Long awaited Egypt Parliamentary elections to be held in October

The Egypt Election Commission has announced on Sunday that the elections will have two phases on Oct. 18-19 and Nov. 22-23.

The second round of voting will occur on Nov 22-23, the election commission told a news conference. The voters outside Egypt will be allowed to cast their votes on Oct 17-18 and Nov 21-22 in two phases.

The first phase of Egypt election was scheduled to be held in March earlier, but it had been delayed after legal obstacles were put forth by the court, saying the election law was unconstitutional and does not adequately represent voters.

Since June 2012, Egypt has remained devoid of Parliament after banning the rule of Muslim Brotherhood. The country was declared to be a democracy only for namesake. The military chief of that time, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, toppled Mohamed Mursi, the president of the first free election of Egypt in 2013, after a mass protest against the Muslim Brotherhood representative.

Sisi formulated several economic reforms and limited political freedom and thereby maintained proper governance in the absence of parliament in the nation. The military announcement of paving a path to real democracy in Egypt brought one of the most severe crackdowns on Islamists, with security forces killing hundreds of street protesters and arresting thousands of people.

Out of 568 seats in the Parliament, 448 are elected as individuals and 120 were distributed on winner-takes-all list, with separate quotas for women, Christians and youth. In addition, the president can appoint not more than 5 percent of people to the house to make up for vacant seats.

“The question will remain: will this parliament be an effective check and balance against the executive? There are some signs it may, due to the likely prevalence of big-business interests within it, be argumentative on issues pertaining to economic policy,” non-resident at the Washington Brookings Center for Middle East Policy, H.A. Hellyer, said.

Analysts, however, seem to believe the devotion of Sisi will act as a milestone in these Egypt elections.

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