A draft constitution submitted by the SCAF was endorsed by a referendum of the Egyptian people in March, which delays the final drafting of the new constitution until after the parliamentary elections. Prime Minister Essam Sharaf would prefer to delay the elections until after the completion of the constitution, and is supported by several liberal parties and human rights groups. Islamists and Salafists argue that the results of the referendum should be honoured and the elections held first. Only time will tell,
and there is not much of that remaining – the holy month of Ramadan, starting on 1st August, will slow down the deliberations - and after that there will be less than four weeks before the first round of voting.
The election process is complex, but will probably be similar to that used in 2010. The country was divided into 222 constituencies, each of which returned two members one of which had to be a worker or farmer. In a separate process, each of the 29 governorates also elected two women, one of whom was a worker or farmer. The governorates of Sohag, Cairo and el-Daqahilia were subdivided into two electoral districts, so that a minimum of 64 members of the Assembly were female. To complete the Assembly, the President appointed another ten members.
An announcement has not yet been made about the process to be used in the 2011 election, except that two thirds of the seats will be decided by First Past the Post and the other one third by Proportional Representation.
On March 28, 2011, the SCAF introduced the Political Party Law (PPL) which eases restrictions on the legal establishment of new political parties in Egypt. The legislation has still however been criticized as discriminatory. Under the law new parties are now required to have at least 5000 members from at least ten of Egypt's governorates.
The National Democratic Party, which has been in power for the last 30 years, was officially dissolved in April this year, and there are doubts about whether its members will be allowed to participate in the new government. In the last Assembly it held 420 of the 518 seats.
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) was founded in 1928, but was declared illegal since 1954. In the 2010 elections its members had to stand independently rather than as a party, but won over 60 seats. Approved opposition parties won only 14 seats. Of these, the New Wafd Party won six, the Progressive National Unionist Party won five, and Tomorrow Party, Social Justice Party and Democratic Generation Party each won one seat.
The Wasat (Centre) Party was formed 15 years ago as an offshoot of the MB, and was the first party to be approved under the PPL. It was conceived as a purely civil party and has cooperated with other groups.
The MB has unveiled a Freedom and Justice Party, which is unclear whether it is willing to keep religion out of politics.
The liberal Wafd Party will compete in the elections in alliance with them.
Al-Nour (The Light) Party has been formed by Salafists, many of whom held the view that politics was sinful, that democracy and participating in elections were heretical, and that even defying a tyrannical ruler was wrong. Nevertheless, they are expected to do quite well in 2011.
Other religious oriented parties have yet to be approved, but include Al-Nahda (Revival) and Al-Gama’a Al-Islamiyya.
Al-Nahda aims to become a party rooted in Islam, with political pluralism and democracy as its main goals.
Al-Gama’a Al-Islamiyya is widely believed to have been responsible on a number of terrorist attacks in the 1990s, forcing cruise ships to stop sailing between Cairo and Luxor, and culminating in the Temple of Hatshepsut attack on 17th November 1997 that killed 62 people, mainly foreign tourists. The party has since renounced bloodshed, and behaved in a mainly peaceful manner.
Three new secular political parties submitted registration documents last week. They are the Free Egyptians Party, the Egyptian Social Democrat Party and the el-Adl or Justice Party. Others will follow in the lead-up to the elections, which are awaited with considerable interest.