Egypt in last phase of parliamentary poll

03/01/2012| IslamWeb

Egypt is all set for the third round of a parliamentary election after the uprising that unseated President Hosni Mubarak in February last year. 

The run-up to Tuesday's poll has been overshadowed by the deaths of 17 people last month in clashes between the army and protesters demanding the military step aside immediately. 

But the ruling generals have insisted the election process will not be derailed by violence. 

Islamist groups came late to the uprising but have so far won the biggest share of seats in the first free and fair elections in six decades. 

Monitors mostly praised the first two rounds as free of the ballot stuffing, thuggery and vote rigging that once guaranteed landslide wins for Mubarak's party. 

But police raids on pro-democracy and rights groups last week have disrupted the work of leading Western-backed election monitors and drew accusations that the army was deliberately trying to weaken oversight of the vote and silence critics.

'Harassment

The government said the raids were part of a probe into illegal foreign funding of political parties and not aimed at weakening rights groups, which have been among the fiercest critics of the army's turbulent rule . 

Nevertheless, Washington called on the Egyptian government to halt "harassment" of the groups involved.

The US-funded International Republican Institute said it had been invited by Egypt government to monitor the election and did not give funding to political parties or civic groups. 

It urged the government to let staff return to their offices and obtain the official registration they had long requested. 

"There is no reason not to allow IRI to assess the elections," the IRI said in a statement on Monday. 

The concluding vote to the lower house of parliament takes in regions of the rural south, which has the largest proportions of Christian voters, the industrial Nile Delta region north of the capital Cairo, and the restive Sinai desert region to the east. 

Fourteen million eligible voters in nine regions will choose who occupies 150 of the seats in parliament. 

The army, under pressure to hasten the handover to civilian rule, issued a decree on Sunday to shorten the forthcoming upper house election to two rounds from three.

PHOTO CAPTION

 

Supporters of the Egyptian Social Democratic party attend a demonstration calling for human rights in Cairo Egypt, Monday, Jan. 2, 2012.

 

Aljazeera