Under the new constitution it is up to interim President Adli Mansour to propose the electoral system to be used in the upcoming parliamentary poll, writes Gamal Essam El-Din. On 26 January Mansour announced a reversal of the roadmap timetable, decreeing that presidential elections would precede the parliamentary poll. Four days later Mansour's spokesman Ihab Badawi announced that “the interim president's decision that presidential elections be held first does not mean he has already approved a draft law aimed at regulating the parliamentary poll”. Badawi's announcement came in response to growing speculation that Mansour was about to endorse a system of individual candidacy for the parliamentary elections. The president's spokesman stressed that the electoral system to be used would emerge from a national dialogue among political factions. The Wafd, Tagammu, Egyptian Social Democratic Party and Karama Parties and the Popular Front led by former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi, all stress the importance of searching for a consensus on what system is used. “When the [constitution-drafting] committee refused to draft an article defining the electoral system to be applied during the first post-constitution parliamentary polls it did so as not to impose on political factions, preferring to leave the matter to be decided by President Mansour and all political factions in a national dialogue,” says Amr Moussa, chairman of the 50-member constitution-drafting committee. Sabri Al-Senousi, professor of constitutional law at Cairo University, points out that “for an electoral system to be decided two laws must be amended: the 1956 law on the exercise of political rights and the 1972 law regulating the People's Assembly”. Amendments of these two laws, says Al-Senousi, must be consistent with articles 102, 117, 121, 131 and 137 of the new constitution. “Article 102 of the new constitution reviews the conditions necessary for running in parliamentary polls and grants the president of the republic the right to appoint five per cent of MPs. Several articles of the two laws will have to be modified to reflect these constitutional stipulations.” Differences between political forces over the issue are likely to hamper the emergence of a consensus, says Al-Senousi. “Recently formed political parties believe the individual candidacy system will not serve their interests and a party-list system is their best guarantee of a parliamentary ticket. They also argue an individual candidacy system will serve the interests of Islamist forces and the remnants of ousted president Hosni Mubarak's defunct National Democratic Party (NDP).” Egyptian Social Democratic Party chairman Mohamed Abul-Ghar agrees. “Reverting to the individual candidacy system which was first adopted in 1990 under the Mubarak regime would represent a setback, helping Islamists and NDP loyalists to sweep the elections just as they did in 2000 and 2010.” Abul-Ghar prefers a mixed system, with individual candidacy implemented in sparsely populated districts and party-lists in densely populated areas. “This will ensure that the coming parliament is representative of most political forces,” he says. Ahmed Al-Fadali, chairman of the Independent Current, a grouping of newly formed political parties, favours an exclusively individual system. “Individual candidacy is the system Egyptians voters best understand,” he says. “Of course it is true that newly-formed political parties do not have much of a street presence but this cannot be allowed to dictate the system we use. Perhaps the best compromise is a mixed system but with 75 per cent of seats elected via individual candidacy and 25 per cent via party-lists.” Younis Makhyoun, chairman of the salafist Nour Party, suggests a mixed system with seats split 50:50. “This could create a balanced parliament representing all forces,” argues Makhyoun. “I fully agree with those who are against a 100 per cent individual candidacy system which will open the door for the return of NDP business tycoons and tribal and familial interests.”
