Parliamentary runoffs in Egypt amid fraud claims

 The reruns come a week after the main elections which saw the ruling National Democratic Party win over 90 per cent of the seats amid accusations from political parties, independent candidates and civil society organisations of fraud and rigging.
Egyptians are voting in parliamentary runoff elections to choose 283 Members of Parliament.

After the first round the banned Muslim Brotherhood MB group and the Liberal Wafd—the two largest opposition groups—announced they were boycotting the elections in protest.

The boycott was reminiscent of the call by former IAEA chief Muhammad al-Baradi for parties to boycott the elections and “not participate in the play the ruling party is producing to fool the world”. At the moment the Al-Wafd party has already won two seats.

Both Brotherhood and the other key opposition group, the liberal Wafd party, boycotted Sunday’s polls.

Due to the boycott, the contest now pit rival candidates from Mubarak’s National Democratic Party against each other. It will ensure a parliament almost entirely made up of the ruling party, with a few seats going to independents and smaller parties.

Mubarak, 82, is the fourth and current President of the Arab Republic of Egypt. He was appointed Vice-President in 1975, and assumed the Presidency on October 14, 1981, following the assassination of President Anwar el-Sadat.