Sidelined by design: Egypt’s parliament in transition

ABSTRACT

Egypt’s parliament has been broadly excluded from the country’s political developments since the 2011 uprisings. The nadir of its influence was reached when the House of Representatives (lower house) was dissolved in summer 2012, followed by the Shura Council (former upper house) in summer 2013. Subsequently, no parliament existed until new elections, repeatedly postponed, were eventually conducted in fall 2015. This delay seemed to be part of the government’s strategy, as it used these years without a parliament to draft an electoral law that made formation of a legislature critical of the regime highly unlikely. The repeated electoral postponements also imposed specific burdens on the revolutionary parties that struggled to compete with the former elites. This article examines the contributions of Egypt’s parliament to the country’s transition trajectory, discusses the relevant changes made to the constitution and electoral law, and concludes that the parliament’s contribution to Egypt’s development has been limited, and will most probably remain so in the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Egypt
• parliament
• democratisation
• elections
• Arab Spring

Introduction

The Arab Spring generated new opportunities for national legislative chambers across North Africa (Völkel 2013). This applied in particular to Tunisia, where the National Constituent Assembly became one of the country’s driving political forces during the first three post-revolutionary years (Bahi and Völkel 2014), before being replaced in October 2014 by the country’s first democratically elected national assembly. Even in Egypt, which today disappoints regarding its democratic progress (Freedom House 2015, 2; Völkel 2016), free and fair parliamentary elections were conducted in winter 2011–2012. However, after Islamists won the dominant share of votes, the Supreme Constitutional Court dissolved Egypt’s lower house (Maglis al-Sha‘b) in summer 2012, and one year later, the parliament’s upper house (Maglis al-Shura), contending that the previous elections had been conducted unconstitutionally (Abd Rabou 2014). After several postponements and the complete revision of the constitution by a constituent assembly, finishing in December 2013, elections for a new (now unicameral) parliament were originally announced for September 2014. However, elections were repeatedly postponed until fall 2015. Given the regime’s dictation of the new electoral law and its massive interference with the electoral process, it came as little surprise that the new parliament, which eventually took up work on 10 January 2016, consisted mainly of pro-regime deputies, and therefore shows little prospect of acting independently and critically towards the government in the near future (Brown 2015).

Against this background, this article asks what role parliament has played in Egypt’s transition process to date, how its low standing could be improved and what contributions may be anticipated from it in the future. After a general, theory-guided evaluation of parliaments in democratisation processes, the article analyses the case of the Egyptian legislative body during and after the revolution. This analysis shows that particularly since Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi became president, all signs indicate a renewed concentration of power solely in the hands of the state president and his entourage, with the parliament shunted to the side.

This article partially fills the research gap regarding Arab parliaments. Few studies on the issue were conducted before the 2011 uprisings. Publications in the area include the seminal volumes edited by Baaklini, Denoeux, and Springborg (1999) and Lust-Okar and Zerhouni (2008), the monograph on electoral politics in Egypt by Blaydes (2011), the studies carried out by El-Sawi (2000, 2003) and the articles by Langohr (2002, 2004). More recent research on Egypt’s parliament comes from Abd Rabou (2013, 2014, 2015), Hassan (2011, 2013a, 2013b), Masoud (2014), Tavana (2011) and Faris (2012).

Parliaments and their importance in (the Arab) transition processes

Before 2011, parliaments had little influence in Arab politics. Across the Arab world, ‘political power remained concentrated in the hands of either non-elected elites or those whose election had been all but guaranteed, with elected legislatures generally lacking significant power’ (Tessler, Jamal, and Robbins 2012, 92). Election fraud, weak opposition parties and ‘incomplete parliamentarisation’ were omnipresent (Langohr 2004, 186ff.). Parliaments almost always served ‘as rubberstamps for executive dictates’ (Khashan 2012, 921), not as independent, self-determined institutions. Consequently, Arab parliaments saw themselves as a part of their governing regimes, rather than as critical counterweights.

