By Rania Al Malky
CAIRO: The people of Egypt have spoken, and according to the results of the first round of parliamentary elections held last Sunday, they have collectively chosen the National Democratic Party.
To the sore losers who claim that the elections were rigged, the NDP and the venerable electoral commission that supports it, have stuck out a lashing tongue in pure denial and with the numbers to prove otherwise: 40,160,799 registered voters of whom 14,036,937 cast their ballots, i.e. a phenomenal turn-out rate of 35 percent; 5,033 candidates representing diverse parties and independents; 2,286 members of the judiciary supervised the polling stations and oversaw the ballot counting process and the announcement of results by the district electoral committees; 76 civil society organizations plus the National Council for Human Rights observed the process through 6,130 observers accredited by the commission; unfettered local media coverage as well as international coverage by 498 accredited correspondents.
And the results of this symphony of democratic practice: The ruling NDP has won 209 of the 221 seats already decided. Runoffs for the remainder of the seats in the 508-member assembly are to be held Dec. 5 when 28 million voters in 166 public committees will choose 269 general seats and 14 seats for women.
According to a statement by the Supreme Electoral Commission: “The facts are clear. Complaints and irregularities were related to 1,298 ballot boxes out of a total of 89,588; therefore impacting only 1.4 percent of ballot boxes, all of which were invalidated by the commission.”
What more can we (ungrateful) Egyptians wish for? Claims by rights groups that the elections were characterized by “chaos, thuggery and violence” are vicious attacks on a flawless process marred only by a few bad apples whose actions have been punished and are being investigated.
No one should believe the deliberately diabolical statements by organizations such as Human Rights Watch that Egyptian civil society monitors and observers as well as candidate representatives were systematically prevented from being present in polling locations. Neither should we believe that the majority of the permits handed out to these NGOs were only made available hours before the polling started, rendering them completely useless. Neither should we believe that some ballot boxes were signed, sealed and ready to be delivered within half an hour of the start of election day, nor should we heed claims that weapons were allowed in some stations to disrupt the voting process, intimidate voters and even at times physically expel independent candidates’ representatives, according to HRW.
And let’s not forget that the wave of arbitrary arrests of Muslim Brotherhood members and candidates was completely legal because according to the rules, the use of religious slogans was not going to be tolerated in our haven of religious freedom where we must protect our Christian brethren from those Muslim fanatics.
In fact what happened on Sunday was too good to be true to the extent that all viable opposition decided to pull out from tomorrow’s runoff. The Wafd Party, the Muslim Brotherhood (which did not secure a single seat despite having had 88 in the outgoing parliament) and the leftist Tagammu, have unanimously decided to let the best man win and will refrain from fielding candidates to contest the remaining 283 seats including 14 for women tomorrow.
This election will go down in history as the one that has finally restored Egyptians’ subconscious longing for single party rule. What use is a multi-party system that only serves to disrupt those who know what’s best for this country? In fact they have been working to achieve it for the past 30 years and once more they have the facts to prove it: 25 percent of the population live under the poverty line; an education system that has bred generations of illiterates; a healthcare system that has deteriorated beyond repair; a housing crisis; rising crime rates. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The coming People’s Assembly session will be music to our ears: no more scandals exposed, no more interpellations of ministers, fast and rigorous passing of convenient laws. In fact, more of the same.
One cannot help wondering what difference it would have made if we had free and fair elections over say 20 percent of the seats. At least the NDP would have kept that multi-party façade to serve its new and improved propaganda machine. Actually, no, we should discard such defeatist thoughts. What a shame that the glorious NDP lost those 12 seats in the first round.
But with the opposition boycotting the runoffs and the NDP facing itself at polling stations tomorrow, I’m sure they’ll have better luck this time around.
Let’s all keep our fingers crossed. Long live the NDP!
Rania Al Malky is the Chief Editor of Daily News Egypt.
