General election in Egypt 2015

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Distribution of seats:
  • Free Egyptian Party : 65 seats
  • The Future of the Nation party : 53 seats
  • New Wafd party : 36 seats
  • Defenders of the Fatherland Party : 18 seats
  • Republican People's Party : 13 seats
  • Conference party : 12 seats
  • Party of Light : 11 seats
  • Conservative Party : 6 seats
  • Democratic Peace Party : 5 seats
  • Egyptian Social Democratic Party : 4 seats
  • Egyptian Patriotic Movement : 4 seats
  • Modern Egyptian Party : 4 seats
  • Reform and Development Party : 3 seats
  • Freedom Party : 3 seats
  • My homeland Egypt party : 3 seats
  • National Progressive Unionist Party : 2 seats
  • Arab Democratic Nasserist Party : 1 seat
  • Construction Free Egyptian Party : 1 seats
  • Revolutionary Guard Party : 1 seats
  • Independent: 351 seats

    • The parliamentary elections in Egypt 2015 took place in two stages on October 17-19 and November 21-23, 2015. There were runoff elections from October 26th to 28th and November 30th to December 2nd. The 568 seats of the unicameral parliament, the House of Representatives , were determined for five years. The last parliamentary election took place in early 2012, but it was declared invalid by the Constitutional Court in summer 2012 and the House of Representatives was dissolved. Since then, Egypt has de facto no more elected parliament. The new election was announced several times, first for spring 2013, then for autumn 2013, then for 2014, then for spring 2015 and then for summer 2015, but postponed again and again with reference to the unstable domestic political situation.

    background

    On June 14, 2012, the Constitutional Court ordered the dissolution of the lower house of the Egyptian bicameral parliament. The reason for this was that the elections had not been held in accordance with the constitution, as parties had also submitted candidates for the third of the seats that were intended for independent candidates. The next day, Parliament was formally dissolved by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and as a result, members of parliament were refused entry. The country's highest administrative court upheld the constitutional court's dissolution of parliament on September 22, 2012 by dismissing an appeal.

    At the end of 2012, the Constituent Assembly of Egypt drafted a new constitution. It was accepted by the Egyptian people in a referendum on December 15 and 22, 2012 and signed into force on December 26 by President Morsi . On January 19, 2013, the Egyptian Shura Council , the upper house of the Egyptian parliament, which was also elected in 2012 but not dissolved, passed a new electoral law and submitted it to the constitutional court for review. On February 18, the latter declared five articles of the electoral law to be unconstitutional, whereupon the Shura Council changed them, but did not subsequently submit the law to the constitutional court for review.

    Appointment delays

    On February 20, 2013, President Mursi decided by decree that the election should take place over a total of eight dates from April 27 to June 20, 2013, the runoff elections one week later, so that parliament should meet for the first time on July 6, 2013 . After protests from the Coptic minority that the election kick-off coincided with their Easter celebrations, Morsi moved all election dates forward on February 23; the election was now due to begin on April 22nd and parliament should meet for the first time on July 2nd.

    On March 6, 2013, however, the Cairo Administrative Court declared Morsi's decree setting the election dates to be invalid and also submitted the new electoral law to the Constitutional Court for renewed review. The Egyptian election committee then announced that the election would be postponed. According to Morsi's statement on March 27, 2013, the elections should probably take place in autumn 2013.

    After President Morsi was ousted from office in a military coup on July 3 and Adli Mansur was appointed his temporary successor by the military council , Mansur announced in his first speech on July 4 that democratic parliamentary elections would be held, but did not give a specific date.

    President Abd al-Fattah as-Sisi announced in November 2014 that the election would take place by March 2015. The schedule was to hold the election in Egypt between March 21 and May 7, 2015 in several stages. On March 1, 2015, however, the Egyptian Constitutional Court declared some clauses of the electoral law to be invalid, which is why the election had to be postponed indefinitely. In mid-March, Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab announced that the election would probably be held in May or June 2015.

    In August 2015, the Egyptian Electoral Commission announced that the elections would be held in two phases between October and December 2015.

    execution

    The choice takes place according to Art. 101 to 138 of the new Constitution of the Republic of Egypt adopted in a referendum in 2014 and the House Law of June 2014, amended by Presidential Decree No. 92/2015. 448 of the 568 seats in the House of Representatives are determined by the election of individual applicants, 120 by list voting, whereby according to Art. 102, Paragraph 4 of the Constitution, the President - as since Nasser's time - determines up to 5 percent of the parliamentary seats himself 28 seats in this election, which is used to involve underrepresented groups such as women in the political process (see Art. 27 of the House of Representatives Act). A total of 5,936 candidates are running who, according to Art. 102 of the Constitution, must be at least 25 years old and, according to Art. 8 of the Law on the House of Representatives, Egyptian citizens with full civil rights, a certain level of education and without a loss of confidence by the parliament. For this, the country was divided into 205 electoral districts for single seats and 4 large electoral districts for list connections. All Egyptians with full civil rights over the age of 18 are eligible to vote, a total of almost 55 million. According to Article 5 of the Law on the House of Representatives, the election lists must contain a certain number of certain population groups such as Christians, workers, farmers, young people, the disabled and Egyptians abroad.

