Sisi amends electoral laws to make way for parliamentary vote

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi issued amendments to the electoral law as well as the political rights law on Sunday, doing little to address the most controversial articles, as well as articles that arguably contradict the constitution.

Both laws were the subject of much debate, with six appeals raised against them last February, along with the constituency division law, ultimately leaving the fate of the long-awaited parliamentary elections hanging in the balance.

The Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) had deemed the constituency division law unconstitutional, effectively postponing parliamentary elections that were scheduled to take place last March, but rejected challenges to the electoral law and the political rights law, which were under review in the same case.

In doing so, the court arguably had failed to address the grievances of several political parties regarding elections laws.

Amendments to the political rights law raised the ceiling for campaign funding, despite criticism that the amount set in the original article had already favored wealthy candidates.

The amendments increased the amount of spending for every 15 candidates on an electoral list to LE2.5 million instead of LE1 million, and capped the amount at LE1 million for the second round of elections.

This amount is multiplied by three for 45-candidate lists.

The new amendments kept the spending of independent candidates to a maximum of LE500,000.

Political parties with limited financial resources had warned that wealthy parties and well-connected individual candidates could use political money to buy votes and bribe their way into office.

The new amendments in the electoral law also increased the number of seats to 568 instead of 540, allocating 448 to individuals instead of 420. The number of seats for party lists remained at 120.

Political forces had argued that limiting the number of seats for MPs running on party lists means that political parties will have a weak presence in parliament, hindering their ability to take a more active role in legislation and weakening the political sphere as a whole.

The dominance of the individual seat system could unfairly empower candidates with traditional bases of support, such as money, power networks and tribal connections, which they could use to mobilize voters and turn the elections into a contest between personalities, not political platforms, warn opponents to the bill.

Instead of stipulating that candidates must be Egyptian, have an Egyptian father, and cannot have dual citizenship, Article 8 now only stipulates that candidates be Egyptian, omitting the part about dual citizenship, since Article 102 of the Constitution dictates that candidates must be of Egyptian citizenship without barring dual citizens from running.

The amendments also omitted the second paragraph in Article 6, which states that female MPs can only be dismissed from parliament if they change their political party or independent affiliation after elected, with no mention of male MPs.

This article had arguably contradicted Article 11 of the Constitution, which says, “The state shall ensure the achievement of equality between women and men in all civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution.”