Egypt: Elections a comedy against the background of rights violations

The parliamentary elections in Egypt have seen the large victory of the ruling National Democratic party (NDP), amidst massive frauds reported by election monitors and the withdrawal of the main opposition parties in the run-off. According to prominent Egyptian political analysts, the NDP’s candidate selection process was marred by internal discord and suffered lack of sophistication, as the party allowed almost 800 candidates for 508 seats, with many candidates competing against each other in 'open constituencies', while preventing party members whose candidate applications were unsuccessful from leaving the NDP to run independently.