Political analyst Amr El-Shobaki finaly declared the legitimate winner of the parliamentary elections in Dokki and Agouza district
An Egyptian parliamentary committee has agreed to implement a July court ruling that declared Amr El-Shobaki the winner of the parliamentary seat of Dokki and Agouza, and asked the house to invalidate the membership of sitting MP Ahmed Mortada Mansour "as soon as possible."
In a closed-door meeting held on Monday morning led by deputy speaker El-Sayed El-Sherif, decided that in accordance with a ruling issued by the Court of Cassation in July, independent parliamentary candidate and political analyst El-Shobaki should be declared the legitimate winner of the parliamentary elections in Dokki and Agouza district in 2015, and that he should be seated instead of Mansour.
El-Shobaki told several newspapers on Sunday that many members of the committee had assured him that the court's ruling would be approved by the committee on Monday and that he would be seated as the legitimate MP of Giza's Dokki and Agouza district.
Mansour, a member of the Free Egyptians Party and son of controversial Zamalek sports club president Mortada Mansour, also a sitting MP, was initially declared the winner in the runoff elections for the seat in October after narrowly beating columnist El-Shobaki by a mere 700 votes.
El-Shobaki, however, reacted by filing an appeal before the Court of Cassation, which holds the authority to issue final verdicts on election appeals.
After reviewing a new count of the votes, the court found that El-Shobaki came ahead of Mansour by 301 votes (El-Shobaki won 21,898 votes to Mansour's 21,597) and as a result should be declared the winner of the seat.
A report has to be prepared by the committee on constitutional and legislative affairs before the matter is discussed in a plenary session.
El-Shobaki expects that he will be seated before the end of November.
Many independent MPs and a number of political parties, including the Wafd Party, have announced that they are in solidarity with El-Shobaki and intend to vote in favour of seating him.
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