The People's Assembly (the Lower House of Egypt's Parliament) yesterday approved a revamp of the constituencies across the country, creating 32 electoral districts to meet a quota for women in the House. The approval was, however, denounced by opposition and independent MPs as unconstitutional. “The main reason for revamping the constituencies is the creation of the three new governorates in Helwan, Sixth October and Luxor," Minister of Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Mofied Shehab said. He added that, despite the re-assigning of some constituencies, the Government was keen to maintain the same number of constituencies at 222 and only adding 32 new constituencies for women, “The total number of constituencies across the nation now is 254," Shehab explained. He added that each governorate received one additional constituency for women except for Cairo, Sohag and Daqahliya, which all got two. Meanwhile, independent MP Moustafa Bakri ended his hunger strike inside a room in the People's Assembly yesterday, at the request of Speaker Ahmed Fathi Sorour, who asked the police guarding Parliament to prevent any such strikes in the future. "Bakri is an active MP. However, he is not an employee in the People's Assembly. I order him, with the force of my constitutional right, to end his strike," Sorour said. The cancellation of Helwan and Tibin constituency, represented by Bakri, to be merged into Maadi, where a Cabinet minister is the deputy, would make Bakri's chances of getting a seat in the new Parliament very slim. Residents in Bakri's constituency have recently held several protests outside the Parliament against the decision and threatened to start an open protest. Bakri blamed Ahmed Ezz, a senior official of the NDP, for trying to exclude him from the Parliament.
