Cairo: An Egyptian alliance loyal to President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi has claimed winning 60 new seats in this week’s second round of the country’s parliamentary elections, bringing to 120 the total number of seats it has secured in both rounds of the vote.
‘For Love of Egypt’, a bloc of secular political parties and businessmen, has swept all the 60 seats reserved for political parties in the second round of polls held on Sunday and Monday, head of the alliance Sameh Saif Al Yazal said on Wednesday, citing unofficial results.
The bloc, which also comprises ex-government officials, has clinched all 60 seats that were up for grabs for party-based slates in last month’s first stage of the second-phase vote.
“Our list [of candidates] has won in the second stage the 45 seats allocated for the Cairo and Central Delta constituency after winning 67 per cent of the votes cast,” Al Yazal, an ex-intelligence official, told private TV station Sada Al Balad.
He added that his alliance has also gained 15 other seats in the Eastern Delta constituency with 72 per cent votes cast in its favour.
Official results are expected on Thursday.
Al Yazal said his alliance is seeking to form a majority coalition of around 350 members in parliament. “We have so far drawn 125 new members to this coalition,” he added, without giving details.
Egypt’s electoral mixed system allocates 80 per cent of parliament’s elected 568 seats for individual candidates and the remaining 20 per cent for political parties based on the winner-takes-all absolute list system.
This set-up gives the party list, which wins at least 51 per cent of the vote in any electoral district, all the seats there.
Only nine of the 222 seats, which were at the centre of individual competition in the second stage of the election, have been won, according to unofficial results. The 213 seats will be again at stake in run-off vote scheduled for December 1-2.
The president has the right to appoint 28 more members in parliament, raising its total number to 596.
Under a 2014 constitution, the new parliament has vast powers, including the right to call for an early presidential election. Al Sissi’s backers are expected to dominate the legislature.
The new parliament, anticipated to hold its maiden meeting in late December, will be Egypt’s first since mid-2012 when the Constitutional Court dissolved the Islamist-led assembly.