Senate election results, a right-loyal stitch up

The outcome of the Senate elections 2025 has entrenched a political landscape with an even narrower margin for competition. Opposition parties walked away empty-handed in the individual seat races, while government-aligned parties tightened their grip through meticulous coordination and pre-arranged seat allocation.

The four dominant pro-government parties fielded exactly 100 candidates for 100 seats, without any competition between them. According to official results, they won 94 in the first round, while six seats are headed for run-offs.

Meanwhile, low turnout cast a long shadow over the results, with active voter blocs largely limited to supporters of pro-government parties. Their ability to mobilize proved decisive, despite widespread violations documented by Al Manassa and rights organizations reporting vote-buying,

No chance if you’re not on the list

These Senate results reaffirmed that opposition parties will only be represented through the unified National List for the Sake of Egypt.

Opposition parties failed to secure a single one of the 100 individual seats—representing one-third of the Senate’s 300 seats, the remaining two-thirds split evenly between the party list and presidential appointments.

This failure cut across the spectrum of the opposition. The salafist Nour Party, for instance, fielded eight individual candidates and failed to win a single seat.

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This may be why Awareness Party leader Basel Adel is considering joining the expected unified list in the upcoming House elections, despite not being invited to join the National List for the Sake of Egypt for the Senate race.

Although Adel champions the proportional list system for encouraging party-based elections, he still hopes the House list will feature broader representation.

“There might be a chance for other parties,” he told Al Manassa. “The House list is bigger at around 284 candidates.”

While his party is considered part of the opposition, Adel doesn’t foresee multiple competing lists in the next election. He links his support for the unified list to the challenges Egypt is facing.

“I genuinely believe there’s a major crisis surrounding Egypt. This isn’t just me blindly supporting the government, the country is truly facing a massive crisis. In my opinion, moving towards unified initiatives that foster solidarity among the people, parties, and political forces is the right course of action,” he said. 

According to Adel, the unified list helps curb internal divisions and political fragmentation, reinforcing national cohesion. He also commended the individual races for what he described as calm and nonviolent competition.

Domination, not participation

Several factors explain the sweep of individual seats by pro-government candidates. Strategic coordination played a role, along with pre-arranged seat distribution. Turnout was mostly limited to loyalists. Financial power mattered. So did the electoral system and the vast size of the districts.

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Data from the National Election Authority reveals a clear strategy by the major government-aligned parties—Nation’s Future, Homeland Defenders, the National Front, and the Republican People’s Party—to dominate individual Senate seats through careful division among allies.

The four parties collectively fielded 100 candidates: Nation’s Future led with 60, followed by Homeland Defenders with 25, the National Front with 10, and the Republican People’s Party with five.

A total of 428 candidates contested the 100 individual seats, including 183 independents, with the rest drawn from 35 parties, both loyalist and opposition.

Al Manassa’s tally across 11 governorates, based on available data prior to the final official announcement, shows that seat distribution followed party color more than competitive merit. Nation’s Future held the lion’s share, with the remaining seats divided among its three allies.

In Giza, Nation’s Future won five seats, while its partners—the National Front, Homeland Defenders, and the Republican People’s Party—each took one of the remaining three. In Beheira’s six-seat race, Nation’s Future took four, with one seat each going to the National Front and Homeland Defenders.

A similar pattern repeated in Gharbiya, Dakahliya, Beni Suef, Assiut, and Fayoum. Nation’s Future dominated, its loyalist partners took the crumbs, while a negligible dose of competition meant a runoff for six seats.

But coordination alone wasn’t the deciding factor.

Awareness Party head Basel Adel pointed to another advantage: money.

“These parties reached people by every means. They’re present with branches in every governorate,” Adel explained.

Not even the six run-off districts were spared.

In Beni Suef, the run-off is between an Awareness Party candidate and one from the National Front. In Gharbiya, it’s Nation’s Future vs. the New Independents. In Luxor, a Nation’s Future candidate faces an independent. In New Valley, Ismailia, and North Sinai, it’s Homeland Defenders vs. an independent.

Low turnout

Official turnout in the 2020 Senate elections was around 14% of eligible voters, but, pending the official announcement, this year was not expected to match 2020’s record performance for the upper house.

Senior Wafd Party member Yasser Hassan told Al Manassa that turnout was “very, very low—probably under 10%. That’s proof the public isn’t engaging with this election.”

According to Hassan, most voters who showed up were from the four major loyalist parties. “Only pro-government supporters came out. The rest of the Egyptian people didn’t have a say.” He predicted that the six remaining seats would also go to regime-backed parties.

The National Election Authority announced on Tuesday that voter turnout reached 17.1% of the 69.3 million registered voters. 

The electoral system

Egypt’s current electoral system—split between one-third closed list, one-third individual races, and one-third presidential appointments—continues to shape the country’s political landscape.

“The closed-list model has already cost Egypt ten years, and will cost another five,” Hassan said, calling for comprehensive political reform, including changes to the voting system

This system was introduced in the 2015 House elections, following the 2014 Constitution, which left details of the electoral framework up to lawmakers.

“We wanted a democratic path that allows peaceful transfer of power,” Hassan added, recalling the goals of the January 25 Revolution. “Closed lists, do not allow for real political engagement”. 

He rejected the argument that this system meets the constitutional quota of 25% representation for women or other groups. “You’ve got women making up a quarter of Parliament, sure—but do we have actual political participation by women? The answer is no,” he concluded.

Awareness Party leader Basel Adel added that the size of electoral districts also helps explain loyalist dominance. “These districts are enormous. The race spans the entire governorate. That makes it nearly impossible for local candidates to compete—they need to be high-profile, widely known figures.”

Adel noted that candidates with ordinary means can’t manage such extensive campaigns. “No one with average financial resources can afford the huge advertising costs across an entire governorate.”

Adel also pointed to the aggressive campaign tactics of major parties. “The big parties ran brazen campaigns—not to mention their massive funding. No one can compete with that.”  The legal campaign spending limit of 500,000 pounds (around $10k) was nowhere enforced, he stressed.

Now that final results are in, and with opposition and independents unlikely to prevail in the remaining run-offs, the president retains control over the final third of the Senate. These appointments are expected to echo those of 2020: media figures, academics, artists, and public personalities. The outcome reinforces a political climate where partisan politics continues to retreat, if not vanish entirely.