Translation: "Tarek Hagres, son of Blashon [the name of the Village- in the city of El Sharaky and in the state of Mashtool], parliament 2011, worker"
While there wasn't any graffiti in the village that I stayed in, some candidates for the upcoming parliamentary elections painted their names on the sides of buildings. Only the Freedom & Justice Party (the recently formed political party of the Muslim Brotherhood) had proper campaign posters. The Nour Party (the party of the Salafists, i.e. another Islamic party) also had a presence in the village, but the Freedom & Justice Party clearly dominated the village in terms of posters by at least 75:1.
Before I came to Cairo I read that the Freedom & Justice Party were the most organized party, but I didn't understand to what extent until I arrived. It's not just that the Freedom & Justice Party is the most organized party, it's the fact that none of the other political parties are organized. Apart from the Al Wasat Party (The Centrist Party)-- which broke form the Muslim Brotherhood in 1996, but didn't receive official recognition by the Political Party Committee until after the Revolution-- and the secular Free Egyptian Party-- founded by the Mobinil chairman Naguib Sawaris (himself a Christian) after the Revolution, most of the 50 odd political parties do very little advertising and even less to recruit new members.
The Freedom & Justice party, in contrast, has easily identifiable, standardized posters in every corner of Cairo. Al Wasat also has standardized posters, but not as many as the Freedom & Justice Party and the Free Egyptian Party has large bill boards on Ring Road (Cairo's version of a highway).
The Freedom & Justice Party does have an advantage because of its association with the Muslim Brotherhood which fielded independent candidates in previous elections and is itself a large Islamic organization which provides schooling and medical care to the underprivileged in Egypt, but the other parties seriously lack behind The Freedom & Justice Party.
The upcoming parliamentary elections (for the lower house, Maglis Al-Shaab) will be in 3 rounds to allow for jurisdictional supervision at each polling station. The elections will take place on 28 November, 14 December and 3 January with a run-off scheduled for a week after each election.
There will be two ballots-- 1 ballot for the individual list and 1 ballot for the party list.
On the individual list, a voter must vote for two candidates, one of whom must be a worker/ farmer.
The order of the party list is locked-in before the election and depends on the national vote-- if a party receives 10% of the vote, the first 10% of the names on their list will become MPs. There are currently 55 political parties registered and 350 party-lists. A party list can be either a single party or a coalition of parties.
Every other name on the Party list must alternate between a (fa'at-- i.e. a candidate, an educated person [lawyer, engineer, doctor] who attended college immediately after high school before beginning his career) and a worker (3mal-- one who works in a factory, even if he is educated now he must have begun his career as a worker before attending college)/ farmer (flah-- one who works on a farm [there is a restriction on the number of lands he can own]). The 50% quota for farmers existed under Mubarak, but was not strictly enforced. The quota for women in the parliament which Mubarak enacted is no longer in place, but women must be on the party list (they could, however, be at the bottom virtually guaranteeing that they will not become MPs).
The winners from the individual list will comprise 1/3 of the the Maglis Al-Shaab, while winners from the party list will compose 2/3 of the Maglis Al-Shaab. The Maglis Al-Shaab is composed of 508 representatives, 10 of whom are appointed by the President.
Here is a helpful diagram.
I learned the above information in my Egyptian Law course. IFES (the International Foundation for Election Systems) is a good source of information.
Translation: Freedom and Justice Party- "The principles of Islamic Law are the sources of inspiration for the party."
Translation: Muslim Brotherhood- "Islam is the Solution"
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