“Extremely complicated”: that is the description that applies to the Egyptian political scene a week before the parliamentary elections. In spite of this, all predictions indicate that the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) will obtain the greater part of Parliament seats, as it has at every election held since the party was founded, a party which was the heir of the Misr Party, which in turn was the heir of the Socialist Union. As for the reason why the scene seems extremely complicated, it is because all of the parties and forces taking part in the elections suffer from ails and internal problems that exceed the challenge of competing against other political forces for Parliament seats. Even the NDP is suffering! While political parties have suffered from not being able to put forward major figures of theirs as candidates for all the seats contended in the elections, the ruling party's problem has been the exact opposite. Indeed, the number of those wishing to wage the elections and to be candidates on NDP lists, and eager to win Parliament seats, has exceeded the number of seats contended in these elections. This is why the party has resorted to an innovation, making history by recording a unique occurrence among all political parties throughout the world. According to Egypt's electoral system, every electoral district is ascribed two seats, one of them reserved for workers or farmers in accordance with the Constitution, which requires workers and farmers to be represented by no less than 50 percent of Parliament. Yet the NDP has not put forward two candidates in each district to compete against the remaining candidates from other political parties and forces or from among the independents, but has instead resorted to naming more than one candidate to compete over each individual seat! Thus it seems that the contest will not be taking place between one NDP candidate on the one hand and the candidates of other parties, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood or independent candidates on the other, but that there will be added to those a candidate also affiliated with the ruling party! NDP leaders have put forward justifications that were not convincing for some, yet it seemed clear that the party was seeking to avoid the occurrence of rifts between some of its leading figures, and thus came up with the idea of “open districts”, where several candidates affiliated with the party would compete over a single seat. This may lead to fragmenting votes in some districts, resulting in a candidate not affiliated with the part winning the seat for example, but that is a different issue. What matters now is that the majority of those who wished to run as candidates on NDP lists and were completely excluded are angry, and some of them and those who support them have organized sit-ins and protests no different from those organized by segments of the Egyptian population in different parts of the country at short intervals, demanding better salaries, raises or incentives. Those angry protesters have not stopped at protests, as in fact some of them have threatened to support Muslim Brotherhood candidates to spite their own party, the NDP! As for the Muslim Brotherhood, some of the members of which have opposed the notion of participating in the elections in the first place, considering that they would be rigged, and that the government would resort to tinkering with the ballot boxes, its candidates too fear that not all of its members will head to the electoral committees, thereby losing a feature that had long distinguished Brotherhood candidates from the remaining candidates in any elections. The same applies to the candidates of the Wafd, Tagammu and Nasserist parties, within which strong opposition to the notion of participating has emerged. Thus, candidates at the Egyptian elections from all parties, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood, will be waging their battles in multiple directions. All of this is happening and yet the result of the elections is nearly known in advance, making the political scene seem extremely complicated although the result is extremely clear!