    In 14 of the 27 governorates , elections will take place on October 18 and 19; for the Egyptians abroad in these areas, the election will start on October 17. A possible runoff election will take place on October 26-28. In the other 13 governorates, elections will take place on November 22nd and 23rd (for Egyptians abroad already from the 21st) with the runoff from November 30th to December 2nd.

    The election campaign for individual seats had to be financed only for the wealthy, despite the cap on election campaign expenses of 2.5 million Egyptian pounds (see Art. 1 of Presidential Decree No. 92/2015) or around 57,000 euros. Around 200 candidates previously belonged to the National Democratic Party of the autocratic ruling Hosni Mubarak and are considered favorites in the same constituencies in which they won in 2005 and 2010 , while the Muslim Brotherhood, who ruled briefly until the 2013 army coup, are still banned. About a dozen electoral lists have stood for election, but each has only a few thousand members; The most professional are the " Free Egyptians " financed by billionaire Naguib Sawiris , and other entrepreneurs have also been involved in political parties and the media. The parties largely support the autocratic regime of President al-Sisi, who has ruled since 2013, and even the only approved Islamic Party of Light has approved the coup against the elected President Morsi. Many opposition groups from the time of the revolution in Egypt in 2011 and the Arab Spring have called for a boycott of the elections, with a turnout of only a third of those eligible to vote is expected.

    meaning

    The election is the chance of Egypt's (long delayed) return to an orderly, at least partially participatory government, after President al-Sisi, who came to power through a coup, has ruled with a hard hand without democratic control and passed 263 laws in 420 days. Formally, the constitution grants parliament great powers: in addition to legislative power, it also has the power to control the executive (Articles 122-138 of the constitution); It can prevent the dismissal of the Prime Minister - who is dependent on the confidence of Parliament (Articles 131, 146 of the Constitution) and reshuffle the Cabinet by the President and prosecute him for breach of the constitution or force early presidential elections by withdrawing confidence (Articles 159, 161 of the Constitution); There are narrow limits to the dissolution of parliament by the President (Article 137 of the Constitution). Parliament must agree to the declaration of a state of emergency and may not be dissolved during this time (Art. 154 of the Constitution). That is why al-Sisi warned before the election that the new parliament could pose a security risk and that parliamentarians would therefore have to be carefully selected. Some Egyptian political scientists judge that among the candidates handpicked by the security apparatus there are hardly any candidates with legislative competence and that the president will therefore instruct the parliamentarians appointed by him to bring the bills he has prepared through parliament. The Al-Monitor newspaper comes to the conclusion that such a tamed opposition will not throw the regime off track, but that the appearance of free elections will allay international skepticism towards al-Sisi's regime. Dieter Bednarz judges in the Spiegel that the election “has little in common with equal opportunities according to Western standards” and that “yes-men and political survivors who have more of their benefices and their own advantage in mind than the common good” are advantageous.

    Lists and electoral alliances

    For the 120 seats allocated to party lists in four major electoral districts (45 each for Cairo with the central Nile delta and for Upper Egypt, 15 each for the western and eastern Nile delta), a number of parties and independent candidates have formed loose alliances and drawn up common electoral lists:

    The 448 remaining seats are allocated in individual constituencies to individual candidates who either belong to a party or can be non-party.

    Result

    First round
    Political party Type be right proportion of Candidates Runoff
    candidates     		Seats proportion of
     Party of the Free Egyptians Liberal Democrats 1,009,083 113 64 41
     Party "The Future of the Nation" pro-sisi 702.965 89 46 26th
     New Wafd party National Liberals 392.138 77 21st 16
     Republican People's Party pro-sisi 198.822 42 146 11
     Party of light Islamist Salafists 494.042 91 23 8th
     Party of Defenders of the Fatherland pro-sisi 89,875 51 5 7th
     Conference party pro-sisi 105.975 53 7th 5
     Egyptian Social Democratic Party Liberal Democrats 56,922 41 5 3
     Party of Modern Egypt secular, pro-Sisi 25,993 25th 2 2
     Democratic Peace Party socialist 155,847 57 8th 1
     Freedom party former NDP members 68,926 6th 3 1
     Egyptian Patriotic Movement pro-sisi 45.014 60 4th 1
     Party My Homeland Egypt former NDP members 29,971 20th 3 1
     Conservative Party former NDP members 23,042 14th 2 1
     Free Egyptian Party of Construction 11 1 1
    Leading party 9 1 0
    total houses of Parliament 100% 100%

    After the election

    Parliament was constituted on January 10, 2016. Law professor Ali Abdel-Al was elected Speaker of Parliament with 401 votes.

