2010 Egyptian parliamentary election

This election follows the Muslim Brotherhood completing the five-year parliamentary term in which it held on as the largest-ever minority bloc.[7]

The election process will run in the three stages single member plurality, with millions of registered voters in the 222 constituencies.

Most of the political parties in Egypt have been advocating for a Party-list while the NPD insisted on the Single member plurality.

The election is the first election were 64 additional seats reserved for women.[4]

Nomination for the poll commenced on 3 November.[8]

The Muslim Brotherhood said it would compete in the elections despite calls for a boycott. Mohammed Badie, the new chief of the party, said they would contest 30 percent of the seats.[9] It was also termed the "best-organised counterweight to Mubarak's National Democratic Party."[7]

A former adviser to the Muslim Brotherhood, Abdel Hamid al-Ghazaly, said that while the party had brokered a deal with the governing National Democratic Party during the 2005 parliamentary election, no such deal would be agreed to this year. He also said Egyptians voted Brotherhood in 2005 to show their dissatisfaction with the ruling regime. "They weren’t necessarily fond of us. [But] we have no political life whatsoever, thanks to the regime. We can’t even be compared with the most backward countries of the world. Participation in this year’s parliamentary election is the only hope for the Muslim Brothers to get out of the predicament they are in." A Tagammu party member, Abul Ez al-Hariri, also suggested the deals that the opposition parties signed resulted in a loss of credibility and consequent inability to play an effective role in politics. "They have become advocates of the regime."[10]

Opposition groups and civil society activists issued a list of demands:

• Amendment of Article 76 of the Constitution to make it easier for party and independent candidates to get on the presidential ballot.
• Amendment of Article 77 to establish term limits for the presidency, which were removed from the Constitution in 1981.
• Amendment of Article 88 to restore full judicial supervision of elections. This would help tame election fraud and vote rigging, which are common in Egyptian elections.
• Amendment of Law 177 of 2005 in order to facilitate the formation of new political parties.
• Amendment of Article 179: Amendments in 2007 to Article 179 included an "anti-terrorism" measure, which allows for arbitrary arrest, searches and wiretapping without warrant, and transfer of any civilian court case of the president’s choosing to military tribunals. Unlike the Emergency law, it is a permanent measure and not a temporary measure requiring parliamentary approval.

In the Spring 2010, Mohamed ElBaradei began circulating a petition in the runup to the election calling for 7 specific reforms:

1. End the state of emergency.
2. Ensure full judicial supervision of elections.
3. Provide for domestic and international monitoring of elections.
4. Ensure that all candidates have sufficient access to the media, particularly during the presidential election campaign.
5. Allow Egyptians abroad to vote through embassies and consulates.
6. Work toward a political system built on democracy and social justice.
7. Provide the right to nomination for political office without obstacles, in accordance with Egypt’s obligations under the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights; limit the president to two terms.
8. Allow voting by national identification card. These measures will require amending articles 76, 77, and 88 of the Constitution as soon as possible.[11]

Mohamed ElBaradei, a potential presidential candidate, called for a boycott of the election.

The El-Ghad Party became the second party to boycott the elections.[12] The New Wafd Party ignored boycott calls saying in its party paper that it would run in the elections.[13]

The Muslim Brotherhood, however, disavowed boycott calls from other opposition allies, which the party leadership said the decision was made by consensus. Some people lauded the decision as the "most effective way to counter Egypt's gerrymandered electoral system," and that there was a "practical advantage" by gaining seats in parliament. Some party members, however, said the decision not to boycott was a mistake, while others said it was a "missed opportunity" and reflective of "internal strife [that] indicates the dearth of creative strategic thinkers."[7]

The Muslim Brotherhood and the Wafd party called for a boycott of the runoff election.[14]

The election was criticised as being a "sham."[15]

Violence

A supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood at a protest on election night in Mansoura displays the official government stamp on ballots that he said were removed from a polling station earlier in the day by a monitor from another political party to demonstrate how easy it was to manipulate the electoral process. The stamp appeared to indicate which box the ballot had been removed from.

Nine people were killed in election day violence.[27]

Early results from the first stage showed the MB had not made any gains to its one-fifth position, with the ruling NDP consolidating its two-thirds majority in parliament. The MB[30] and other rights groups accused the NDP of "fraud and thuggery" to win.[31] Essam Elerian, a MB spokesman, said that though the party "lost seats and a much deserved representation in the parliament...we won people's love and support and a media battle that exposed [irregularities in] the elections."[32] He also called the "clear vote-rigging an obvious election scandal by all measures."[33] The United States expressed concern about the election.[34]

After its accusations of government fraud and vote buying during Sunday's first round of the parliamentary elections, Egypt's largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, has decided not to take part in this weekend's runoff poll.[35] The decision comes one day after the Higher Elections Committee announced the first round's official results in which the Islamist group failed to win a single seat, but still had 27 candidates to compete in the runoff.[35] The ruling National Democratic Party won nearly 95% of the 221 seats settled in the first round. Most of the remaining undecided seats will be contested by NDP candidates against each other, guaranteeing President Hosni Mubarak's party an absolute majority.[35]

The failure to achieve the 5% threshold by the major opposition parties endangered their involvement in the presidential elections due in 2011. The amendment of article 76 of the Constitution, which allowed multi-candidate presidential elections, but imposed draconian rules on party nominees, is thought to be in need of alteration to remove the 5% restriction. Without such an alteration, the 2011 presidential elections will be little more than a modified version of the single-candidate poll it has been for the past 5 decades or so.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Egyptian parliamentary election 2010.

• Democracy in the Middle East
• 2005 Egyptian parliamentary election

• Egypt Elections 2010 collected coverage at Ahram Online
• The Muslim Brotherhood's Elections Monitor
• Abu Balasah's map to monitor Egyptian elections 2010
• The Independent Coalition Elections Monitor
• Carnegie Guide to Egypt's Elections at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace