not exceed 50 percent," he said.
Harb accused the Doctors Syndicate high election commission, of which the majority of members are from the Muslim Brotherhood, of intentionally creating obstacles to help the group's candidates win the election. He criticized holding an election in which 180,000 doctors were supposed to cast their votes nationwide in one day.
Harb said the commission made a big mistake, which led to announcing the results on Saturday night instead of Friday night.
"The commission did not send the papers of the chairperson's position to Qena Governorate, which will lead to holding the election on Saturday in Qena only," he said.
Hamdy al-Sayyed, the current syndicate chairperson, described the election as the "historic because it was carried out in a civilized atmosphere and will produce a council and chairperson able to meet the doctors' needs during the next phase."
The decision to postpone the election in Qena to Saturday came after polling opinions of judges monitoring the election process and was not the decision of the high election commission, Sayyed told Al-Masry Al-Youm.
Sayyed said the final results will be announced after the election in Qena ends. He criticized press statements that described the election as disorganized and chaotic.
"It was the doctors who described the elections as so, and if the organizers were angels, it still wouldn't have satisfied them," said Sayyed.
Translated from the Arabic Edition
