The House of Representatives, during the current session discussing the laws for parliamentary elections, bears witness to the agreement of the National Dialogue, its committees and its Board of Trustees on the necessity of increasing the number of members of the House of Representatives and the Senate in a reasonable and proportionate manner with the noticeable increase in the number of citizens included. With the voter database, especially since new headquarters were established for the parliamentary councils to accommodate any increase in the new administrative capital.
While Regarding the issue of the electoral system in light of the constitutional controls, it was agreed to submit three opinions and regulations to the President of the Republic, to decide and choose among them, as the first opinion includes maintaining the current electoral system for parliamentary elections, with its two chambers, the House of Representatives and the Senate, which includes dividing the republic into 4 districts, and Electoral system 50% for absolute closed lists and 50% for the individual system.
The absolute closed list represents the seven categories that the constitution required representation, and this system helps small and modest parties for parliamentary representation, and sometimes supports party commitment, as for the absolute list Closed areas are subject to constitutional conditions, and the Constitution has permitted their adoption, which gives an opportunity for optimal representation of political and partisan forces and all different groups and to achieve the constitutional proportions stipulated in the Constitution “Women, People of determination, Egyptians abroad, and the youth.
This system has some drawbacks, namely the wasting of 49% of the electoral votes, and the difficulty of forming an absolute closed list of small parties, because it requires conditions and quota percentages that are difficult to achieve.< /p>
As for the second opinion, the elections should be held according to a 100% proportional list system in 15 electoral districts with a number of seats for each district. 40 electoral seats, provided that the quota represents women and positive discrimination for the other five categories stipulated in the Egyptian Constitution in Articles 102, 243 and 244, and then the percentage of women out of the total House of Representatives becomes 150, counting the number of seats 600 seats, and then the number of women on each list becomes 10 seats in 15 electoral districts, and the list is not incomplete, and the border governorates are given 4 seats for each governorate as a distinction. Positive based on the constitutional text in Article 102 of the Egyptian Constitution, and based on the ruling of the Constitutional Court issued on the appeal against Decision Law No. 202 of 2014, and the border governorates are “North Sinai – South Sinai – Red Sea – New Valley – Marsa Matruh”.
The electoral quotient is calculated based on calculating the relative weight of valid votes in each district, which is known in the media as the electoral threshold, i.e. There is no fixed electoral threshold in law, and fractions are calculated by adding it to the lowest winning lists in each district.
The positives of this system include that the proportional system does not waste 49% of the electoral votes and helps to strengthen parties, and forms a parliament The team was elected on the basis of a proportional list of a mixture of parties, and this helps in the multiplicity of views and opinions from various political movements and forces.
As for the negatives, they are that the proportional list requires monitoring the results of the elections and conducting Complex calculations to determine the winning candidates, and they come in a heterogeneous parliament due to the multiplicity of different trends and viewpoints from many political forces, which will affect the performance of the parliament, and lead to turmoil in government work and legislative work.
The third opinion is represented by: Implementing a mixed electoral system that combines the absolute closed list system, the proportional list system, and the individual system, so that the percentages are 25% for the absolute closed list system, 25% for the proportional list system, and 50% for the individual system, on the condition that The percentage of women is collected from the absolute and relative lists, or by 40% for the individual system, 30% for the absolute closed list system, and 30% for the relative list system, provided that the percentage of women is collected from both lists.
