In the individual elections, only four seats were initially determined while 50 went into runoffs the following week. After the runoffs, the victories by Islamist parties were even more impressive. Out of a total of 54 contested seats the FJP won 36, the Nour Party won 5, the Egyptian Bloc won 1, the Wafd Party won 1, "Adl Islamic Party won 1, the liberal Free Egypt won 1, independents won 6, and NDP remnants received 3 seats.
With regards to the party lists, each seat was allocated in each province to the party according to its vote totals (each seat equals the total number of votes cast divided by the total number of seats in the province). The remaining seats then follow a remainder formula for allocation, according to the highest vote getter until all seats are allocated. According to conventional wisdom, the total seats that the Islamic parties won in this election was 60-65 per cent. But this author has analyzed the vote results and determined that the total of seats (both individually and party list) that Islamic parties won was in fact 75 per cent as follows:
Islamic Parties: FJP (MB): 77 seats or 50 per cent (36 individual-41 list); Salafist Parties: 33 seats (5 individual-28 list); Wasat and "Adl Parties: 7 seats (1 individual-6 lists). Total: 117 (75 per cent).
Other parties: Egyptian Bloc: 13 seats (2 individual-11 list); Wafd Party: 10 seats (1 individual-9 list); Revolution Continues: 2 seats (list); NDP remnants: 8 seats (3 individual-5 list); Independents: 6 seats (individual). Total: 39 seats (25 per cent).
When the scope of the victory by the Islamic parties was announced, the liberal and secular parties sounded the alarm and vowed to unite together in the next rounds. It is not clear what they will do differently since the secular elites and most Copts live in urban areas. Cairo and Alexandria would have given them their best showing.
Meanwhile, SCAF has seen the writing on the wall. It quickly appointed a new Advisory Council consisting of 30 people to advise SCAF and the newly appointed government headed by Dr. Kamal Al-Ganzouri, a former Prime Minister under Mubarak in the late 1990s. The majority of the members in this council represent liberals and secularists. It also included two potential presidential candidates including former Foreign Minister and Arab League Secretary General Amr Mousa, heads of political parties including Wafd, Free Egyptians Party, Wasat, and Al-Nour, as well as other prominent Egyptians. Initially, the FJP agreed to serve but it quickly withdrew claiming that this was an attempt to get around the will of the Egyptian people as expressed in the elections.
This misgiving was not unfounded. The MB was infuriated by the statement of one of the major figures of the military council. As reported in the New York Times, Gen. Mukhtar Al-Mulla, a SCAF member, told Western journalists on Dec. 7 that to "limit the power of the new Parliament that could be dominated by the Islamic parties," the military planned to "give the newly constituted Advisory Council and the military-appointed cabinet major roles in forming the constitution-writing assembly." In a major rebuke of the will of the Egyptian people as expressed in their unprecedented high turn-out, and free and fair elections, he declared during the briefing that, "the newly elected Parliament does not represent the will of the broader Egyptian public."
Meanwhile, senior leaders of the MB including General Guide Dr. Muhammad Badie and his Deputy Khairat Al-Shater declared that the next government must be formed by the largest party in the elected parliament. Yet earlier, SCAF head Field Marshal Muhammad Hussein Tantawi declared that the military would control the government until the presidential elections are held in June.
If after the elections conclude in January, and the final results hold true as most experts foresee, then a major confrontation in Egyptian streets between SCAF and the Islamic and revolutionary parties is quite possible. If the military takes away the right of the Parliament to appoint the constitution-writing assembly as well as its right to form a new government that was elected by the people, then what exactly was the purpose of the popular elections?
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