Egypt parliament seat costs $3.2m, reveals MP

Egypt MP Mortada Mansour has revealed that the price for a seat in parliament is 50 million Egyptian pounds ($3.2 million).

In a leaked video the president of the Zamalek Club can be heard saying: “I did not pay 50 million pounds of the people’s blood for them to put me on their list.”

The amount was for a seat within the ruling party’s list, For Egypt, reports Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

At a meeting with his constituency in Dakahlia Governorate, Mansour went on to say: “Those who pay 50 million pounds, how much is he worth? Where does he get this money from? How will he gather the funds?”

The regime’s party, the Future of the Nation Party, put forward its own candidates forward in Dakahlia Governorate, in order to push Mansour out of the constituency.

Parliamentary sources told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that the For Egypt electoral list included figures from the arms trade, antiquities and drugs, especially in the governorates of Central and South Upper Egypt, Matrouh and North and South Sinai.

Collectively, they have paid tens of millions of pounds in exchange for their parliamentary immunity, causing tension among other existing members of parliament who were not on the list because they could not or did not want to pay the vast sum.

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Recently, Egyptian security services arrested lawyer Tariq Jamil Saeed, after he posted a video on social media accusing the government of “selling seats in the senate and parliament to whoever pays the most” and asked how much President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi knew about the gifting of parliamentary seats to the highest bidder.

The comment referenced the huge amounts of money paid by political candidates to the security services supervising electoral lists. He later deleted it.

Tariq Saeed is actually one of Al-Sisi’s most prominent supporters yet has been accused of disturbing public peace, spreading rumours and lies and misusing social media.

He is the son of Counselor Jamil Saeed, who has defended several officials that once belonged to the late Hosni Mubarak regime.

Experts say his arrest signifies the divisions within the ruling authorities and the anger over the national list for parliament, which is not contested by other lists.