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Egypt to start preparation for parliamentary elections by 18 July

June 23, 2014 at 9:53 am

Egyptian state-owned TV said Sunday that post-coup president Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi has decided to start preparation for parliamentary elections by July 18.

According to MENA news agency, quoted presidential spokesman Ehab Badawy as saying that al-Sisi told US Secretary of State during his recent visit that Egypt is “determined to move forward with the future roadmap.”

The date of the parliamentary elections has not yet been specified.

Parliamentary elections would mark the third step in the roadmap announced by the army after its ouster of the civilian president Mohamed Morsi last July 3.

The roadmap had included constitutional amendments and presidential election, which the ex-army chief and coup leader al-Sisi won two weeks ago.

Egypt has recently ratified a law that allows individual candidates to get a majority of the seats in the parliament, triggering a plethora of criticisms by political parties, which argued that the decision would weaken them. The individual candidacy system will include 420 seats out of 540.

Most political parties in Egypt are nascent, with hardly any popular base. The most popular political party, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, has been dissolved after the military coup and all its leaders have been jailed.