Cairo, Aug 20 (IANS): The voter turnout in Egypt's recent polls for its first Senate stood at 14.23 per cent, with the participation of about 9 million voters out of nearly 63 million, the National Election Authority (NEA) announced.
The valid votes were 7.76 million, representing 84.58 of the total votes, Xinhua news agency quoted NEA chief Lasheen Ibrahim as saying on Wednesday.
"The election was held under full judiciary supervision," he said, describing the polls as "fair" and "competitive".
The voters in Egypt cast their votes on August 11-12 in more than 14,000 polling stations, while expatriates did on August 9-10, to elect 200 senators out of 300 members.
The rest 100 will be appointed by the President.
Ibrahim said that 997 candidates were in the fray, noting that the polling process was monitored by 47 local and 14 foreign organizations, 33 local and 162 foreign media institutions, and three human rights councils.
Created in a 2019 constitutional amendment, the new Senate, whose term is five years, will be an advisory body to the main House of Representatives without legislative authorities, replacing the Shoura Council, the upper house of Egypt's Parliament that was dissolved in 2014.