Muslim Brotherhood bends rules and expects to win big in Egypt

CAIRO – The Muslim Brotherhood has already started coloring outside the lines in order to win a majority in Egypt’s parliamentary elections.

The organization, which gave its political branch the more ambiguous title, The Party of Freedom and Justice (FJP), is expected to win 40 percent of the seats in the lower house of parliament, according to analysts estimates. Official results from the first round of voting will be announced Thursday.

Based on our own observations at polling stations across Cairo and anecdotal evidence, they seem to have won support at the polls by bending the rules in their favor.

Free food and cheap meat
In Cairo’s Saida Zeinab neighborhood, at one of the busiest polling centers in the city, we saw a party member and two other supporters of an independent candidate passing out leaflets to voters waiting in long lines to cast their ballots – in clear violation of election laws. Soldiers who were on site for crowd control, did nothing to stop them. At the same spot, a tech-savvy FJP member sat on a bench, laptop in hand, to conduct exit polls. At other polling stations, they provided polling information to baffled voters.

In a more economically disadvantaged part of Cairo known as “The Slaughterhouse,” Hanan Nasr, a mother of three, watched FJP members pass out free packages of rice and oil to voters on their way to the polling station – again in contravention of campaign law. They also bussed in party members from surrounding neighborhoods.

Voter confusion played into the hands of the FJP. Many voters simply did not know who the candidates were because of the sheer number of mostly unknown candidates (4,000), unknown parties (35 new ones since President Hosni Mubarak fell from power) and a complicated voting system requiring choices of farmer, labor and independent candidates.

For those who did not understand the voting system, the FJP had people on hand before the election to explain how to make their ballots count – for FJP candidates.

Read the rest here.