Egypt's parliamentary elections set to be delayed by new legal battle
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Version 0 of 1. Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, could retain control of the country’s lawmaking process for the foreseeable future, after the supreme court ruled that a law governing upcoming elections was unconstitutional. The move is likely to force the postponement of parliamentary elections, scheduled to begin later this month. Their fate will not be conclusively decided until another court ruling on 10 March, an election official told state television. Egypt has been without any kind of parliament since July 2013, and without a sitting lower house since June 2012, when a previous set of electoral legislation was also deemed unconstitutional. In Sunday’s ruling, the supreme court said that certain constituencies had been drawn incorrectly by a law that was meant to replace the 2012 version. In response, Sisi’s office said that he is keen for the law concerned to be rewritten within one month, to minimise delays to the vote. But some legal experts argue the process could last until autumn, meaning the final say over Egyptian legislation in the interim would remain with Sisi, the country’s former army chief. Sisi overthrew his Islamist predecessor, Mohamed Morsi, in July 2013, after days of mass protests against Morsi’s governance. Zaid al-Ali, a senior adviser on constitution building for the intergovernmental organisation International Idea, and a close observer of Egypt’s electoral process, said: “What the decision does is delay the process indefinitely. The law’s drafters will now have to go back and redraft the law on the basis of the decisions, which will take a while, and then the new versions of the law will also be subject to appeal. That process itself could easily take another six months.” Egyptians have not been represented by MPs since before Morsi’s election in 2012 when the supreme court disbanded of the house of representatives. Egypt’s upper house continued to sit but was itself disbanded by Sisi after the removal of Morsi, and abandoned altogether in the new constitution. According to a schedule issued by the first post-Morsi government, known as the roadmap to democracy, parliamentary elections should have been held by November that year. But the plan has repeatedly stalled, allowing Sisi and his interim predecessor, Adly Mansour, to enact authoritarian laws at a rate several legal experts consider unmatched by any regime for 60 years. The resulting political climate led several opposition parties to boycott the scheduled parliamentary elections, claiming that it would be impossible to campaign amid a crackdown on dissent. Critics of the government also say the election laws were designed to create a pliant parliament whose members would support the presidency. Government spokesmen argue the elections highlight Egypt’s commitment to democracy. Additional reporting: Manu Abdo |