Due to parliaments’ irrelevance, research on the Arab transition processes to date has focused far more heavily on governments (whether Islamist, secular, military-dominated or civilian) and civil-society actors (including NGOs, grassroots organisations, etc.). Parliaments, by contrast, have received comparatively little attention.

This academic neglect is regrettable, as the ‘Herculean task of replacing current authoritarian regimes with democratic ones’ (Langohr 2004, 200) lies beyond NGOs’ capabilities – instead, this job requires functioning institutions. While spontaneous, united activism (‘civil society’) might bring down authoritarian regimes, it ultimately requires a ‘political society’ to establish lasting democratic polities (Stepan 2012, 94). Here, judicial and parliamentary institutions are particularly important (Brumberg 2002, 64). As Sayigh (2009, 3) writes, ‘The rule of law cannot be established in the absence of a functioning parliament and judicial system’.

Because presidents in winner-take-all presidential systems tend to polarise citizens rather than unite them (Linz 1990), and perpetual power struggles between presidents and prime ministers risk paralysing political activity in semi-presidential systems (Elgie 2005, 99), parliamentary systems are widely seen as the most suitable for conflict-prone societies. They provide the best ability to integrate varying opinions into the political process (Houle 2009, 615).¹ From this perspective, parliamentary systems, or at least semi-parliamentary systems with a strong prime minister and a mere figurehead president, are preferable to presidential systems, as they give parliaments comparatively more leverage.²

The level of ‘input legitimacy’ (Easton 1965) enjoyed by representative parliaments is higher than any political institution. However, their ‘output legitimacy’ is usually less appreciated, as people often perceive parliamentary debates to be overlong or even pointless. Particularly in transforming countries and societies in crisis, people expect clear governmental decisions, and hardly oppose

restricting the powers of parliaments, parties, elections and assembly votes, allegedly in order on the one hand to get rid of time-consuming debates between opposite views, and, on the other hand, [to] eliminate the increasingly costly and unegalitarian electoral campaigns. (Palonen and Rosales 2015, 14f.)

A prime example is Egypt, where the army leadership apparently had no problem in reversing all democratic gains after 2011 and re-establishing a military dictatorship under President al-Sisi, which found the approval of many Egyptians.³ In this regard, the armed forces must be understood as the strongest veto player in the Egyptian political system (Tsebelis 1995). An Egyptian observer who wished to remain anonymous confirmed that without the army’s consent, parliamentarians, ministers and perhaps even the president himself could not be sure of continuing their tenure – a claim that was vividly illustrated by the 2013 coup against then-President Morsi (Abul-Magd 2013, 3f.).

With regard to parliamentary potential, the choice of the ‘right’ electoral system is vital, as ‘there can be little doubt that electoral systems usually do have a major effect on the structure of the party system’ (Helms 2008, 10). For divided societies, Lijphart (2004, 100) assumes that proportional representation systems are the most appropriate form of governance, as ‘ensuring the election of a broadly representative legislature should be the crucial consideration’. However, successful transition from a winner-takes-all system to proportional representation requires, and typically produces, a powerful parliament (Langohr 2002, 120). Crucial are ‘electoral systems that encourage cooperation and accommodation among rival groups, and therefore work to reduce the salience of ethnicity’ (Reilly 2002, 157).

Functioning parliaments require functioning parties, as ‘a parliament of constantly shifting factions, or a collection of independents, could defeat a government on specific issues, or vote ministers out of office, but could not formulate a program or form a government itself’ (Herb 2004, 373). Strengthening parliaments would contribute to stronger parties, and vice versa. If parliaments had greater power, the high degree of party fragility that currently characterises virtually all Arab states would be lowered, and the problematic wasta system (personal relations based on kinship) that contributes to high levels of overall corruption would similarly decline (Lust 2009; see also Albrecht 2008, 23).

Finally, the existence of second chambers is of significant importance in transitioning countries. They may serve as ‘safe harbours’ for former elites (Lijp-hart 1984; Ketterer 2001), and can thus help ease potential conflicts between old and new elites. They may also ensure better representation of various ethnic or social groups that otherwise have no formal representation in the political process. Finally, second chambers can be used to ensure the fair representation of different regions, a factor of particular importance in territorially large states. As a venue for the representation of particular interests, second chambers release first chambers from needing to consider such interests too strongly, thus allowing the lower chambers to become true ‘national assemblies’ able to fulfil their primary tasks: legislation production and governmental oversight.

