17 Copts win seats in Senate, one runs in runoffs

Initial results of the polling for Egypt’s Senate, which took place 11 and 12 August, and the results of which will be officially announced on 19 August, reveal that 17 Copts have made it to the Senate, and one—Muntassir al-Omda from Assiut—will run in the runoff elections scheduled to take place on 6 -7 September for Egyptians outside Egypt and on 8 – 9 September in Egypt.

Among the 17 winners, three won as individual candidates fielded by the right wing party Mustaqbal Watan. The other 14 won seats through the list system; they had been fielded on the “al-Qa’ima al-Wataniya min Agl Masr” (The National List for the Sake of Egypt) which was drawn by a coalition of 11 political parties under leadership of Mustaqbal Watan (Future of the Nation) party. The coalition, according to Abdel-Wahab Abdel-Razek, head of Mustaqbal Watan, was not a political one, but was formed only to run the elections, thus giving various candidates a better chance at winning instead of fragmenting votes.

The Senate is composed of 300 members, 200 elected through public secret ballot and 100 appointed by the president of the republic. Among the 200 elected members, 100 are elected according to a list system and another 100 run as individuals. At least 10 per cent of the seats are allotted to women.

Egypt gets its Senate

Forty-seven Copts ran for the Senate elections nationwide, 14 on the National list and 33 as individuals among 787 individual candidtates. The 14 on the list won—six Coptic men and eight Coptic women—whereas only three, all of the men, among those who ran as individuals won, with Mr Omda from Assiut awaiting the runoffs. Among the female candidates in general, 91 ran as individual candidates and none of them won, whereas 20 ran on the National list, among them the eight Copts, and they all won.

The winning Copts are:

East Delta list: Nevine George Mikhail; Phoebe Fawzy Girgis
West Delta list: Waguih Rushdy Simbel; Heba Makram Sharubim
Cairo list: Dr Hanna Greiss; Dr Aida Nassief; Dr Ihab Wahba; Irene Thabet George; Samia Onsi Habib
Upper Egypt list: Dr Hany Abdel-Shaheed; Nader Youssef Nessim; Hind Joseph, Victor Farouq Girgis; Rasha Ishaq.
The individual candidates who won are: Nash’at Salib Mitry, Mustaqbal Watan Alexandria; Ra’fat Zaky Sous, Mustaqbal Watan Cairo; and Hadi Lewis Morgan, Cairo.