There was never much suspense about the results of Egypt’s parliamentary elections: Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi had put in place a voting system that seemed designed to virtually eliminate policy debate or ideological competition.
And turnout in the first two days was so low that one judge involved in overseeing the polling could not keep a straight face about it in a television interview on Monday.
Abdullah Fathy, the president of the association of judges, was asked about procedural violations.
“There are no violations because of the weak participation,” he said, struggling not to laugh.
“Where are the violations or the fights going to come from?” he asked. “There are no incidences, no violations, no excesses — no voters.”
Most of the candidates are local notables without known ideologies or platforms. Many were former members of the ruling party under former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in a popular uprising in 2011. Other candidates are military officers who served under al-Sisi, the defense minister until he led a military takeover in 2013.
“The Egyptian people provided the best response by failing to show up,” said Khaled Dawoud, a former spokesman for a liberal party that boycotted the vote.
“It is an embarrassment, and they can’t deny that it is embarrassment,” he added. “This election will not help attempt to build a democracy or to have a true parliament that can hold the president accountable.”
Egyptian Prime Minister Ismail Sherif on Monday said that 15 or 16 percent of eligible voters had turned out for the first day of voting the previous day, the state news agency reported.
However, he did not cite the source of his estimate and the election commission did not disclose its figures.
Several polling places in the populous areas near Cairo were almost completely empty, except for a handful of elderly voters. Almost every news account indicated a dearth of voters elsewhere as well.
The governor of Alexandria dropped the fares for public transportation, while pro-government talk show hosts hectored their audiences to get out and vote.
However, other Egyptians traded jokes about the turnout.
“I need to be alone for a while,” many posted on Facebook. “I am going to a polling station.”
“No one went today either” was trending on Twitter.
The low turnout recalled polls for the rubber-stamp parliaments under Mubarak, although he had allowed more competition. In his later years in power, Mubarak had permitted the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition group, to win as many as 20 percent of the seats in the parliament.
Al-Sisi has ruled without a legislature since 2013. The current election is expected to return lawmakers to parliament for the first time in more than three years.
For this parliamentary vote, al-Sisi put three-quarters of the seats up for competition by individual candidates, favoring the prominent and wealthy.
In perhaps the most hotly contested district, in Dokki neighborhood of Giza across the Nile from Cairo, the son of a famous soccer team manager was running on the slogan “We Score for You,” with a soccer ball as his logo.
His chief rival was Abdel Rahim Ali, a pro-al-Sisi talk show host known for broadcasting leaked telephone surveillance of the private telephone calls of opposition figures. His logo: a mobile phone.
Another 5 percent of the seats will be filled by presidential appointment. The other 20 percent will be awarded to the parties that get the most votes in each of several large districts.
About half of Egypt’s provinces voted on Sunday and Monday and the others are to vote next month.
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