As will be shown in the following, Egypt, five years after the Arab Spring, has achieved almost none of these theoretical conditions. The army still has unlimited power over the political sphere and controls a substantial share of the country’s economy. The president, as long as he is backed by the army and its various secret services, wields almost unlimited power and is beyond public control. Opponents are excluded from the political process through violent suppression. Parliament is little more than a collection of individual government supporters, and parties play no specific role whatsoever. The second chamber has been abolished, which means that minorities’ interests are either not considered or sidelined in the main chamber. These conditions negatively impact Egypt’s prospects of realising a democratic state and introduce doubts regarding the country’s upcoming transitional steps.

The Egyptian parliament under Supreme Council of the Armed Forces’ control after the 25 January revolution

Founded as one of the world’s first legislative chambers in 1866 by the Khedive Isma‘il, initially to support his ambition and power, the Egyptian parliament nevertheless represented ‘a step towards letting the inhabitants of Egypt have a say in their own offices’ (Landau 1953/2016, 14). It played an increasingly important role in the establishment of state structures, acting in a manner similar to that of many European parliaments in the late nineteenth century that triggered the transfer of power from traditional monarchs to republican presidents, prime ministers or chancellors (Eulau 1942, 35). It also took a leading role – despite its temporary dissolution – in the resistance against the 1882–1922 British occupation (Romani 2016), and enjoyed relatively liberal deliberation after Egypt’s formal independence (with the notable exception of the 1930–1935 period) until the Free Officers’ coup in 1952 (Ibrahim 2007, 7f.). After this time, the parliament played only a subordinate role, which changed only slightly in the 1970s when party competition was legalised, and when the second chamber (Maglis al-Shura, Consultative Assembly) was established in 1980. Despite the remarkable success of 88 deputies affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in the 2005 elections, parliament remained a rubber-stamp institution under Mubarak, serving primarily as a ‘democratic facade’. It never expressed any significant criticism of the government, and lacked the power to unseat the prime minister or any other minister. Logically, it was accorded only a low level of public appreciation, as political scientist Mazen Hassan explained in a personal discussion in Cairo on 17 April 2014.

Nevertheless, the rigged parliamentary elections that were orchestrated in November and December 2010 by then-National Democratic Party (NDP) Secretary for Organisational Affairs Ahmed Ezz, in order to cement the governing party’s political omnipotence, helped to contribute to the massive eruption of frustration that pushed people into the streets on 12 December 2010, and later into the week-long demonstrations in January and February 2011 that finally toppled Hosni Mubarak (El-Gobashy 2011). Since opposition could not be mustered in parliament, it eventually emerged on the streets (Volpi 2013, 979).

However, after Mubarak’s removal, most parties were ‘unable to connect with enough people to stand out in a crowded field’ (Muasher 2013, 3), leading to a vacuum of leadership beyond the omnipresent, deeply entrenched army (Roll 2016). The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) took over leadership for almost 1.5 years. One of its first actions was the dissolution of both parliamentary chambers on 13 February 2011, and the announcement of an ‘interim constitution’ that changed nine articles of the 1971 constitution. This modified document was approved in a public referendum on 19 March 2011 (Dunne and Revkin 2011).

This interim constitution ‘allowed the president or half of all members of parliament to call for the drafting of a new constitution by a 100-member constituent assembly selected from amongst elected members of both houses of parliament’ (Tavana 2011, 558). Yet, just 11 days later, SCAF drafted another constitutional declaration that assigned all legislative power to itself unless a new parliament had been elected (Teti and Gervasio 2011). Further rights and duties of the as-yet-unelected parliament were not outlined. Instead, as observed at that time:

[t]he declaration drops virtually all details of parliamentary oversight of the cabinet as well as those articles governing the legislative role of parliament. While a few general provisions of the 1971 constitution concerning parliament remain, it is simply not clear what would happen if the new parliament decided to question the actions of a minister, let alone start legislating. (Mihalakas 2012)

