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Floor for parliamentary elections to open in last week of Dec – gov. official
Parliamentary Elections - Mohamed Abdel Ghani/REUTERS
CAIRO, Dec 17 (Aswat Masriya) – Egypt’s Supreme Electoral Commission will open the floor for the parliamentary elections during the last week of December, a government official told Aswat Masriya on Wednesday.
The official, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that Egypt’s cabinet will finalise the draft electoral districts law on Wednesday night and refer it to the presidency for ratification on Thursday.
The cabinet holds its weekly meeting every Wednesday. It is set to discuss the final version of the draft law today.
The Supreme Electoral Commission approved an amended version of the draft on Tuesday, in preparation for the elections.
Egypt’s State Council had approved the draft on Monday before submitting it back to the cabinet which originally drafted it.
Egypt’s coming parliament will be made up of 567 seats, as per the draft law; 420 members will be individually elected, 120 will join the parliament through electoral lists, and 27 members will be appointed by the president.
The draft submitted by the cabinet during its weekly meeting last Wednesday divided Egypt into 232 single member electoral districts. The State Council amended them to 237 districts before sending the draft back to the cabinet.
Should the cabinet approve the amendments, the draft will be sent to the presidency for its issuance.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told an American economic delegation in November that Egypt's parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held in the first quarter of 2015.
Former Interim President Adli Mansour issued on June 6 a law governing the coming parliamentary elections, shortly before ceding power. The law has been met with criticism by several political parties that have been calling for its amendment before the elections are held.
Political parties were pushing for more seats to be won through electoral lists rather than being individually elected.
Egypt has been operating without a lower house of parliament since the Supreme Constitutional Court deemed its People’s Assembly unconstitutional in June 2012.
