Who’s to Blame? Election fallout sparks rare public rift inside Egypt’s judiciary
With the second round of voting having begun this morning, Egypt’s 2025 House of Representatives elections have already done more than expose procedural flaws; they have revealed a rift within the judicial establishment. As voters prepared to return to the polls, the fallout from the first round continued to shape public perceptions of credibility and oversight.
What began as an unprecedented announcement by the National Elections Authority (NEA) voiding results in 19 constituencies quickly escalated into an open confrontation between Egypt’s ordinary judiciary and the administrative judicial bodies that oversaw the vote. The dispute has laid bare tensions over judicial prestige, legal responsibility, and political pressure in a moment when public trust in elections is already fragile.
A war of statements
The crisis erupted after the Judges Club issued a statement timed to coincide with the NEA’s annulment decision. In its statement, the Club emphasized that judges and public prosecutors had not supervised the 2025 parliamentary elections, stressing that this position adhered to constitutional provisions limiting judicial supervision to what the law explicitly permits. The Club expressed deep appreciation for President Abdel Fattah El‑Sisi’s guidance to the NEA, praising his giving the green light to making the correct decision whenever the true will of voters could not be reached.
The Judges Club also thanked members of the Administrative Prosecution Authority and the State Lawsuits Authority for their considerable efforts in overseeing the first round of voting, describing their role as one of national responsibility and service.
For the Administrative Prosecution Authority and the State Lawsuits Authority—the two bodies that actually supervised the elections—this framing signaled an attempt by the Judges Club to distance itself from responsibility, and shift blame for irregularities. Two senior officials from these bodies described the statement as a clear act of “disavowal”.
The strongest pushback came from the Alexandria branch of the Maritime Club of the Administrative Prosecution, which condemned what it called “the narcissism of the Judges Club’s statement,” and criticized what it deemed “the harshness of the National Elections Authority.”
The Maritime Club of the Administrative Prosecution is not a legal or judicial institution, but it functions as a social association that unites members and gives voice to their shared concerns and positions within the administrative prosecution community.
The Alexandria Maritime Club statement revealed that the NEA had issued direct instructions telling supervisors not to hand tally sheets to candidate representatives “a direct instruction… which the Authority later disavowed publicly.”
The club defended the supervisors’ efforts as “the struggle of warriors,” highlighting harsh working conditions marked by “poorly arranged transport and accommodation, and inhumanly extended working hours.”
The Alexandria statement concluded with a pointed rebuke of the Judges Club “Let those who withdrew… step aside instead of staining the warriors with foul words.”
Why administrative bodies now oversee elections
Judicial involvement in Egyptian elections is not a recent development, though for much of the country’s modern history, election administration remained under the Interior Ministry’s control. It was only in the mid‑2000s that judicial oversight began to attract national attention.
In 2005, many judges actively challenged Interior Ministry practices and publicly exposed irregularities, positioning themselves as a counterweight to executive interference. By contrast, in 2010, although judges were still involved in supervising general voting committees, their ability to intervene was significantly weaker. Widespread rigging proceeded despite their presence, and the judiciary’s limited capacity to stop or publicly confront the fraud contributed to growing public anger; making the 2010 elections one of the catalysts for the January 25 Revolution.
This period of partial and inconsistent oversight stood in contrast to the later constitutional guarantees adopted in 2014.
The 2014 Constitution mandated full judicial supervision of all elections and referendums for a ten‑year transitional period (2014–2024). During those years, every polling station had to include a member of the judiciary, dramatically expanding judicial involvement.
Once the ten‑year period expired in January 2024, the state was no longer constitutionally obligated to deploy judges at each station. Administrative decisions and legal reforms then moved frontline supervision to judicial bodies, primarily the Administrative Prosecution Authority and the State Lawsuits Authority. Their role was solidified by Law No. 198 of 2017, which established the NEA and formalized their place in electoral administration.
The NEA is an independent body governed by a ten-member Board of Directors drawn equally from across the judiciary; vice-presidents of the Court of Cassation, presidents of the Courts of Appeal, vice-presidents of the State Council, the State Lawsuits Authority, and the Administrative Prosecution Authority.
