Sameh Saif El Yazel,a former intelligence officer and the coordinator of the For the Love of Egypt electoral coalition, has won the presidency of a parliamentary bloc aimed at defending the policies of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in Egypt's coming parliament, Ahram Arabic news website reported on Friday. The bloc, named For Supporting Egypt, is expected to be composed of hundreds of MPs; most notably independents andmembers of the For the Love of Egypt collation, which won 120 party list seats in the parliamentary race that took place in October, November and ended in December. The former officer was chosen by acclamation by some MPs who attended a meeting on Friday to name the head of the bloc. Earlier this month, El-Yazel announcedin a presser that negotiations have gone a long way with the leaders of three liberal political parties – the Free Egyptians Party, the Future of Homeland and the Wafd – which won the largest number of seats in the polls, in an attempt to bring the pro-Sisi bloc to more than 400 MPs to form a large majority out of the 596-seat House of Representatives. El-Yazel said in the presser that "the intended bloc will act as a back-up force for President El-Sisi and for reinforcing Egypt's political stability in a region plagued with civil wars and sectarian strife." He added that the objective of the coalition is to unify positions of the largest number of MPs over a number of crucial issues such as whether MPs should approve the government's policy statements or not. Egypt's parliament is expected to be sworn in by the end of December, and will be composed of the highest number of MPs in the country's 150-year parliamentary history. The MPS are divided into 448 independents, 120 party-based deputies, and 28 presidential appointees. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/173875.aspx
