Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab has ordered the formation of a committee affiliated with the Ministry of Transitional Justice to write the law organizing parliamentary elections constituencies, according to a press statement reported by Youm7 Tuesday.
This follows media statements made by Mahlab earlier this October promising the issuance of the law before the end of the month.
The pending law should determine the different constituencies according to the government’s administrative division of geographical areas “according to received suggestions and constitution articles,” the statement stated. It will map out what districts belong to which parliamentary seat, which hitherto has not been established since the events of June 30 in 2013, and Egypt has lacked a sitting parliament for over a year.
The previous law organizing the parliamentary system law stirred anger among some politicians, who did not like the allocation of only 20 percent of the seats to be through a list-candidacy system. They worried that the remaining 80 percent of individual candidates would not have the means to finance their electoral campaigns.
“A parliament with 80 percent for single candidates means it will be a parliament for (Hosni) Mubarak’s men, businessmen and heads of families and will give the chance for buying votes,” Nour Party leader Sameh Abdel-Hamid told Youm7 last June.
The law was issued despite objections, and without taking into consideration politicians’ consultancies and demands for an open public debate. “It’s the worst parliamentary law ever,” Wafd Party head El-Sayyed el-Badawi said at a roundtable discussion on the parliament elections held Aug. 25. “It was drafted by lawyers not politicians.”
However, the newly formed committee will be headed by Minister of Transitional Justice Ibrahim el-Heneidy and consist of several legal experts in various State institutions and ministries.