These members are selected by the Supreme Judicial Council and appointed by presidential decree for six-year terms, during which they work exclusively within the NEA. Supporting them is a permanent executive body responsible for day-to-day management, ensuring that the Authority maintains neutrality, independence, and integrity in supervising presidential, parliamentary, and local elections, as well as national referendums.
According to the law, Administrative judicial bodies (The Administrative Prosecution Authority which investigates and prosecutes misconduct within Egypt’s public sector, and the State Lawsuits Authority that represents the government in legal disputes and oversees the legality of state contracts) are now the bodies overseeing voting, counting, documenting violations, and certifying results.
Anger inside Administrative Prosecution and State Lawsuits Authority
The Judges Club’s statement generated widespread anger. Amr Abdel Warith, spokesperson for the Administrative Prosecution Club, described it as triggering “a state of overwhelming anger,” in his comments to Al Manassa.
Within the State Lawsuits Authority, the backlash prompted its president, Hussein Madkour, to issue an internal memo urging members to stay focused and “to ignore the noise and petty remarks on social media.”
Speaking to Al Manassa, a senior Administrative counsellor criticized the Judges Club’s stance as “provocative and unjustified,” noting that it appeared to absolve ordinary judges while implicitly blaming administrative judicial bodies.
The same official highlighted egregious violations outside polling stations, including vote‑buying and orchestrated crowding. He recalled that in one Waraq polling station, only 102 of 8,000 registered voters cast ballots, while outside there was “artificial turnout,” fueled by money and distribution of food boxes.
Abdel Warith told Al Manassa that had supervisors filed a report for every citizen asking about a food coupon, “there would have been no turnout left at all.”
Supervisors also reported the near‑total absence of candidate representatives: one polling station had 27 competing candidates, yet only one representative appeared—and he refused his tally sheet when he learned his candidate received just 48 votes.
Why the Judges Club distanced itself
A senior appeal court judge defended the Judges Club’s statement as necessary to protect the judiciary’s reputation “The Judges Club had to act, because these violations damage public trust in the judiciary.”
He told Al Manassa that the public mistakenly assumes all judicial bodies are the same “people do not understand the distinctions between judicial bodies.”
According to him, the Club needed to clarify that ordinary judges were not involved in supervising the 2025 elections.
El-Sisi’s public call for the NEA to register “the true will of voters” was widely interpreted as a message that irregularities should not be ignored. Shortly after this intervention, the NEA shifted from defending the integrity of the process to canceling results in 19 constituencies. The timing underscored the extent of executive influence over the Authority, despite its legally defined independence.
A systemic crisis beneath the surface
A senior State Lawsuits Authority official emphasized that the real concern went beyond whether tally sheets were handed to candidate representatives. What mattered, he said, was determining whether the figures reported by subcommittees were accurately reflected in the totals announced by the general committees, highlighting the risk of manipulation during the aggregation of results, not only at the polling-station level.
If any discrepancies emerged, he noted, the appropriate remedy would be to reopen the boxes and conduct a full ballot review.
He underscored that this stage of the process—the aggregation of results at the general committee level—is overseen by the NEA, meaning it falls outside the direct supervision of State Lawsuits Authority officials stationed at polling sites.
The official also warned that the widespread political disengagement of educated youth was creating space for informal networks, patronage systems, and vote-buying operations to dominate turnout dynamics. He described this withdrawal as a “dangerous dereliction,” arguing that “the absence of politically aware voters leaves electoral processes increasingly vulnerable to manipulation.”
Judicial fragmentation, political pressure, and public distrust
The 2025 elections exposed not only weaknesses in Egypt’s electoral administration but also deeper institutional fractures within the judiciary. What began as a dispute over supervisory responsibility evolved into a broader struggle over judicial credibility and political influence.
As long as elections unfold under powerful executive oversight, low public trust, and fragmented institutional roles, no judicial body, ordinary or administrative, can fully escape the consequences of a flawed process, analysts say.
As Egyptians head into the second round on Monday, these unresolved tensions cast a long shadow over the process. Egypt’s judiciary, like its elections, now stands at a critical crossroads: seeking to protect its prestige in an environment where political pressure, institutional fragmentation, and public distrust threaten to define the remainder of the electoral cycle.