CAIRO: Riddled with divisions, Egypt’s main electoral coalitions have submitted their candidacy papers last minute, with over 300 candidates expected to run as part of the Egyptian Bloc and an unspecified number with the Democratic Alliance.
The Egyptian Bloc will field 332 candidates in the upcoming parliamentary elections slated for Nov. 28, read a statement issued by the bloc late Thursday.
The Bloc started submitting its candidates’ lists on Friday and will continue on Saturday, which is the last day for accepting applications.
Mohamed Hamed, member of the political bureau of the Free Egyptians Party, told Daily News Egypt that the final number of women and Copts among the candidates will be announced later on Friday.
The Democratic Alliance fielded around 265 candidates in 20 governorates including Cairo, Alexandria and Suez on Thursday, with more expected to submit their candidacy on Saturday.
Essam El-Erian, deputy head of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) which leads the Democratic Alliance, told DNE that the Alliance is contesting most of the PA seats, in addition to members running through the individual candidates system.
The FJP press office told DNE that the final number of candidates to be fielded by the Alliance has yet to be determined.
The People’s Assembly consists of 498 seats, two thirds allocated to the closed party list system and one third for individual candidates. In the PA, 46 constituencies will be contested through closed party lists and 83 through individuals candidates, while in the Shoura Council, 30 constituencies will be allocated to closed lists and 30 to individual candidates. The Shoura Council consists of 270 seats.
Egypt’s main electoral coalitions almost came apart last week due to disagreements over the number of candidates each party will be allowed to field and which candidates will make it to the top of the lists.
Members of the Egyptian Bloc dwindled from 14 to 3 parties to now include the Free Egyptians, Al-Tagammu and The Egyptian Democratic Social Party. Some members of the Coalition of the Revolutionary Youth joined the unified list of the Egyptian Bloc. The Democratic Alliance shrunk from 34 parties to 10.
The most prominent figures contesting in the elections from the Egyptian Bloc are members of the political bureau of the Free Egyptians Party, Ahmed Saeid and Basel Adel; the Coalition of the Revolutionary Youth’s Ziad El-Eleimy and Mohamed Arafat; and the Egyptian Democratic Social Party’s Emad Gad and Ihab El-Kharrat.
The Democratic Alliance’s list of candidates includes prominent figures like Magdy Qorqor, secretary general of the Labor Party, and other familiar faces from the Muslim Brotherhood who ran in the 2010 elections as independents and lost, like Sobhi Saleh and Boshra Al-Samni in Alexandria and Amal Adel-Kerim in Cairo, who are now affiliated with the Brotherhood’s political arm, the FJP.
In North Sinai, The Democratic Alliance fielded four candidates in the PA and two candidates in the Shoura Council, raising the total number of candidates from parties and coalitions in North Sinai to 52.
However, the Alliance said it met difficulties while submitting its list of candidates in the southern governorate of Minya.
Mohamed Morsi, head of the FJP, said in a statement that the head of the committee responsible for receiving the parties’ applications, judge Sayyed Hermas refused to accept the Alliance’s list "without any legal justification."
Morsi filed a complaint to the Supreme Electoral Commission (SEC) against Hermas, demanding that the Alliance’s application in Minya be accepted.
On the other hand, Egypt Kanana Party decided to boycott the elections, after the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) failed to issue the treachery act, preventing remnants of the disbanded National Democratic Party (NDP) from running in the elections.
Egypt Kenana, which is the first political party to boycott the elections, said in a statement issued on Thursday that the parliament shouldn’t be controlled by the majority of a specific party, especially that there’s no constitution yet to regulate its authority and power.
The party held on to its previous suggestion to form a transitional parliament without elections under the “Egypt First” initiative, so all Egyptian factions can participate in a parliament that would monitor the government and elect the constituent assembly responsible for drafting a new constitution.
The initiative proposes that 60 political parties and movements each nominate five candidates through a closed party list system in the upcoming elections, in addition to five independent candidates chosen from those who ran in the 2010 elections in each governorate and 30 candidates to be elected by the Supreme Judicial Council, the Supreme Constitutional Court, Al-Azhar, the church and the SCAF.
The party warned against holding parliamentary elections amid the unstable security situation, with weapons being smuggled into Egypt from Libya and the divisions among the political powers which could lead to a "civil war."
Earlier last week, the Coalition of the Revolutionary Youth in Qena also boycotted the elections, saying that the polls are dominated by remnants of the fallen regime.
Mostafa El-Gales, member of the coalition, said that families affiliated with the NDP were very powerful in Qena and almost impossible to defeat.
However, Mazen Hassan, professor of electoral systems at Cairo University, believed that the main reason behind these boycotts is the weakness of the party and coalition involved.
"All the prominent powerful parties are participating in these elections," he said, adding that Egypt Kenana Party and the Coalition of Revolutionary Youth in Qena would probably fail to find a place in the upcoming elections if they decided to contest.
Hassan also pointed out that there was a debate among legal experts regarding the political exclusion law that immediately prevents former NDP figures from participating in the political arena without a court procedure proving their involvement in corrupting political life.
"The people will have the final word in the elections," he said.
