Egypt’s 2025 House of Representatives election became one of the country’s most controversial parliamentary contests in recent years, with widespread annulments and repeat ballots across dozens of constituencies. The first phase took place on 10–11 November in 14 governorates, followed by the second phase on 24–25 November in 13. Successive electoral and judicial decisions reshaped the contest for many seats.
In the first phase, contemporary reports described annulments affecting about 49 of 70 constituencies—roughly 70%—including areas of Giza, Alexandria, Assiut, Sohag and Aswan. Repeat voting in one group of 19 constituencies took place on 3–4 December. Calls to investigate polling and counting irregularities, alongside continued counting elsewhere, kept the electoral map unsettled.
The Supreme Administrative Court initially received 102 challenges to first-phase results. Later reporting described approximately 300 challenges concerning the second phase and its rounds, with 211 rejected, around 40 referred to the Court of Cassation and a smaller number ruled procedurally inadmissible. A separate group of 48 challenges concerning results in 30 previously annulled constituencies was reserved for judgment during the second half of December. These are different reported groups and stages, not a single sum of unique contested seats.
The main first-round domestic voting ended on 25 November, but the electoral and legal process continued through December reruns and staggered results. This account reflects the position at the Arabic report’s publication on 23 December 2025, rather than subsequent final outcomes.
Between official participation figures and annulments, repeat voting and litigation, the election raised serious questions about restoring confidence in the ballot. The Interior Ministry announced arrests of dozens suspected of distributing electoral bribes across both phases, including in Giza, Alexandria and Sohag, and seizure of substantial cash allegedly used to buy votes.
Candidates in several constituencies reported further irregularities, including vote-buying and concerns over judges’ conduct. One candidate supplied Zawia3 with a video said to show the head of the Mansoura general electoral committee travelling in a car belonging to another candidate’s brother during voting. The allegation also appeared in a written grievance obtained by Zawia3. The reported ownership and implications for impartiality are allegations, rather than an adjudicated finding of misconduct.
Other videos sent to Zawia3 were said to show ballot papers being marked improperly. Reports also circulated of village-level arrangements trading blocs of votes for donations worth millions of pounds. The candidates’ accounts below set out allegations requiring investigation, not proof that every contested result was fraudulent.
Mansoura candidates allege serious violations
Yasser Ali Gomaa, an independent candidate for Mansoura district in Dakahlia, describes the runoff as involving serious and unprecedented violations: organised vote-buying, exclusion of some candidates’ representatives from counting and large announced turnout figures despite what he says were visibly quiet polling stations.
He entered the runoff with around 25,500 votes. His campaign then heard of arrangements in which EGP 3–4 million would be paid to secure up to 4,000 votes from a village, with repayment if the agreed target was not reached. He says the money went to village elders for projects such as clubs or youth centres, and that the campaign received videos documenting the arrangements.
Gomaa alleges village-level deals worth EGP 3–4 million to secure blocs of votes. His account has not been presented here as a court-established fact.
Some of his representatives were pressured and threatened into leaving polling places, he says. Announced participation of approximately 139,000 voters in the runoff, compared with 160,000 in a first round contested by 52 candidates, struck him as implausible given the lack of crowds he observed.
He cites Talbana village, where votes reportedly fell from around 10,000 to about 1,500, alongside other stations reporting 90% turnout despite, he says, no heavy attendance throughout polling.
The campaign received videos allegedly showing ballot marking outside stations and in facilities within polling premises, as well as the committee-chairman car footage. Gomaa filed a formal grievance in preparation for challenging final results. He considers the incidents a repeated pattern rather than isolated errors.
Conflicting figures in Zagazig
In Zagazig, Sharqiya, candidates’ campaigns disputed officially announced totals, saying they differed from the counting records in favour of pro-government-party candidates. Tension at the general committee included Eman Khedr’s objection and threat of an open-ended sit-in. She demanded a review of the figures and counting procedures.
Candidate Marwa Hashem tells Zawia3 that results from the general committee differed from records from 154 subcommittees by around 20,000 votes, which she says benefited the four announced winners associated with pro-government parties.
Her campaign had assembled figures from official counting records supplied by representatives and was preparing to announce them when the general committee released different totals. She says losing candidates’ votes were not reduced; additional votes were instead added to winners’ figures.
Hashem submitted formal grievances and the records she says substantiate the discrepancy. In her view, the differences were too large to be ordinary arithmetic mistakes.
