Recently deceased candidate gets 368 votes in Egypt’s parliamentary polls

Around 368 voters cast their ballots for a candidate in Egypt’s Minya governorate who had died two weeks earlier, a judicial source told Ahram Online Tuesday.

Candidate Mahmoud Khalafallah Mehanna died earlier this month in a car accident, though voting ballots were not adjusted and his name remained on the voting list.

Egyptians in 14 governorates voted in the first phase of the parliamentary elections on Sunday and Monday.

Official election results will be announced by Thursday; however, media outlets and candidate representatives started announcing preliminary results as counted by judges supervising voting stations.

Egypt’s parliament — the House of Representatives — ‎will be comprised of 596 members, 448 elected as independents ‎and 120 from party-based lists. The remaining 28 seats ‎will be filled by presidential appointees.

The second stage of the parliamentary elections, where Egypt’s 13 other governorates will vote, will take place on 22-23 November, and 21-22 November for expatriates.

The country has been without a parliament since the previous house, elected in late 2011, was dissolved in June 2012 after a court ruled electoral laws unconstitutional.

President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi currently holds legislative powers.

Once a parliament is in place its members will have to vote on the laws issued by El-Sisi and his predecessor, interim president Adly Mansour.

source: Ahram online

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