Egyptians vote in 2nd round of parliamentary polls
Date
11/23/2015 3:57:20 AM
(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) Egyptians went to the polls on Sunday to vote in the second round of the country’s first parliamentary election since the army ousted elected President Mohamed Morsi in mid-2013.
Polling stations opened at 9 a.m. local time (7:00 GMT) and will close tonight at 9 p.m. (19:00 GMT).
voting will be held on Sunday and Monday in 13 of Egypt’s 27 provinces.
The first round of elections was held in mid-October.
As of midday however live television reports showed almost empty polling stations.
Many Egyptians meanwhile appeared apathetic saying they had little hope that the poll would bring genuine change.
"Whether or not I vote nothing will change" Ahmed Hassan 21 who participated in a 2011 popular uprising that forced autocratic President Hosni Mubarak to step down after 30 years in power told Anadolu Agency.
More than 28 million Egyptians are eligible to vote in the two-phase poll in which 222 independent candidates will be chosen and another 60 from political parties.
The first round of the vote in mid-October saw 226 candidates chosen for individual seats and 60 from party lists.
Only 26.5 percent of eligible voters turned out for the first round of polling in which a pro-army bloc led by a former intelligence chief swept the seats allocated for party lists.
Egyptians living abroad in 139 countries began voting in the poll’s second round on Saturday.
According to Egypt’s official electoral commission 81 local NGOs and six foreign organizations are monitoring the ballot.
The vote is being boycotted however by the political groups that supported Morsi and by some protest movements including the April 6 youth group which had been at the forefront of the anti-Mubarak uprising in 2011.
The polls had originally been slated for March but were postponed following a decision by Egypt’s constitutional court which ruled that the laws governing Egypt’s electoral districts were unconstitutional.
The parliamentary election represents the final phase of a political "roadmap" imposed by the army following Morsi's overthrow almost two and a half years ago.
The army’s roadmap also included a constitutional referendum and a presidential election the latter of which brought former army chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi to power last year.
Critics of Egypt’s military-backed regime however say the polls are being held in the absence of any genuine opposition.
Morsi’s now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group swept Egypt’s last parliamentary election which was held in late 2011 following Mubarak’s overthrow.
The following year however the Egyptian authorities citing flawed electoral laws dissolved the assembly.
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