    Web links

    Individual evidence

    1. ↑ a b c d e Ayah Aman: Egyptians prepare for elections… but do they really matter? ( Memento from October 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: Al-Monitor , October 15, 2015 (English).
    2. ↑ Current background: Parliamentary elections in Egypt. In: Federal Agency for Civic Education , October 16, 2015 (names 567 seats), but see President of the Arab Republic of Egypt's Decree-Law No. 92/2015. (PDF) In: Elections.eg (English), Art. 1.
    3. ↑ the constitution of 2014 (Part V) only provides for a House of Representatives, not a Shura Council
    4. ^ Parliament dissolved in Egypt - Desperate fight against chaos. In: sueddeutsche.de . June 15, 2012, accessed December 20, 2014 .
    5. ↑ Parliamentary elections scheduled for mid-October
    6. ↑ afp, dpa and Reuters: Election judgment: Court declares Egypt's parliamentary election invalid. In: zeit.de . June 14, 2012, accessed December 20, 2014 .
    7. ↑ Non-constitutional election: Parliament is dissolved. In: Abendblatt.de . June 14, 2012, accessed December 20, 2014 .
    8. ↑ SCAF formally disbands Egypt parliament , report at Al Jazeera from June 15, 2012 (English)
    9. ↑ AFP : Egypt: Back on the go in Cairo. In: fr-online.de . September 22, 2012, accessed December 20, 2014 .
    10. ^ Egypt: resolution of parliament confirmed at dradio.de, 23 September 2012 (accessed on 24 September 2012).
    11. ↑ Egypt's Shura council approves controversial new elections law In: Al-Ahram online, January 19, 2013 (English)
    12. ^ Egypt court suspends parliamentary elections , Ahram online, March 6, 2013 (accessed March 30, 2013)
    13. ^ Parliamentary elections in Egypt from April 27th
    14. ^ AFP: Parliamentary elections in four stages. In: FAZ.net . February 22, 2013, accessed December 20, 2014 .
    15. ↑ Mursi changes election dates after Copts protest. In: welt.de . February 23, 2013, accessed December 20, 2014 .
    16. ^ Justice of Egypt declares election date invalid. In: sueddeutsche.de . March 6, 2013, accessed December 20, 2014 .
    17. ↑ Egypt cancels parliamentary vote dates after court ruling , Reuters, March 7, 2013 (accessed March 30, 2013)
    18. ^ Elections in Egypt postponed to autumn oe24.at of March 27, 2013 (accessed on July 7, 2013)
    19. ↑ Egypt: Courts reverse Mursi decisions. In: sueddeutsche.de . March 27, 2013, accessed December 20, 2014 .
    20. ↑ Election in Egypt may be postponed until autumn Reuters.com on March 27, 2013 (accessed July 7, 2013)
    21. ↑ Revolution in Egypt - Interim President Mansur promises free election time online from July 4, 2013 (accessed on July 7, 2013)
    22. ↑ Parliamentary polls to be held before end of March, says El-Sisi , Ahram Online, November 10, 2014
    23. ↑ PM: Parliamentary elections in May or June. In: Egypt Independent , March 15, 2015.
    24. ^ Egypt Parliament Elections to Be Held in October and November. In: BBC.co.uk , August 30, 2015 (English).
    25. ↑ Constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt 2014. (PDF) In: Elections.eg (English).
    26. ^ Law on the House of Representatives. (PDF) In: Elections.eg (English), June 5, 2014.
    27. ^ President of the Arab Republic of Egypt's Decree-Law No. 92/2015. (PDF) In: Elections.eg (English).
    28. ↑ a b c d e f Dieter Bednarz: Elections in Egypt: Therapy for a disturbed people. In: Spiegel Online , October 18, 2015.
    29. ^ Decree Law of the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt no. 88/2015. (PDF) In: Elections.eg (English), which replaces the provisions of 2014 (PDF) for the individual seats ; on the division of the four electoral districts for list connections ibid., p. 33.
    30. ↑ Markus Bickel: Parliamentary election in Egypt - In the dust of the ruler. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , October 18, 2015.
    31. ↑ madamasr.com
    32. ↑ Second round of parliamentary elections in Egypt attracts few voters. In: WAZ (DerWesten.de), November 22, 2015.
    33. ↑ heute.de January 10, 2016 ( Memento from January 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive )