For the Love of Egypt (FLE), an alliance supportive of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, won all of 60 seats allocated for electoral lists.
Alaa Abdel Moneim, a FLE candidate for the Cairo precinct, said the second round of votes, slated for November 22 in 13 provinces, will decide the shape of political alliances among main parliamentary blocs, pointing to what he described as “the difficulty for any party or list to unilaterally secure a majority.”
Abdel Moneim told Al-Masry Al-Youm he predicts independents will perform better in the second round and will have the final say in the formation of “a strong political alliance that occupies more than 400 seats.”
He said that such a majority will be difficult to acquire unilaterally by FLE, as well as the Free Egyptians Party which won most individual seats during the first round, without allying with independents.
However, Shehab Waguih, a spokesperson for the Free Egyptians Party, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that there will be no political alliances with the FLE, stressing that their current alliance is “only electoral”.
Meanwhile, the veteran Wafd Party, another electoral ally with FLE, seems to welcome a joining of forces with the FLE.
Abdel Alim Dawoud, a senior party leader, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that “Wafd Party is still a basic component of the FLE list and it is the closest to Wafd inside parliament compared to the Free Egyptians Party.”
