CAIRO, 24 April 2005 — The two houses of Parliament spent the last week debating the amendment of the constitution to allow multicandidate presidential elections, leading some to wonder if the whole constitution shouldn’t just be reworked completely.
During the three sessions that began last week, MPs focused on the principle of Article 76, which stipulates that potential candidates must obtain the backing of the People’s Assembly, Shoura Council and local councils. Despite a heated debate over how a potential candidate should be chosen, most members agreed that candidates should not be required to obtain the backing of members of the two houses of Parliament.
“The Parliament backing is unfair as it is mainly composed of members of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP),” said independent Abdel Monein Alimi. “The dilemma we have now is deciding the number of signatures of registered voters a candidate has to collect,” he told Parliament.
NDP Assistant Secretary-General Kamal El-Shazli said presidential hopefuls should have to get the backing of 120 elected members in local councils in 12 governorates. “This means that a presidential hopeful will have to obtain the support of 10 elected members in each of the required 12 governorates,” El-Shazli said. The NDP also strongly recommends that presidential hopefuls obtain the backing of “a reasonable number of elected MPs in the People’s Assembly and Shoura Council.”
One MP said that despite the importance of President Hosni Mubarak’s proposal for a single amendment, the current constitution has many flaws and it would be best to draft a new one soon. “During the past three sessions we figured out that amending one article of the constitution would not work,” said independent MP Hamadine Sabahy. “For instance talking about multicandidate elections leads to issues like the limitation of the president’s powers, canceling the emergency laws, the freedom of the press and the freedom to establish political parties,” he told Arab News.
Aboul Ezz Al-Hariri, a deputy from the leftist Tagammu Party, said that all members of the two houses of Parliament agreed on including presidential term limits, with presidents serving a maximum of two consecutive terms and equal media coverage to all candidates.
Some 15 members of the Parliament presented a proposal that would separate the powers of the judicial and executive branches so that a commission of judicial figures would oversee the presidential elections to guarantee transparency. The NDP, however, wants the commission overseeing presidential elections to include a mix of judicial and public figures. El-Shazli said this is the rule in France where “the Constitutional Council” supervising the elections is composed of both judicial and public figures.
Parliamentary Speaker Fathi Sorour held closed door discussions with members of the Parliament’s legislative committee concerning 20 proposed amendments to the constitution, according to reports by local newspapers. Al Hariri told Arab News that the proposals include suggestions such as the establishment of an independent judicial committee to monitor the elections, having the elections taking place in one day and denying candidates the right to question the final list of the judicial committee.
The People’s Assembly will devote two sessions next week to the passing the proposed amendment, while the Shoura Council is expected to have its last session on the topic on 26 April. Meanwhile, ruling National Democratic Party Secretary-General Safwat Al-Sherif said the party has already decided to choose Mubarak as their presidential candidate “even though he has not yet signaled his intent to join the race.”
Meanwhile, Egypt detained 28 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood yesterday after they called for an end to an emergency law that gives the state wide detention powers, Brotherhood officials said.
Ali Abdel-Fattah, a group member, told Reuters the detained had attended a conference in Tanta, 85 km north of Cairo, on Friday that also called for other freedoms, such as allowing more freedom to form political parties. Brotherhood officials said the detentions were made early yesterday.
