Mapping Egypt's political parties
Update: This post has been updated with a new chart and additional information on parties.
Arabist reader Jacopo Carbonari has offered to share with me the above map of Egyptian political parties, grouped together into their electoral alliances and positioned on axes showing where they might be placed on the religious/secular left/right divide. I had started something similar separately, but using radical/establishment instead of right/left as a divide (I think it's more telling of attitudes towards the army and the current social structure of the country). Jacopo's map also includes a full listing of political parties and our hope is that readers might leave comments to improve or correct it when necessary.
The full PDF document [1.6 MB] includes info on party leaders, and links to the parties' websites and all-important Facebook pages.
Issandr El Amrani
The latest map — a major update — is now available here.
Reader Comments (19)
Great! Very useful. Any interest in recording registration dates? I'll dig through my notes if so. Here's a small addition:
Shady Ghazali Harb, prominent member, Alwa`I Awareness
I would be happy to hear more from others if they disagree, but my impression of the Awareness party was that they were more centrist than straight-liberal. Harb split from the Dem Front and the Awareness party has been running small-scale development projects in Basyoun, in Gharlayon; Manuf in Munufeya; Al Menia; Dar es-Salam in Cairo; and near Saig Zeinab in Cairo, according to an interview I did with Harb mid-October.
Great list and graph. Thanks a lot.
I caught a couple of glitches:
-You list the Egyptian Liberation Party and the Egyptian Alliance Party as part of Completing Revolution but not so on the graph.
-You list Change and Development as independent but on the graph they are Islamist Alliance.
-You list Wafd as Democratic Alliance but on the Graph they are independent.
-You list Democratic Front Party as Egyptian Bloc but not so on the Graph.
Which of the infos is the correct?
Now, if I may suggest an addition to the existing list, it would be great if data of who participates in the elections with how many candidates could be added.
eg according to my notes the Egyptian Bloc is running with
332 proportional candidates in 46 constituencies, which would be all available seats.
and 80 individual candidates
Revolution Continues I have with 270 candidates in 34 districts
and 20 individual candidates
Democratic Alliance I have with
Running in all Proportional districts for both houses (46 + 30)
and in all 113 individual candidates districts (83 + 30)
However this is just what I pieced together from various online sources over time. Most of this is probably out of date.
Moritz
PS I am trying to find a map of the 83, 46 and 30 election districts boundaries. Anyone?
Hi Nate and Moritz,
Many thanks for your comments.
- The Sufi party, Egyptian Liberation, is no more part of Completing the Revolution; the Egyptian Alliance Party yes
- Change and Development party is member of the Islamist Alliance
- The Waft left the Democratic Alliance
- The Democratic Front is no more a member of the Egyptian Bloc.
I think it's a very good idea to add registration dates and the number of participants and candidates at the elections in the districts.
Jacopo
amazing!! thank you.
This is interesting and quite useful, but I'm about the ideological distinctions. For example, what makes Tayyar Masry, the Brotherhood youth party, to the "left" of Karama? Are we talking about economic policy? I do think pro-/anti-establishment might be a more useful indicator. Good work, though, Jacopo.
Amazingly helpful! I would love to have this translated into Arabic and circulated before election starts. It would be a great guide to aid people in making their choices in a sea of chaos that Egypt is witnessing now. If you don't mind I'd love to share this with a few friends who might be able to translate into Arabic and make it accessible to others.. As an Egyptian expat I'm having a very difficult time following the process and making my choice when the time comes so I can only sympathize with the high dosage of utter chaos that most of the Egyptians in Egypt have to put up with now.
Moritz, I am not sure if this is what you are looking for but I thought you can find mappable info on districts on the website for Egyptian elections
http://www.elections2011.eg/index.php/2011-10-07-15-44-32/constituencies-map
you may have to select governorate, type of district etc. they are not arranged by number though so I'm not sure
Here are the dates I had in my own political parties file that I abandoned a month or two ago after it became too difficult to keep up with all the parties:
- Socialist Popular Alliance, early October (approved)
- Al-Adl, June 6 (approved), May 3 (applied), end of March (began collecting signatures)
- Awareness Party, mid-September (approved)
- Free Egyptians, July 4 (approved), June 14 (applied)
- Egyptian Social Democratic Party, July 4 (approved), June 14 (applied)
- Egypt Revolution Party, July 4 (approved)
- Modern Egypt Party, July 4 (approved)
- Egyptian Current, 22 June (launched/founded)
- Al Nour Party, 12 June (approved)
* Based on reports in local English-language papers; Al-Adl based on spokesperson Nora Soliman; Socialist Popular Alliance and Awareness dates based on interviews with prominent members.
