A novelty in this Egypt vote: unknown results (Haaretz)

– “The most important and democratic innovation of Egypt’s parliamentary elections that began on Monday is that we don’t know who will win. We can probably assume that the Muslim Brotherhood will win much of the vote, but in contrast to Egyptian elections over the past 60 years, today there’s no ‘ruling party’ that was always the sure winner.

In many ways, Egypt now resembles a newly formed state that is trying to sketch out a map of its political forces on a blank page. This map will determine the character of the state, parliament’s authority and the power of the next president.”

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