Her campaign also filmed what it considered improper voter direction by political-party candidates outside stations and submitted the footage to the National Election Authority on electronic storage devices, requesting a fair, independent examination.
Hashem says the dispute concerns not only losing candidates but voters whose choices, in her view, were overridden by the announced results.
She expresses confidence in the authority’s powers to examine the evidence, citing previous annulments after serious irregularities were established. She also acknowledges that some challenged stations’ results were allowed to stand. Her campaign’s role was to submit the documents and evidence available to it.
Matariya campaign challenges political money
In Cairo’s Matariya constituency, Mohamed Zahran’s campaign was preparing a challenge to the results. The Arabic passage refers to an announcement on Thursday 25 December and a grievance submitted afterwards, although the article is dated 23 December. This chronology is inconsistent; the later event cannot be treated as already established at the publication date.
Bassem Saleh, campaign manager, says the team documented violations during the first two polling days through live filming of distribution points, cards and voter direction. He describes minibuses and locations in alleys and shops where money was allegedly offered for specified votes, along with arrangements between intermediaries and voters.
Some residents intervened during filming, he says. He reports security personnel detaining about ten to twelve people involved in distribution points, while prominent figures were not officially announced as arrested.
The campaign focused on allegedly directed voting through money and cards, alongside incomplete sealing and documentation procedures for some ballot boxes. It could not document every incident because of organisational and administrative constraints, he says.
An observer working within a campaign, who requested anonymity, describes the use of religious associations beside mosques, including Ansar Al-Sunna Al-Mohammadiya, as voter-transport hubs. The observer also alleges that a pro-government-party candidate distributed printed cards carrying QR codes or barcodes so payments could be made electronically later instead of cash being handed over immediately.
When the observer asked a police officer to close a gathering point beside polling stations, the officer reportedly replied that anyone visibly carrying money could be identified for immediate arrest. The observer’s account illustrates an allegation about delayed electronic payments, not independent proof that the named association or a particular candidate committed an offence.
A crisis of confidence and calls for reform
Mohamed Saad Abdel-Hafiz, journalist and deputy head of the Journalists Syndicate, says citizens have lost confidence in political participation and that the election deepened it. He expects the incoming parliament to remain shadowed by allegations of political money and vote-buying, regardless of whether its composition is completed.
Some anticipate constitutional challenges to electoral legislation or disputes over jurisdiction between the election authority, Supreme Administrative Court and Court of Cassation, he says. Those are possible legal arguments and outcomes, not a prediction that the Supreme Constitutional Court will necessarily annul the election.
Legitimacy depends on proper procedures and constitutional laws that take society’s different groups into account, he argues. Recorded irregularities were reviewed in some cases but not others, while the electoral framework itself remains contested.
Walid El-Amari, spokesperson for the Civil Democratic Movement, says the incoming parliament lacked credibility from the outset. He alleges very low participation in some constituencies, at times no more than 5%, and questions whether winners adequately represent their electorates. Those local estimates should not be confused with verified national turnout.
He also questions why annulments affecting individual-seat ballots did not similarly affect the National List, since voters cast both ballots in the same polling process. He argues that removing votes from annulled constituencies could affect whether an unopposed list meets its legal threshold, contrasting the 5% threshold he cites with an authority figure he gives as 17.5%.
These percentages require matching denominators and constituency-level results before drawing any conclusion. An annulment of individual-seat voting does not by itself establish automatic invalidity of a separate list result. El-Amari’s account is an argument for scrutiny, not a demonstrated calculation invalidating the list.
He links voter disengagement to weak oversight, reported violations and pro-government parties’ influence over legislation on pretrial detention, labour and old rents. He says competing lists were denied registration without clear reasons, limiting effective opposition.
In his view, larger constituencies and the absolute closed-list system were deliberately designed to marginalise opponents. He calls for new elections under fairer rules, smaller constituencies and equal opportunity, with abolition of the closed-list model or a return to individual contests.
He proposes constitutional dissolution of parliament followed by new elections. Such dissolution is subject to constitutional conditions and cannot be understood as an unrestricted presidential power.
With continued litigation and competing accounts of counts and turnout, candidates and political figures interviewed for this report question the election’s credibility. Their testimonies underline demands for transparent procedures, effective oversight and equal opportunities. Restoring public trust requires resolving documented disputes through evidence and lawful review, alongside meaningful debate over electoral reform.
