CAIRO: Parties exchanged accusations of violations at polling stations in Gharbeya and Matrouh, which saw a notably high voter turnout Tuesday.
Women and youth dominated the voting scene in Gharbeya, but campaigning in front of the polling stations continued to be the most observed violation of the day, whether through independent monitor or in parties’ reports.
The province is divided into two constituencies in the party lists system with 10 seats for each and five constituencies for the single winner system with two seats for each, totaling 30 seats for the entire province with over 2.7 million eligible voters.
"The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and the Salafi Al-Nour Party continue to campaign for their candidates inside and outside polling stations, and incidents of people going in to vote in groups for the FJP were documented in Kassem Amin and El-Tarbeya El-Fekreya polling stations," elections monitor and member of April 6 Youth Movement Amr Osama told Daily News Egypt Tuesday.
Osama said that lists of FJP, Al-Nour and the secular Egyptian Bloc are the main three lists competing, but the competition is heated in the single winner individual seats between FJP, Al-Nour candidates on one side, and remnants of the disbanded National Democratic Party (NDP) on the other.
The Egyptian Bloc, spearheaded by the liberal Free Egyptians Party, said in a statement that many violations took place against the Bloc’s monitors inside the polling stations.
The Bloc also complained about campaigning in front of the polling stations by other parties to sway voters’ opinions.
One World Organization reported similar incidents in Gharbeya, in addition to preventing one of their monitors from entering the polling stations, with some polling stations opening one hour late in Kafr El-Zayyat.
The FJP office in the Delta governorate said that judges arrived late in 30 polling stations across Kafr El-Zayyat city. The FJP also reported that ballots for the single winner candidates were delivered to the wrong polling station in Abu Baseer village in Samanoud which forced judges to start late.
The party complained that its monitors for the individual candidates were not allowed to enter Moustafa El-Nahhas polling station in Samanoud.
The FJP reported that campaigning in front of the polling stations continued especially for Al-Nour Party and partially for the Revolution Continues Alliance and other individual candidates.
Al-Nour said that many violations were reported, as the party monitors filed many complaints with fraud allegations in favor of other candidates.
In Matrouh, on Egypt’s border with Libya, voting turnout was moderately high. The coastal province is comprised of one constituency, including four seats for the party lists system and two for the single winner system, totaling six seats for the entire province with 200,000 eligible voters.
The FJP, Al-Nour, El-Hureya, the secular Egytian Bloc, followed by El-Adl and El-Wafd parties are the main competitors for the party lists systems, while remnants of the disbanded (NDP) are mostly contesting the single winner seats, competing against FJP, Al-Noor and Al-Adl candidates.
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) said in its report that over seven polling stations opened one hour late.
EOHR also documented one case of a voter who found his name mentioned twice on the voting lists, and many unidentified individuals who are allegedly not authorized monitors were seen inside the polling stations.
EOHR documented a lack of phosphoric ink in many polling stations as well, and one fraud case where the “rotating ballot” was used in favor of a candidate of the liberal Al-Wafd Party, who was also providing free transportation for voters to the polling stations.
The organization also documented a case where one of the candidates paid citizens LE 50 for their vote.
ONTV news channel reported that clashes escalated between campaigners of the FJP and Al-Nour Parties when an FJP monitor was filming violations inside the polling stations and urging the judge to ask voters wearing the niqab to reveal their identity.
The situation calmed down as the polling station was cleared from campaigners from both sides and an investigation was reportedly taking place.
