Egypt's Islamist parties win elections to parliament
| 22.01,12. 12:35 AM |
Egypt's Islamist parties win elections to parliament
The final results in Egypt's first post-Mubarak parliamentary elections confirm an overwhelming victory for Islamist parties.
The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) won the largest number of seats under Egypt's complex electoral system.
The hardline Salafist Nour party came second.
The liberal New Wafd and the secular Egyptian Bloc coalition are some way behind them.
Egyptians voted in three phases over a six-week period to elect the 498 members of the People's Assembly. Ten further members are appointed by the ruling military.
Under the country's system, two-thirds of the seats are allocated to party list candidates, and the remaining third are voted for directly.
The overall results mean that Islamist parties control around two-thirds of the seats in the assembly.
The FJP alone secured 127 seats via the party lists, and 108 from constituency votes, meaning it has almost half of all MPs.
The ultra-conservative Nour party won nearly a quarter of the seats.
Former President Hosni Mubarak was forced to resign last year after a popular uprising.
A new president is due to be elected by June under the timetable set by Egypt's military rulers.
The BBC's Jon Leyne in Cairo says that while the Muslim Brotherhood appear to be finally on the brink of power it is still the president who chooses the government - so the winners of this election do not automatically take office.
The Brotherhood - which led the opposition to Mr Mubarak during his 30 years in power - was until this year officially banned. In practice, it was tolerated as long as it remained at the margins of politics.
bbc
