CAIRO: According to Egypt's State Information Service, The Egyptian parliament on Saturday set the criteria for choosing members of the constituent assembly that will draft Egypt's new constitution. Speaker of the People's Assembly Saad El-Katatni announced that 50 percent of the constituent assembly's members will be selected from MPs at a joint upper and lower houses session. Saturday's poll which put forth several views for membership criteria saw 472 vote for the 50/50 option, in which 50 members of the 100-member constituent assembly will be chosen from the parliament and 50 from outside. The constituent assembly will be charged with drafting Egypt's new post-Mubarak constitution. The parliament is expected to elect members of the constituent committee on 24 March. The new constitution's construction has been an intensely controversial issue in Egypt since the 2011 popular uprising that ousted Egypt's three-decade president, Hosni Mubarak. There had been attempts by the transitional government, run by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces, to push through a series of amendments, which would ultimately protect the military in Egypt. These referendums were controversial, complicated and widely misunderstood, though, they could be simplified as a sort of continued immunity for the armed forces, and a blanket of continued secrecy in their budget and operations. There is also ongoing debate as to whether the constitution should be in place before or after the presidential elections. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/gmkZW Tags: Egypt constitution, featured, will include MPs Section: Egypt, Latest News