On 28 March 2011, two days before the announcement of the constitutional declaration, SCAF also changed the Political Parties Law (40/1977, amended 177/2005, now 12/2011) that until that time had largely been misused to ensure NDP dominance over potential rivals. Under the newly amended law, membership on the strategic Political Parties Affairs Committee (PPAC) was now limited exclusively to independent judges and not, as before, mainly to NDP members. Second, the PPAC’s ability to ban political parties was curtailed, a shift that ultimately opened the door to the creation of an unprecedented number of new political groupings (Tavana 2011, 558). While secular parties in particular complained that the amendments did not go far enough, and that the government would still wield strong influence in the PPAC through its overall influence on Egypt’s judges, the MB welcomed the changes especially due to their removal of barriers to religious parties (Guirguis 2011). In fact, the Brotherhood accepted many of SCAF’s decisions, as it sought to present itself to the military as a reliable partner in controlling the demonstrating masses, while the military created ‘opportunities for the Brotherhood to build its organisation and extend its influence at the expense of its rivals’ (Alexander 2011, 536).

However, the SCAF left the main characteristics of Egypt’s electoral system broadly unchanged. It retained the Nasser-era rule reserving half of the parliamentary seats in the lower house for workers and farmers. A declaration on 30 May 2011 stipulated that one-third of the body’s deputies should be elected from among party/group lists, while two-thirds of the deputies should run as individual candidates. This ratio was changed again on 20 June 2011 to 50% list candidates and 50% independent candidates. After renewed criticism, the ratio was eventually further amended to allow two-thirds of the candidates to come from party lists (332 seats, elected by proportional representation in 46 districts) with the remaining one-third being independent of parties (166 seats, elected by bloc voting in 83 two-seat districts). Another 10 deputies were to be appointed later by the future elected president. For the Shura Council, one-third of the body’s 270 members were to be appointed by the future president, while of the remaining ‘180 members, 30 list districts would elect 120 members, and 30 individual districts would elect 60 members’ (Tavana 2011, 560).

The short-lived democratically elected parliament

Parliamentary elections were finally held in three rounds between 28 November 2011 and 10 January 2012. Several observers criticised the early conduct of the elections. Amidst violence and obscurities regarding the electoral regulations – for example, producing six different election days for each of the two parliamentary houses, differently designed voting districts, and questions over former NDP members’ eligibility (Teti and Gervasio 2011) – some voices warned that quick elections would give an advantage to the MB at the expense of independent and particularly young candidates, as the latter group had not had sufficient opportunity to increase their public profiles. By contrast, the MB’s decades of social support for poor Egyptians, the high number of its deputies who were in prison or in exile during the Mubarak era, and its overall public reputation as being composed of pious people free of egocentrism gave it an enormous electoral advantage (Joffé 2011, 526).

To increase their chances in the elections, many other parties joined one of four electoral alliances that, with one exception, were grouped around a core popular party. These included the Islamist Alliance with al-Nour at its centre, the Democratic Alliance around the MB-linked Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the Egyptian Bloc that included most liberal parties such as the Free Egyptians Party and the leftist Tagammu‘, and the Alliance of Completing the Revolution, a rather loose assembly of revolutionary groups and initiatives led by the well-known Amr Hamzawy (Maher 2011). Certain parties, particularly the Wafd Party, announced that they would compete on their own (Abd Rabou 2015, 9) (Table 1).

Table 1. Electoral alliances during the 2011/2012 parliamentary elections (Büchs 2012, 4).

