Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Ibrahim Al-Heneidy disclosed this week that a government-appointed committee has rejected proposals aimed at “completely” changing Egypt's electoral system. “The proposals, submitted by leftist and liberal revolutionary forces, would have required the electoral constituencies law to be completely rewritten to open the way for an electoral system that guarantees all political forces are fairly represented in a democratic parliament,” said Heneidy. At a press conference on Sunday, Heneidy, who heads the government committee in charge of drafting election laws, said that though political forces were allowed to submit proposals after the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) ruled the existing Constituency Law unconstitutional, “proposals aimed at changing the law completely could not be accepted since they go beyond the SCC's ruling and could themselves be judged unconstitutional.” “The constitution is clear,” said Salah Fawzi, a member of the committee and professor of constitutional law at Mansoura University. “You may adopt an individual system, a party list system, or a mix of the two. “But you cannot make a mix between two forms of one electoral system,” Fawzi told Al-Ahram Weekly, a reference to a proposal that constituencies returning independent candidates be scrapped in favour of combining two party list systems. “Some parties proposed that 40 per cent of seats be elected by a first past the post, or absolute system, whereby the party winning 50 per cent plus one of the votes in any constituency sweeps all the seats, and 40 per cent by proportional representation, which allocates seats to political parties in proportion to the votes they win in each constituency,” said Fawzi. “Other parties proposed a mixture of the individual and party list systems and quibbled only over the number of seats reserved for each. The Wafd Party, for instance, submitted two proposals: the first that seats be equally divided among independents and party candidates; the second that the number of seats allocated to independents increase from 420 to 440.” “The Wafd Party believes that a 20-seat increase will ensure the difference between the number of voters in each independent constituency does not exceed 25 per cent, the limit set by the SCC,” said Yasser Al-Hodeiby, deputy chairman of the Wafd Party. But first, said Fawzi, “the committee will have to check any proposed increase in the number of MPs can be physically accommodated in the chamber. This proposal would push the number of MPs from 567 to 587. So you have to ask yourself, is the House of Representatives debating chamber large enough to accommodate such an unprecedented number of MPs.” Otherwise, said Fawzi, “the 20-seat increase looks credible.” He continued, “The most recent official statistics reveal a half-million increase in the number of eligible voters in the last three since the first draft of the constituencies law was endorsed.” Al-Hodeiby said Al-Wafd had also asked that the SCC be allowed to revise election laws before they are passed rather than after they come into effect. Fawzi agrees, though he warns “the constitution would have to be amended to allow the SCC pre-scrutiny of election laws.” Parliamentary elections, originally touted as the first step in Egypt's three-phased post-Morsi politically roadmap, had finally been scheduled to be held this week, only to be delayed yet again when, on 1 March, the SCC ruled the Constituencies Law unconstitutional. According to Heneidy, the liberal Constitution Party, founded by ex-UN diplomat and liberal politician Mohamed Al-Baradie, and the leftist Popular Socialist Alliance Party, founded by Hamdeen Sabahi, both submitted proposals that required a wholesale change in the electoral system. Before the SCC ruled the current laws regulating the elections unconstitutional, both parties announced they would not participate in the polls. Medhat Al-Zahed, deputy chairman of the Popular Socialist Alliance Party, told a press conference on 18 March, “After former interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim was dismissed, a police officer was charged with killing protester Shaimaa Al-Sabagh, and two election laws were ruled unconstitutional we had second thoughts” about boycotting the poll. Al-Ahram political analyst Amr Al-Shobaki revealed that at a meeting on 18 March, 14 political parties agreed “the remit of the government-appointed drafting committee should not be restricted to ensuring its amendments neither contravene the constitution nor contradict SCC's rulings but should be expanded to ensure the election laws in their entirety are more democratic and representative.” “The current law, by allocating just 20 per cent of seats to party-based candidates, is discriminatory,” argued Al-Zahed. “It will allow wealthy businessmen, remnants of the Mubarak-regime, standing in the guise of independents, to dominate parliament.” Al-Zahed said two “revolutionary” proposals seeking to eradicate the unfairness and discrimination that characterise the existing legislation were submitted to the drafting committee. “The first proposal was that 40 per cent of seats be contested under the absolute list system, another 40 per cent under a proportional list system and the remaining 20 per cent of seats reserved for minority candidates such as women and Copts,” said Al-Zahed. “The second proposal allocated 40 per cent of seats to party proportional lists, 40 per cent to independents, and 20 per cent to minority candidates.” As Al-Heneidy pointed out to reporters, “In its 1 March ruling the SCC ordered the electoral constituencies law be amended to ensure greater balance, in terms of the number of voters, in 20 districts, covering 13 governorates, reserved for independent candidates. “The SCC did not say the entire electoral system was flawed and as a result must be changed completely. The drafting committee's job, therefore, is to amend the law in such a way that a balance is created between independent constituencies not to change the law by reallocating the distribution of seats among independents and party candidates.” “A meeting between Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb and representatives from different political forces is expected to be held soon in a bid to hammer out a consensus over the amendments,” Heneidy added. “We are in a hurry and we want the polls to be held as soon as possible but first there must be agreement over the regulations.” In a plenary meeting on 18 March the cabinet agreed the membership of the drafting committee should be widened to include “a distinguished expert on election laws”, opening the door for Ali Awad, the constitutional law professor who served as a legal advisor to interim president, now SCC chairman, Adly Mansour, to join. Heneidy also revealed that Article 8 of the House of Representatives Law has been amended to conform with a second SCC ruling, delivered on 8 March. “The amendment allows Egyptians with dual nationality to stand for parliament,” said Heneidy. Heneidy said that the committee has also eliminated all forms of discrimination among parliamentary deputies. “I refer to Article 6 of the House law which makes female MPs immune to dismissal from parliament even if they changed their electoral designations from ‘worker' to ‘farmer' or vice versa. As some wanted the court rule this article unconstitutional, so we decided to change it to eliminate any forms of discrimination,” said Heneidy.
