CAIRO: Parliamentarians voted their speaker another term Wednesday as he faced his first serious challenger, from the Muslim Brotherhood, since taking the post in 1990.
Fathi Sorour began another year-long term with 80 percent of the vote, winning approval from 319 deputies, while his contender, Mohammed Saad El-Katatny, received 79 votes, Egypt s official Middle East News Agency reported.
El-Katatny heads the Muslim Brotherhood s bloc in the People s Assembly. The group remains technically illegal in Egypt, but it forms the largest opposition group in the assembly with 88 lawmakers.
Sorour, 74, a lawyer, is a member of President Hosni Mubarak s ruling National Democratic Party. Parliament, or Egypt s lower house, opens every November and lasts for eight months. The speaker is elected each year.
Wednesday s vote was the first for Sorour in which he won less than 400 votes from of the assembly s 440 members.
The parliament is dominated by the NDP and generally rubber stamps government proposals.
Spokesman for the Brotherhood s parliament bloc, Hamdi Hassan, said that nine of the group s deputies were absent from Wednesday s session.
