Egypt Edition 
UAE Edition 
Saudi Edition 
MENA <> India Corridor 
Logistics (MENA) 
Climate (MENA) 
Share
Election chatter took center stage last night after President Abdel Fattah El Sisi called on the National Elections Authority (NEA) to review appeals filed by several candidates over alleged fraud in the first round of the parliamentary vote, according to an Ittihadiya statement. He called on the authority to “thoroughly examine all incidents and appeals submitted.”
(Tap or click the headline above to read this story with all of the links to our background as well as external sources.)
What does this mean? The move could potentially see the authority fully or partially annul the first phase of the House of Representatives elections and rerun it at a later date.
REMEMBER- The first round of voting wrapped up last week and we had been expecting the results to be announced today to be followed by runoff elections. It remains unclear how the timeline will change following El Sisi’s directives.
What would warrant a rerun? NEA Executive Director Ahmed Bendary told El Sora’s Lamees El Hadidi that reruns would only be triggered by “fundamental flaws” in the voting process — violations that undermine its integrity, such as voter manipulation or major errors in vote tallying (watch, runtime: 12:52). “Exceeding the campaign spending cap does not in itself constitute a fundamental flaw requiring elections to be annulled, but it is a violation that can lead to penalties,” he clarified. The decisive factor, he said, is violating the electoral silence period, “because it directly affects the voter’s decision.”
“Reruns are expected in at least 20 districts out of the 70 where votes were casted,” journalist Akram El Alfy told El Hadidi (watch, runtime: 2:04), warning that this “undermines the integrity of the electoral process.” He pointed to “clear violations in some districts — mainly in Fayoum, Alexandria, and Sohag.”
El Hadidi praised the president’s move, adding that “the decision has put the elections back on the right track” (watch, runtime: 14:03).
El Hekaya’s Amr Adib made an impassioned plea to the NEA “to scrap the entire first phase of election and take advantage of the historic opportunity to correct course,” (watch, runtime: 35:29). “This is the first time in Egypt’s history that a president steps in and says there were violations in the elections,” he added.
