Violations reported by candidates and voters on Monday did nothing to alter the scene on the second day of the second phase of Egypt’s parliamentary elections.
Vote buying and staged queues outside polling stations were nothing new in this phase. They were a continuation of what marked the first phase of the House elections, and the Senate elections before them.
On a tour of Sayyida Zeinab and Abdeen in central Cairo, Al Manassa observed noticeably limited turnout. Inside, the almost empty polling stations stood in stark contrast to the unmoving queues outside—especially at Sheikh Ali Youssef Primary School and Khedive Ismail Military Secondary School.
With journalists and media absent from Sayyida Zeinab Girls’ Secondary School on Tuesday afternoon, the “electoral extras”—young men and women placed in the artificial line—sat on the sidewalks on both sides of the road leading to the entrance. Inside, only a small number of actual voters were present.
A market for votes
The price of a vote on day two held steady at 300 Egyptian pounds (about $6), matching what Al Manassa recorded the day before.
At several schools serving as polling sites in Matariya, voters were largely absent—and this time, the staged queues that had appeared in other areas were gone.
At Abtal El-Obour Primary School, the polling site was quiet, with no voters entering or exiting. The same held outside El-Sheimaa Preparatory School for Girls, aside from a few older women, and at the private Port Said School.
But the scene changed at Martyr Mostafa Sayed Fouad School (formerly El-Rashad), where youths and men stood in an unmoving staged queue, none entering the polling station. Most belonged to the campaign of National Front Party candidate Maj. Gen. Ali El-Demerdash, who had turned a shop opposite the school into an unofficial campaign headquarters where several women had gathered.
Ahlam Hassan told Al Manassa she came to vote after supporters of a candidate promised her 300 pounds. Leaving the school, she said she was heading to a nearby street to collect the money.
A group of mostly women gathered outside a workshop on El-Wirash Street. One woman told Al Manassa she had come to collect 300 pounds in exchange for her vote for a candidate.
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Independent candidate Mohamed Zahran said in a Facebook Live video that he had footage proving vote buying. He accused another candidate of using the event hall of Noor El-Mohamady Mosque as a base for distributing cash to voters. He said he would submit the videos to the National Elections Authority/NEA.
“Money is pouring in like water,” he said. “Cash is everywhere in front of the polling stations—plain as day. Buses, cars, everything. What’s the solution? I can’t police 23 polling stations and the side streets where the money is being handed out. What can I do? If just 10 percent of Matariya comes out to vote, they can choose whoever they want.”
A sudden shift in Basateen
In Basateen and Dar El-Salam, turnout remained limited. Al Manassa observed citizens being transported in microbuses to the school complex, but stickers for candidate Ali Abdalwanis—plastered on vehicles the day before—had disappeared. In their place were labels showing the number 2, his number on the ballot.
Also gone were the printed cards many voters carried on Monday showing polling station locations and featuring photos of three individual-seat candidates—Mahmoud El-Sheikh (Nation’s Future Party), Ali Abdalwanis (Homeland Defenders Party), and Islam Akmal Kortam (Conservative Party)—under the “National List” banner.
Instead, many citizens carried identical sheets containing only their voting details, with no candidate logos.
Al Manassa also saw dozens of people sitting on sidewalks and chairs outside Al-Farouk Primary School 1, waiting in lines that did not move for more than two hours.
The head of one polling station at Al-Farouk Primary 2 said that 360 out of 10,275 registered voters cast ballots on the first day (3.5%).
He told Al Manassa, requesting anonymity, that polling stations would close only after the last voter in line cast a ballot, after which counting would begin at the subcommittee level before results were transferred to the district’s main committee.
Former MP Khaled Abdel Aziz—now running as an independent—said he had filed formal complaints with the NEA and the Interior Ministry regarding what he described as “serious violations” in Basateen and Dar El-Salam. On Monday, he had live-streamed footage documenting what he said were “violations” and “voter steering” through “coupons” directing citizens to vote for three candidates under the “National List” label.
