In a plenary meeting on Wednesday, Egypt's cabinet, led by Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab, is scheduled to discuss the semi-final draft of a long-awaited law aimed at redrawing the country's electoral constituencies.
The discussion of the law comes amid accusations from political parties that the government’s drafting of the law moved at a snail’s pace and caused the country's long-awaited parliamentary polls to be postponed to the first quarter of 2015.
According to Minister of Transitional Justice and House of Representatives Affairs Ibrahim El-Heneidy, the bill was prepared by a seven-member technical committee formed three weeks ago by Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab, comprising court judges and law university professors.
"To prepare the bill for discussion by the cabinet on Wednesday, the committee has worked day and night, hoping that it will take its semi-final form before Wednesday," said El-Heneidy.
El-Heneidy indicated that three laws are slated to regulate Egypt's upcoming parliamentary polls: the electoral constituencies’ law, the House of Representatives law and the political rights law.
According to article three of the house law, Egypt’s new parliament must be composed of 567 seats, with 420 (73 percent) allocated to independents and 120 (22 percent) reserved for party-based candidates, while 27 (5 percent) seats will be devoted to presidential appointees.
El-Heneidy indicated that the committee's experts have almost finalised the redrawing of four constituencies designed to see competition among party lists. He indicated that as many as 120 deputies will be elected from these four constituencies.
El-Heneidy, however, said the technical committee is still facing difficulty in redrawing the constituencies from which as many as 420 independent deputies must be elected.
"The difficulty stems from the fact that the technical committee was forced to change an earlier draft of the law made while former president Adly Mansour was in office, to decrease the number of seats allocated to independents from 460 to 420," indicated El-Heneidy.
El-Heneidy explained that the technical committee also exerted a lot of effort to ensure that border governorates and new housing communities be fairly represented in the new parliament.
El-Heneidy explained that the committee also wants to make sure that the law, in its final form, does not face any legal or constitutional challenges.
"The law must go in line with article 102 of Egypt's new constitution passed last January,” said El-Heneidy.
Article 102 of the new constitution stipulates that the redrawing of electoral constituencies must observe equality and ensure fair representation of citizens in all governorates.
In reaction to the above, political parties requested that the government subjects the law to a national dialogue.
Gamal Zahran, a professor of political economy with Suez Canal university and chairman of the social justice electoral alliance, told Ahram Online that "although I have reservations about the distribution of seats among independents and party lists, this will not be a reason for my alliance to boycott the polls."
"But we see that the electoral constituencies law must be a matter of a national dialogue for at least two weeks to ensure that it gains consensus and does not face any future constitutional setbacks that might impact the legality of the coming parliament," said Zahran.
Political parties want the number of seats reserved for political parties be increased from 120 to 180, and that the so-called "absolute party lists" which obligates a party list to gain 50 percent of seats per district to qualify for joining parliament be scrapped in favour of proportional lists that help political parties gain seats in proportion to the number of votes they get per district.
Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab told a meeting with a group of political parties on Saturday that while the new electoral constituencies’ law will be subject to a national dialogue, it will be referred at the same time to the State Council's Department of Legislation and Fatwas to revise it in legal and constitutional terms.
"Once it gains the okay from the Council and consensus from political parties, it will be sent to president Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi for final ratification," said Mahlab.
Mablab expects that this ratification will give the green light to the Higher Election Committee to set a date for the first stage of parliamentary polls next January or February. The polls are expected to be held over three stages, with each including nine governorates.
President El-Sisi told an American business delegation on Monday that Egypt's parliamentary polls are expected to kick-off in the first quarter of 2015.
A statement by presidential spokesperson Alaa Youssef cited El-Sisi as telling the delegation that the third objective of Egypt's political roadmap, following a new constitution and presidential elections in 2014, will be achieved before the International Economic Summit which Egypt will host in the first quarter of 2015.
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