Sisi walks fine line between Egypt’s tycoons and generals

The Brotherhood’s disappearance from the public political scene is a far cry from a group, then officially banned but tolerated, which fielded candidates in parliamentary elections under former president Hosni Mubarak.

The voting is to be held at Egypt’s diplomatic missions in 139 countries over two successive days in the multi-phase elections, which run through December.

CAIRO (AP) – Egyptians residing overseas have begun casting votes in the country’s first parliamentary election since the 2013 military overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

The vote is staggered, with polling in half of Egypt’s governorates set to start Sunday.

But business leaders worry that the pace of reform has slowed since the president’s election previous year. Interior Ministry spokesman Abu Bakr Abdel-Karim says they will be joined by 180,000 police.

An ensuing government crackdown targeting Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood movement – which had swept all elections since Mubarak’s fall – left more than a thousand dead and tens of thousands imprisoned. Candidates have been holding rallies and their election songs have been blasting across the streets in megaphones for the past 18 days.

“The Brotherhood will stay outside the political game as long as President Sisi is in power”, said Hazem Hosny, professor of political science at Cairo University.

But Carnegie Center researcher Nathan Brown said parliament’s “ability to use them might be close to zero if the elections result in the fractured and non-ideological parliament so widely expected”.

The 596-member parliament will include 28 presidential appointees, with the rest elected under a complex system of independent candidates and party lists.

An Egyptian walks in front of a polling station of the…