Also, this report mentions two parties that may be the same as two parties in your map, just different translations:
- Reform and Awakening (is this Reform and Renaissance?), July 18 (approved)
- Arab Justice and Equality (is this Equality & Justice?), July 18 (approved)
Dear Jacopo,
This document of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation lists most of the dates of registration and tentative membership numbers. It's in German, but the key bits you should get without reading the language.
http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_29163-1522-1-30.pdf?111020162214
Please keep us updated if you should produce a second edition of your document.
Best,
Moritz
Dear M (sorry I can't see your name). After a review of the literature on political cleavages (Lipset & Rokkan etc) I chose to take the left/right cleavage even if of course it's not the best "tool" to describe Egypt's political forces. It's not only a matter of economic policy but also of ideological background and concrete political program. But It' s true that the position pro or anti establishment should be added as an indicator. Do you have concrete any suggestion? I would really appreciate your contribution.
Dear Marwa, of course it's a great idea to translate it in Arabic. Send me an email carbonarijacopo@gmail.com
Dear Nate, thank you very much for the registration dates. I will add them for the new parties and for the old ones I will put the year when they have been created. I will check the two parties that you mentioned in the article you sent me.
Dear Moritz, many thanks to share the good document in German. I had a rapid look at it but now I will compare it with my data.
I will produce a new document in the coming days.
All the best,
jacopo
This is exceptionally great work Issandr... though I somewhaty disagree with putting the Nasserists et. al. to the left. My eccentric self thinks of them more as right wing nationalist socialist types.
Two more links with interest to this blog post:
http://www.rnw.nl/arabic/node/532155
(Jacopo, these people also spread the parties on two axis, similar to your two axis... it might be interesting to compare your spread and theirs.)
http://egyptelections.carnegieendowment.org/category/political-parties
Fantastic overview of the different parties with lots of detailed info on their issues and opinions, plus people who are involved etc.
This is very useful, thank you Jacopo. Does anybody know when the electoral results are supposed to be announced? I read online that both winning independent candidates and list-based results will be announced within 48 hours from each voting date, but a candidate for North Giza tells me only independents' results will be out immediately, while the two thirds of party-based proportionally assigned seats will be announced only after the whole electoral process, i.e. around 6 or 7 January.
I would imagine that announcing the results straight away will be incredibly relevant in terms of influencing voters for the following voting dates. On the other hand, keeping millions of cast votes in sealed boxes till the end of the electoral process would highly increase the risk of electoral fraud.
This is incorrect. How on earth has this been recently updated? Re-check your information on El Ghad party.
Following Moritz's idea of combining Carbonari's chart with other overviews of the Egyptian political spectrum, I found out the chart actually presents several inaccuracies and is definitely not up to date. I put together an amended and updated version, which you can find here: http://egyptialise.me/2011/11/20/98/
Feedback would be much appreciated!
egyptialise.me
Dear Mr Carbonari,
I have a few notes,
* Now we have two elghad parties, the new one, leaded by Ayman Nour, and it is part of the "Democratic Alliance" and the old one which does not show in your map
* Tagamo' party is for sure a socialist party not a center-left
* "Reform and Development party" shouldn't be considered a former NDP, since it was founded in 2009, and its president is Mohamed Anwar Elsadat, though is Talaat Sadat brother, He has never been related to NDP. Maybe the party now has some former members of the NDP but many parties did the same (like Free Egyptians party)
* Maybe you should also added the organizations participating in the elections especially the members of coalitions
thanx
Wow this is amazing guys..................could you please provide another version in arabic translation in order to be able to spread it to local public people.......if you any help in translation i can help.
waiting for your feedback
The thing that worries me is that the protesters are trying to oust the military regime, which is in a sense is democratic in the way it protects a secular society. The alternative must be a islamic republic that does not allow any freedoms or human rights whatsoever.
one more little info, actress Taissir Fahmy, the founder of "equality and development party" is not coptic for sure.
Also there's something that needs to be clarified, we have "The Democratic Alliance" leaded by "Liberty and justice party" and with the presence of "Elghad" yet each party has its one lists