CAIRO: Around 2,600 candidates will compete over 150 seats in the People’s Assembly elections on Tuesday, in nine governorates during the third and final round of elections of the lower house of parliament.
Around 14 million voters in the nine remaining governorates — Daqahleya, Qaliubiya, Gharbeya, Minya, Qena, North and South Sinai, Marsa Matrouh and Al-Wadi Al-Gadid — are expected to head to 7,210 polling stations, according to the technical chief of the Supreme Electoral Commission (SEC) Yousry Abdel-Kerim.
Over 12,000 judges will monitor the third round in 15,175 sub-committees across governorates from the Delta and Upper Egypt regions, whose population forms the bulk of the voters (13.3 million), in addition to periphery governorates in Sinai and the Western desert.
Of the 14 million voters, 49 percent are aged between 30-60, with 38 percent between ages 18-30 and 12 percent above 60.
Among prominent competing candidates are the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) Cairo-secretary Mohamed Al-Beltagy, who is running in Qaliubiya.
On the other hand, FJP Secretary-General Mohamed Saad Al-Katatny competes in Minya, along with former Muslim Brotherhood member and current Al-Wasat Party Chairman Aboul Ela Mady, while local tribal leader and former NDP strongman Abdel Rehim Al-Ghoul competes in Qena.
Running in Daqahleya is the Justice Party’s Ahmed Shoukry, former member of the National Front for Change, who previously ran unsuccessfully in the 2010 elections, along with the Salafi Nour Party candidate Ali Qatamesh, contesting one of the single winner seats.
In addition, the race includes controversial names such as Mubarak-loyalist and former judge and lawyer Mortada Mansour, also contesting an individual seat in Daqahleya, and whose son ran unsuccessfully in the second round in Giza.
Another controversial figure and Daqahleya contestant is former NDP member and media personality Tawfik Okasha, owner and manager of Al-Fara’een TV. Okasha tops the list of the Egyptian Nationalist Party, an offshoot of the now disbanded National Democratic Party.
The FJP currently holds the lead in the race according to the results of the first and second rounds with over 60 percent, followed by the Salafi Al-Nour Party, which unexpectedly raked in 24 percent of the vote.
The Wafd Party, the Egyptian Bloc, and the Revolution Continues bloc tail at eight, seven, and four percent respectively.
The FJP is fielding 136 candidates in the third round, a number significantly less than the 163 and 141 candidates that ran in the first and second rounds
