Egyptians Vote in Final Round of Parliamentary Elections

[alp227]

The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s mainstream Islamist party, edged closer to winning a controlling majority of seats in the lower house of Parliament as voters went to the polls Tuesday in the final round of the first elections since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

The roughly nine governorates voting on Tuesday included the historic Brotherhood strongholds of Gharbiya and Daqahliyya in the Delta, where a number of the group’s best known candidates are running, including Mohamed Beltaggi, a former member of Parliament. And according to many estimates, its Freedom and Justice Party started the day with roughly 50 percent of the seats awarded in the first two rounds of the vote, having won roughly 40 percent of the seats allocated by party voting and a higher percentage of the seats contested by individual candidates.

Before Tuesday, the Brotherhood’s party had been forecast to win a plurality but not a majority. Winning a clear majority would enable the Brotherhood’s party to govern without forming a coalition, if it chose.

The Brotherhood has said repeatedly that it intends to form a coalition or unity government, in part to avoid unnerving Egyptian liberals or Westerners who may fear an Islamist takeover. It may also wish to share the responsibility for what is expected to be a difficult period of adjustment for the Egyptian state and economy.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/world/africa/egyptians-vote-in-final-round-of-parliamentary-elections.html

[riverwalker]

1. "Liberation Square" book release today.

this excerpt alone has it on my list.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/liberation-square-ashraf-khalil/1104154867?r=1&ean=9781429962445&cm_mmc=Google+Product+Search-_-Q000000630-_-Liberation+Square-_-9781429962445

"The Accidental Dictator

Imagine for a moment that President George Bush (the first) had suddenly died in office, leaving Dan Quayle—a national punch line who nobody thought would ever wield any real power—as president of the United States. Then imagine that nearly three decades later, that same perceived lightweight was still running the country; that an entire generation of Americans had never known any other leader; that he and Marilyn Quayle were busily renaming public buildings, bridges, and libraries after themselves; and that president-for-life Quayle was seemingly grooming one of his children to continue the family business of running the country.
If that seems far-fetched, it’s not too far from the reality that Egyptians had been living through for nearly three decades. Put simply: Hosni Mubarak’s era as Egypt’s modern-day pharaoh was never supposed to happen. One of the core ironies of Mubarak’s twenty-nine-year death grip on Egypt was that he stumbled into what was probably the most important and influential job in the modern Middle East entirely by accident."