During a tour of the school complex, Abdel Aziz told Al Manassa the violations included “electoral bribes” and “deceiving ordinary citizens” into believing there was a unified “national list” of three candidates. He said such acts constituted offenses punishable by law.
He added that he had received confirmation that investigations had begun and that the NEA said it had detected violations in Basateen and Dar El-Salam now under review.
He said more than 135 lawyers had joined him to form a legal team to confront “this epidemic” in Dar El-Salam, Heliopolis, and other districts.
Basateen and Dar El-Salam together have three individual seats in parliament, contested by 20 candidates—three from Nation’s Future, Homeland Defenders, and the Conservative Party, and 17 independents, including one woman.
A candidate’s cry for help
After documenting violations in several videos and preparing to file a complaint to the NEA, Monica Magdy, the Reform and Renaissance Party candidate for Shubra, Rod El-Farag, and Boulaq Abul Ela, posted an urgent plea on Tuesday asking for lawyers and supporters to come to the Shubra police station after her mother and sister were arrested.
“I started going live yesterday and I’m continuing to document every violation and preparing a consolidated complaint,” she told Al Manassa.
She said a group of women associated with a rival candidate created a disturbance outside Ibn Saleh School, accusing her of distributing money and attempting to assault her. Police intervened and detained her mother, sister, and several of what she described as “thugs.”
She said she would continue exposing violations and trying to confront political money.
Around 7 pm on Tuesday, Magdy wrote on Facebook: “My mother and sister still haven’t returned. Their phones have been switched off. May God get them justice.”
The Reform and Renaissance Party condemned “the distressing assaults on members of her family and campaign,” saying such acts “have nothing to do with the democratic process, violate the law, and undermine fair competition.”
The party stressed that it “rejects such practices, which inflict serious harm on the electoral process and distort the climate for free competition, injecting violence and pressure into a process meant to respect the popular will and the rights of all candidates.”
Assault on another candidate
This was not the party’s only denunciation on Tuesday. Earlier, it had condemned what it called “gross misconduct” by supporters of a rival candidate against its own candidate, Hani Khedr, running in Shebeen El-Kom district.
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Khedr stated he was assaulted inside Mohamed El-Sayed El-Shenawany School in Melig while documenting an electoral violation. He said he was pushed, prevented from filing an incident report, and detained inside the polling station.
But the NEA offered a different account. At a press conference, NEA executive director Ahmed Bendari said the incident “was fabricated and untrue.”
“The candidate tore his own clothes,” Bendari said, claiming Khadr falsely alleged illegal campaigning outside the station, then appeared in a live video implying the incident had occurred inside—even though it had not.
Bendari said the NEA filed an official memo recording the details, including the candidate “inventing an incident and deliberately tearing his clothes,” and broadcasting live from inside the station against regulations.
A crowded field, a hollow process
Tuesday marked the end of voting in the second phase of the parliamentary elections, covering 13 governorates: Cairo, Qalyoubia, Dakahliya, Menoufiya, Gharbiya, Kafr El-Sheikh, Sharqiya, Damietta, Port Said, Ismailia, Suez, North Sinai and South Sinai. A total of 1,316 candidates are contesting 141 individual seats.
The first phase saw widespread violations and withdrawals amid allegations of unfairness in campaigning, counting and voting. Protests broke out in several areas after the results announced by the main committees in some districts.
Afterward, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi called on the NEA to investigate the violations and incidents of phase one, leading to the annulment of results in 19 districts across seven governorates, including Giza, Fayoum, Assiut, Sohag, Qena, Alexandria and Beheira.
On Friday, ten Egyptian rights organizations accused the authorities of stripping the 2025 parliamentary elections of all democratic substance. In a joint statement, they called for canceling the current electoral process, which they said “is beholden to Sisi’s will,” amid what they described as the NEA’s “lack of independence.”
