Elections in Egypt

Egypt has been without Parliament since June 2012. Organizing Parliamentary elections is the last step in the roadmap that interim president Adly Mansour promised after president Morsi had been deposed on July 3, 2013. The first step in this roadmap was amending the Egyptian Constitution which had been done in such a thorough way that it almost became a new constitution. The second step in the roadmap was the election of a president.

This became President al-Sisi. The third step on this roadmap is electing a new Parliament. Elections, because they are monitored by Egypt’s judiciary, are taking place in two tranches:

October 18-19 – elections in the governorates of Giza, Fayoum, Beni Suef, Minya, Assiut, New Valley, Sohag, Qena, Luxor, Aswan, Red Sea, Alexandria, Beheira and Matruh.

November 22-23 – elections in the governorates of Cairo, Qalyubiya, Dakahliya, Minufiya, Gharbiya, Kafr el-Sheikh, Sharqia, Dumyat, Port Said, Ismailia, Suez, North Sinai and South Sinai.

For this reason the Dutch Muslim Broadcasting Company, Moslim Omroep, interviewed Khaled Hassan, General (retired) Darwish and parliamentary candidate Emad Awny during their recent visit to the Netherlands. The interviews, broadcasted on October 17 at noon (NPO2) can be viewed here:http://www.uitzendinggemist.net/aflevering/332919/Mo_Actueel.html

On Saturday October 17, Nile TV International interviewed me. I compared Dutch Parliamentary elections to those in Egypt. A major difference between both countries is that MPs in Egypt are voted for per district while in the Netherlands Parliamentary elections are nationwide without electoral districts. Another major difference is that most candidates for the Egyptian Parliament run as independents while the number running on a party list is relatively small. In the Netherlands most MPs are elected through a party platform. For his interview please click here.

Cornelis Hulsman

Deputy chairman of the Center for Arab-West Understanding.

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