Sameh Seif al-Yazal, head of Parliament majority bloc, dies at 70
Sameh Seif al-Yazal, the general coordinator of the In Support of Egypt parliamentary majority bloc, has died at age 70, the coalition’s deputy Osama Heikal announced Monday evening.
The retired intelligence officer was at the head of the state-backed For the Love of Egypt electoral list that dominated the parliamentary elections in October, and ended up leading the majority bloc in Parliament. He is largely viewed as one of the main engineers of the last parliamentary elections.
Yazal’s visible weight loss had fueled news of an illness in recent months, which he never confirmed.
Yazal fought in the 1967 and the 1973 wars, and served in the Presidential Guard as well as the General Intelligence and Military Intelligence.
He became a close ally of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and his government after the military-led ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood from power in 2013. In recent years, Yazal had reentered the public sphere as a commentator on military and security affairs.
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