Polling stations were largely vacant on the first day of elections for Egypt’s 568-seat House of Representatives, with the High Elections Commission announcing that turnout in the 14 provinces for the first stage of the elections stood at 2 percent by mid-Sunday, before seeing a slight surge at the end of the day.
Polling station employees waited for the arrival of voters, while the media was set to air the process minute by minute. Despite a TV address by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi urging the nation to actively attend the long-awaited vote, the streets remained calm and voting was minimal.
Out of 83 Egyptian political parties, only 44 have decided to run the electoral race, both through electoral lists and individual runners, according to the Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center.
But observers believe that many parties, or at least their electoral platforms, are largely unknown to the public.
Sobhy Eseila, an expert at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said parties have exhibited a “humble” performance in the polls.
He specified the veteran Wafd and Free Egyptians parties, which have fielded 550 candidates and represent fewer than 60 percent of the seats, stressing that this fact is indicative that political parties, both old and new, are experiencing a decline in popularity outside Cairo.
“The weak performance of political parties reflects their actual position. Had the elections been wholly based on electoral lists, the situation could have been tragic, but parties benefited much from competing for individual seats,” Eseila said.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
