Muslim Brotherhood Leading in Early Egyptian Election Results

In which Egypt's first truly democratic election looks like it will be far more representative – but probably far less powerful – than anything we've seen in Canada.

The Muslim Brotherhood leads in early election results from Egypt, with the party beating netting the most ballots – so far – in most of Egypt's major cities. Voting for Egypt's People's Assembly was held on Monday and Tuesday in nine of Egypt's 27 provinces. After the Muslim Brotherhood, the most popular parties appear to be the conservative Nour Party, and the secular liberal movement called the Egyptian Bloc. While we won't know the make-up of the People's Assembly for sometime yet (nor will we know how the upper house shapes up until March), we do know that Egypt makes a very convincing case for electoral reform in Canada. After all, if a country just flirting with democracy for the first time can handle the process below, we should be able to, as well (via CBC):

The elections for the 498-seat People's Assembly, the lower house of parliament, are taking place in three two-day stages, stretched out until January. In each round, part of the country votes. The areas that voted on Monday and Tuesday — nine of Egypt's 27 provinces — will determine about 30 per cent of the seats.

Two different voting systems are being used, further complicating the situation. Two-thirds of the seats nationwide are determined by lists: A voter selects a party or alliance of parties, and the seats of a district are divvied up among parties in accordance to the number of votes they get. The rest of the seats are determined by races in which individual candidates are competing against each other directly.

Individual candidates will have to enter run-off elections if no one gets 50 per cent in the first round. Any run-offs will take place in a week, before the next section of the country votes in the second round on Dec. 14-15.

For the record, that system is a spin off of mixed-member proportional representation, a system that was offered to Ontarians in a 2007 referendum. It was soundly defeated. Strange how you never see new democracies ever adopting our first-past-the-post system...