Egypt’s newly elected MPs gathered for an opening procedural sitting this week to elect a speaker and two deputies for the new House of Representatives elected in the recent elections.
Head of the Central Auditing Agency (CAA) Hisham Badawi won the vote to become the 52nd speaker of parliament, receiving 521 votes compared to his rival Mohamed Sami’s 49.
Badawi had previously served as the head of the CAA between 2016 and 2024. Before his tenure as the nation’s top auditor, he was an assistant justice minister for anti-corruption and a high-profile prosecutor. Badawi was one of 28 public figures appointed by President Abdel-Fatah Al-Sisi. This is the first time a House speaker is an appointed one.
Assem Al-Gazzar, a former housing minister, and Mohamed Al-Wahsh, a surgeon and a member of Tahia Masr Fund’s board, were elected as deputy speakers.
In his first speech to MPs after his election, Badawi said that “based on my professional background, I promise to manage the House’s affairs in accordance with the constitution and regulations, ensuring neutrality and strengthening its legislative and oversight roles.”
On Wednesday, the 596-member chamber, at full capacity following the appointment of 28 MPs by President Al-Sisi on Sunday, held other procedural sittings to announce candidates for leading posts on the House’s 25 committees.
A chairman, two deputies, and one secretary must be elected for each committee.
The opening procedural sessions were held in the House’s new headquarters in the New Capital. The five-year term of Egypt’s outgoing (2021-2026) parliament concluded on 8 January.
Now that the new House is ready for business, many observers are anxious to see whether President Al-Sisi will appoint a new prime minister who will form a new cabinet.
Experts like constitutional law professor Salah Fawzi say that the constitution does not stipulate the appointment of a new prime minister following the election of a new House.
Fawzi believes that Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli, who has been in office since 2018, should stay on in order to complete the implementation of Egypt’s International Monetary Fund (IMF)-inspired economic reform programme which will come to an end in November.
Regardless of whether Madbouli continues in office, many observers, like senator and economic analyst Mohamed Al-Manzlawi, are hoping for policy continuity in key economic portfolios including investment and foreign trade as well as finance and international cooperation, petroleum, and tourism.
Others, like MP and independent journalist Mustafa Bakri, however, believe that the election of a new parliament should be followed by the appointment of a new prime minister and a new cabinet.
“I am one of those who believe that this is the right time to name a new prime minister and government to usher Egypt into a new era of political and economic openness,” Bakri told Al-Ahram Weekly.
The new House’s opening procedural sittings came following the conclusion of a three-month electoral marathon.
On 10 January, the National Election Authority (NEA) announced the final results of the two-stage parliamentary elections held from 7 November to 4 January.
Head of the NEA Hazem Badawi said the elections had ended and the formation of Egypt’s new House of Representatives for the legislative season of 2026-2031 had been completed.
He announced that 69,891,913 voters had registered nationwide, with 22,657,211 participating in the elections, placing turnout at 32.41 per cent, compared to 28 per cent in the 2020 parliamentary elections.
Badawi said that the figures reflected the size of the participation in the three-month elections at various stages and confirmed people’s keenness to exercise their constitutional right to choose their representatives in the House of Representatives.
“The elections were not only the longest in the history of parliamentary life, but also the most competitive and received great attention and follow-up from the public,” Badawi said.
Independent political analysts like Al-Ahram’s Amr Al-Shobaki agreed that the elections had been among the longest in Egypt’s parliamentary history. However, he said that they had been marred by irregularities in the counting process and accusations of vote buying and the influence of political money.
This prompted President Al-Sisi to intervene, after which the NEA decided to invalidate the election results in a number of constituencies, as did the Supreme Administrative Court. The voting was then repeated in dozens of constituencies, extending the process to seven rounds over three months.
Official results released by the NEA showed that the new parliament will include representatives from 15 political parties.
Pro-regime political parties such as Mostaqbal Watan (Future of the Homeland), Homat Watan (Protectors of the Homeland), the National Front, and the People’s Republican control the majority of the seats in the new House, collectively winning 403 seats, or 70 per cent of the total of 568 contested seats, while opposition parties and independents got 165 seats, or 30 per cent of the total.
Mostaqbal Watan led the polls, gaining 227 seats (about 40 per cent), far less than the 314 seats (53 per cent) it got in the 2020 election. Homat Watan came in second place with 86 seats (15 per cent), much better than in 2020 when it got 23 seats (four per cent).
The newly formed National Front came third with 65 seats (11 per cent), followed by the People’s Republican Party with 25 seats (four per cent).
Abdel-Nasser Qandil, director of the Egyptian Group for Parliamentary Studies, said the distribution of seats in the new parliament sends a positive message — namely that no single party was able to secure the 50 per cent required to dominate the House, as was the case in the outgoing parliament when Mostaqbal Watan took more than half of the seats (53 per cent).
However, he said that Mostaqbal Watan’s coalition with other pro-regime political parties will give it a comfortable majority of 70 per cent in the new parliament to support the policies of President Al-Sisi and his governments.
Qandil attributes the failure of any of the four major pro-regime political parties to win more than 50 per cent of the seats to the striking performance of independents, who were able to increase their seats from 93 (16 per cent) in 2020 to 105 (18 per cent) in 2025.
Independents (105 MPs) and non-pro-regime political parties (60 MPs) were able to secure 165 seats (30 per cent).
Qandil divided the successful independent MPs into two categories: “door-knockers” and “true independents”.
“The door-knockers are the ones who knocked on the doors of the pro-regime political parties to secure their nomination, but they were rejected and so opted to run as independents and were able to win,” Qandil said.
They are different from true independents, well known for their sharp criticisms of government policies. “True independents are people like Diaaeddin Dawoud [Damietta] and Ahmed Farghali [(Port Said] who refuse to join any political parties and use their parliamentary membership to exercise strict supervision over the government,” Qandil said.
He said that the presence of a relatively large bloc of independents in the new parliament is a promising development as it should be able to maintain some balance amid the overwhelming presence of pro-regime political parties.
Leftist political parties were able to secure 29 seats (six per cent) in the new parliament, with 11 for the Egyptian Socialist Democratic Party, 11 for the Justice (Adl) Party, five for Tagammu, one for the Conservatives Party, and one for the Awareness Party.
“A healthy parliamentary life requires a strong opposition bloc that includes MPs from different political backgrounds, particularly ones with leftist platforms,” Qandil said.
Liberal-oriented political parties including the Wafd (nine seats), Reform and Development (nine seats), Congress (four seats), Freedom (two), and the Generation’s Will (one), were able to secure 25 seats (five per cent).
The Islamist Nour Party got six seats (one per cent).
Political analyst Emadeddin Hussein is optimistic about the performance of the independent and opposition parties.
“The number of independent and opposition MPs is the highest since 2014, and many of them were elected at the expense of pro-regime candidates,” Hussein said, also conceding that the increase in the number of independent and opposition MPs was due to the presidential intervention that pushed the NEA to take action to ensure the integrity of the elections.
“I hope that the independents will not turn into pro-government or rubber-stamp MPs, and that they will not hesitate to direct criticism at government policies and cabinet ministers,” he said.
Al-Ahram political analyst Amr Hashem Rabie said that the new parliament will not differ much from the outgoing one, however.
“The fact that the four major pro-regime political parties secured 70 per cent of the seats and that the House speaker and his two deputies are also pro-regime will make it very difficult for independent and opposition MPs to have a strong voice in parliament,” Rabie said, noting that the majority of independent MPs took the side of pro-regime parties in voting in favour of electing Badawi as the House speaker at the expense of opposition candidate Mahmoud Sami.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 15 January, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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