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Egypt’s NEA to Announce Results of 2nd Round of Parliamentary Elections on Sunday

Head of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) Lasheen Ibrahim speaks during a news conference in Cairo, Egypt January 8, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
Head of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) Lasheen Ibrahim speaks during a news conference in Cairo, Egypt January 8, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
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Egypt’s NEA to Announce Results of 2nd Round of Parliamentary Elections on Sunday

Head of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) Lasheen Ibrahim speaks during a news conference in Cairo, Egypt January 8, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
Head of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) Lasheen Ibrahim speaks during a news conference in Cairo, Egypt January 8, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

Egypt’s National Electoral Commission (NEC) will announce the results of the second round of parliamentary elections on Sunday.

Head of the NEC Lasheen Ibrahim said all results were received from the public committees on the level of the 13 governorates where elections took place as well as the votes by expatriates, noting that the results provided by committees were accurately revised.

The NEC has stressed that it is the only official body entrusted with announcing the final results of the elections.

It will hold a press conference on Sunday at Cairo’s Maspero building, headquarters of Egypt’s Radio and Television Union (ERTU), in the presence of local and foreign media, to announce the results of the second round of elections.

Ibrahim has earlier announced that the commission has not received any complaint that would affect the electoral process, asserting that any issue was dealt with in a professional and accurate manner.

During this round, which concluded last week, 2,085 candidates competed in a single-member district system in 70 constituencies, while the lists competed for 142 seats in the legislature.

The second round of elections took place in Cairo, Qalyubia, Menoufia, Daqahlia, Gharbiya, Kafr el-Sheikh, Sharqiya, Damietta, Port Said, Ismailia, Suez, North Sinai and South Sinai.

Around 31 million Egyptians were eligible to vote in 9,261 sub-committees, over 70 electoral districts, supervised by 12,000 judges, according to official figures.

The run-off elections will take place, depending on the results, on December 7 and 8 inside Egypt, and December 5, 6 and 7 for expatriates.

A total of 568 seats in the lower chamber are up for grabs in the election, with half the seats reserved for candidates running as individuals.

The other 50 percent of seats in the House of Representatives are for over 1,100 candidates running on four party lists. The president will name 28 seats, or five percent, bringing the total number of seats in the lower chamber to 596.

A quota of 25 percent of the seats is reserved for women, according to constitutional amendments approved in a national referendum last year.

The turnout in the first round of parliamentary elections was at 28.6 percent, the NEC had previously revealed.

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Syria Authorities Say Armed Groups Have Agreed to Disband

Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks to the media in Damascus, Syria, December 23, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks to the media in Damascus, Syria, December 23, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
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Syria Authorities Say Armed Groups Have Agreed to Disband

Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks to the media in Damascus, Syria, December 23, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks to the media in Damascus, Syria, December 23, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Syria's new leaders announced Tuesday that they had reached an agreement with the country's opposition groups on their dissolution and integration under the defense ministry.  

Absent from the meeting were representatives of the US-backed, Kurdish-led forces that control swathes of Syria's northeast.  

The meeting between the opposition groups and Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa "ended in an agreement on the dissolution of all the groups and their integration under the supervision of the ministry of defense", said a statement carried by the SANA news agency and the authorities' Telegram account.

The announcement comes just over two weeks after President Bashar al-Assad fled Syria, following a lightning offensive spearheaded by Sharaa's Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group.

On Sunday Sharaa, long known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, had said the new authorities would "absolutely not allow there to be weapons in the country outside state control".  

That also applied to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), he said.  

Last week, the military chief of HTS told AFP that Kurdish-held areas would be integrated under the new leadership, and that "Syria will not be divided".  

Thirteen years of civil war in Syria has left more than half a million people dead and fragmented the country into zones of influence controlled by different armed groups backed by regional and international powers.

SDF spokesman Farhad Shami told AFP the question of his group's integration into the national armed forces "should be discussed directly".  

He did not dismiss the possibility, saying that doing so would strengthen "the whole of Syria".  

Shami added that his forces prefer "dialogue with Damascus to resolve all questions".  

- 'Economic leverage' -  

Türkiye has long held ties with HTS, and analysts say that since the opposition took over Syria, both sides have sought to profit from the relationship.  

Ankara accuses the People's Protection Units (YPG) -- the main component of the SDF -- of being affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency on Turkish soil.  

Earlier this month, a Syria specialist who advises Western diplomats in Türkiye said: "The Turks would like to push HTS into striking at the Kurds but HTS doesn't want to get involved."

Although Ankara's role in Assad's overthrow had been "overstated", Türkiye now has "real economic leverage" thanks to the 900-kilometer (560-mile) border it shares with Syria, the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.  

How the situation develops will also depend on US President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on January 20 but has already proclaimed that "Türkiye is going to hold the key to Syria".  

Since late November, the SDF has been battling Türkiye-backed fighters who launched an offensive on Kurdish-held areas at the same time as HTS's anti-Assad campaign.  

On Tuesday, the SDF said in a statement its fighters were waging deadly combat to the east of the key city of Manbij, with 16 deaths in its ranks.  

Syria's Kurds, long oppressed under Assad's rule, saw an opportunity during the war to carve out a semi-autonomous territory in the northeast.  

They proved an indispensable ally to the US-led coalition battling the ISIS group.  

Since Assad's ouster on December 8, they have issued numerous statements welcoming his downfall, and also put out calls for dialogue with the new leadership in Damascus and with Türkiye.  

In Syria's northeast, both the Kurdish flag and the three-star independence-era flag used by the new authorities can be seen.