The Egypt 2011/12 Election Thread

[Tender Branson]

Didn't see one, so here it is:



Can anyone with knowledge of Egypt politics explain to me why these elections last a total of 100 days or so (I have read in the newspaper) ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_parliamentary_election,_2011%E2%80%932012

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Shura_Council_election,_2012

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_presidential_election,_2012

[minionofmidas]

Your first link has the procedure.

Why they chose such a procedure, I don't know. There's a lot of speculation about that, inevitably.
India votes in phases (and counts at the end), too.

[Tender Branson]

Your first link has the procedure.

Why they chose such a procedure, I don't know. There's a lot of speculation about that, inevitably.
India votes in phases (and counts at the end), too.

India I can understand, it is vast. But Egypt is like Germany, so they could hold it on a weekend.

Maybe turnout matters have played a role. If it really increases turnout and the elections are really transparent, I have nothing against this system. But in general I'm against the fact that ballot boxes with votes are stored for a few months and then counted ...

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Reporting an 'exceptionally high turnout' in Asyut, particularly among women.

Please please please don't let this be ed up worse than it has to be...

[Middle-aged Europe]

Voting in three "stages", each with a run-off? And for the Shura Council as well? Oh, boy...

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Curious when we'll be able to see the first results

[Meeker]

Curious when we'll be able to see the first results

Probably sometime in late 2013 at this rate.

[The Mikado]

Courtesy the Something Awful thread on the Arab Spring, the final results of the first (of three) waves of voting is in:

(Ham's actually posting this from Cairo: if you disagree with his assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood...well...a lot of people do, but he actually sees them):

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Meeker]

Is there any reason to think that the districts/regions that voted in this round will be better/worse for the Muslim Brotherhood than the other parts of the country? Or are these districts a pretty representative sample? Or is there really no way to tell?

[Hash]

They're pretty much the liberal districts judging from the referendum: Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, Red Sea.

[Beet]

Salafists are Leftist and the Egyptian Bloc are Rightist?

[Verily]

They're pretty much the liberal districts judging from the referendum: Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, Red Sea.

Alexandria is a stronghold of the Islamists, actually. Quite true that Cairo, Port Said and the Red Sea resorts were likely to be the best results for the liberals, though.

[Hash]

They're pretty much the liberal districts judging from the referendum: Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, Red Sea.

Alexandria is a stronghold of the Islamists, actually. Quite true that Cairo, Port Said and the Red Sea resorts were likely to be the best results for the liberals, though.

Perhaps, but again, judging solely from the referendum, Alexandria was more liberal than the country as a whole. Given that the referendum was a proxy for liberal/conservative.

[Insula Dei]

They're pretty much the liberal districts judging from the referendum: Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, Red Sea.

Alexandria is a stronghold of the Islamists, actually. Quite true that Cairo, Port Said and the Red Sea resorts were likely to be the best results for the liberals, though.

Perhaps, but again, judging solely from the referendum, Alexandria was more liberal than the country as a whole. Given that the referendum was a proxy for liberal/conservative.

It's my understanding that lots of liberals (or more accurately, as that's what everybod really means to say: secularists) didn't vote 'liberal' there, because the issues at the heart of the referendum didn't seem worth risking the revolution over. Shouldn't that mean we ought to expect secular parties to outperform the score we would expect based solely on the referendum?

Courtesy the Something Awful thread on the Arab Spring, the final results of the first (of three) waves of voting is in:

(Ham's actually posting this from Cairo: if you disagree with his assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood...well...a lot of people do, but he actually sees them):

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Those qualifications seem solid to me, from what little I know about the situation on the ground. Seems like the MB is eating the fruits of a) playing the hand they've been dealt to perfection and b) building up tons of credibility as an opposition party over the past few decades.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Aren't they also the new bestest friends of the military?

[The Mikado]

Salafists are Leftist and the Egyptian Bloc are Rightist?

He put each party on a religious/social axis (Islamist/secular) and an economic axis (left/right).  His description of the Salafists regards their economic views.

As for Egyptian Bloc, Ham's logic was that it's a coalition of three parties, two left one right, with nothing in common but support of secularism and anti-Muslim Brotherhood.  He said that the right party in the blocis the dominant one.

[GMantis]

So it's likely that the other two regions will support the Islamists even stronger.

[minionofmidas]

So basically, the difference between Egypt and Tunisia is that there are no decent secular parties in Egypt - worthwhile noting that the decent secular parties in Tunisia (CPR, Et Takatol) are far more willing to work with the Islamists than the non-decent ones.
An Islamic/Leftist/Personalist alternative to the main Islamists emerged in Tunisia as well, of course... and it didn't even have a preexisting organization to build on.

[Colbert]

awful results. Arabs countries seems all now supporting liberal or islamic parties. No bit of arab nationalism, as nasserism, baathism... Bad news for arabs women

[minionofmidas]

Yeah well, talk about a discredited ideology.