By Heba Fahmy
CAIRO: Former parliamentary candidates including members of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Wafd Party filed 20 complaints to the Administrative Court against the results of the People’s Assembly (PA) elections on Sunday, calling for its annulment and a redo of the elections.
According to lawyer Sobhi Saleh, a Muslim Brotherhood member who ran for reelection, the Administrative Court had ordered the annulment of the elections in 92 constituencies before the end of the election process on Dec. 5, the equivalent of 184 seats in the PA.
Other MPs said that elections in 98 constituencies, the equivalent of 196 seats, were invalidated by the court.
The court described the elections in these constituencies as “unconstitutional” and “illegal,” based on violations before and during the elections including the elimination of candidates from registration lists without justification, denying the candidates’ representatives notarized permits to allow them into polling stations, and ignoring courts orders.
The elections went ahead in these constituencies despite the court order and were included in the final results.
“According to Article 78 of the constitution, the quorum of the PA isn’t fulfilled unless at least 350 members are elected out of the 508 members,” Saleh told Daily News Egypt.
“If we exclude the 184 seats elected in the 92 constituencies in compliance with the court order, we will find that the legal quorum of the PA isn’t complete which makes it illegal and unconstitutional.” Saleh said.
Saleh added that over 1,000 complaints against vote rigging and fraud during the first round of elections on Nov. 28 have been filed to the parliament since the end of the elections process.
“Every Al-Wafd candidate that felt that there were violations and fraud in their constituencies during the election process filed complaints to the parliament and the Administrative Court,” member of Al-Wafd’s executive bureau, Yassin Tag Eldin, told Daily News Egypt.
Both the Brotherhood and the Al-Wafd withdrew from the polls before the runoffs on Dec. 5, amid accusations of flagrant violations and vote rigging.
Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak dismissed the allegations on Sunday and said any violations were too minor to undermine the elections’ legitimacy.
The final results of the PA elections showed that the NDP swept the polls — winning 420 out of 508 seats in the PA — while Al-Wafd won six seats and the Brotherhood won one seat in the runoffs.