The financial and organisational capabilities of those alliances varied quite substantially, but generally depended on their core party’s resources:

While the Democratic Alliance with the Freedom and Justice Party strongly dominated the streets in Cairo with its banners and posters, the Alliance of Completing the Revolution hardly could afford to hang up banners and posters, probably also due to the lack in their organizational structure. (Wessel 2013)

In the end, the MB’s FJP clearly won the elections, securing 37.5% of the vote and earning 235 of the 508 total seats (together with the six smaller aligned parties and nine cooperating independent candidates that all made up the Democratic Alliance for Egypt). They were followed by the Salafist al-Nour Party (27.8%, 123 seats, in the Islamist Bloc alliance with two smaller parties). Al-Wafd, the most successful non-Islamist party, secured only 41 seats, followed by the Egyptian Bloc with a total of 34 seats. While the Islamists dominated particularly in the rural areas of Upper Egypt and the Western Desert (together representing 25% of Egypt’s eligible voting population), non-Islamists polled well in greater Cairo (22% of voters) and the touristic areas in South Sinai and along the Red Sea (representing up to 2% of voters). The Delta region, including Alexandria (51% of voters), was contested (Martini and Worman 2013, 2f.). The complicated electoral law elaborated by the SCAF indeed turned out to favour the well-established MB over young revolutionaries who typically lacked sufficient financial or institutional backing (Hassan 2011). After raids on alternative parties’ offices and a violent suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations during the weeks of the election, with at least 15 protesters killed (Fleishman 2012), the question regarding the poll’s legitimacy brought together a strange coalition: Muslim Brothers and army officers jointly pushed for participation, while many young revolutionaries opted instead to boycott the elections (Meringolo 2013).

MB deputies also dominated the elections for the Shura Council in January–February 2012. Here, a total of 105 of the 180 elected seats went to the FJP, while al-Nour came in second with 45 seats. However, lasting cooperation between the two parties was hardly guaranteed, as differences between them remained substantial (Roy 2012, 11). In addition, there was still the possibility that the state president, who was to be elected later and who had the right to appoint one-third of the Shura Council deputies (90 out of 270), might be from a secular rather than an Islamist party. In this case, Islamists would not be guaranteed a majority in the Shura Council, and the second chamber could have developed into a real counterweight to the first (Mihalakas 2012).

While the Islamists succeeded at the ballot boxes, the former elites kept playing their role as well. Well-established, prominent families with power in their local constituencies, many if not all of them former NDP members, relied on societal bonds deriving from strong patron–client relations (‘asabiyyah’, Volpi 2004, 1065f.; Sadiki 2010), therefore retaining the share of votes necessary to gain a seat in parliament (Levinson and El-Ghobashy 2011). Stories of vote-buying using either food or money by old elites and MBs alike and even the involvement of election brokers acting to ensure that their client candidates were elected to office were common. These patterns had been evident even before 2011 (Youssef 2012), but were also widely reported in the 2015 elections (El-Kholy 2015).

The public followed the first sessions of the new post-revolution parliament with great enthusiasm. Yet, the reason for this interest was not only a desire to observe democracy at work; rather, many were also drawn to scandalous events such as fights or confused debates between the many newcomers to the parliament, most of whom had an Islamist background. These legislators took up questions such as whether English should be banned from school curriculums or whether the Cairo Ballet should be dissolved, with both seen as being out of step with Egypt’s Islamic culture, as then-MP Amr El-Shobaki remembered in a personal conversation in Cairo on 23 June 2013. In fact, the lack of experience among most parliamentarians remains a major obstacle to efficient and effective parliamentary work today, particularly following the dissolution of the NDP and later the FJP, as these were the only two parties that were structured and organised with sufficient resources. All other parties have lacked professionalism. The 2012 parliament thus suffered from two related problems: a plethora of new, inexperienced deputies, and a corresponding lack of professionalism (Rabeea 2012).

Endless disputes over matters of secondary importance, such as that regarding deputies’ appropriate observance of praying times, quickly turned observers’ initial interest into widespread disappointment. Sexist and misogynistic debates intensified this impression; examples included discussions of lowering the minimum age for marriage to 14, making it more difficult for women to obtain a divorce (Tayel 2012), and attributing responsibility for sexual harassment in public to women, with the recommendation that they simply stay at home (Eltahawy 2012).

In a personal conversation in Cairo on 17 April 2014, Mazen Hassan recalled that the new parliament achieved only three notable successes: first, the election of the 100-member constituent assembly, even though massive internal struggles accompanied its work and ultimately led to the withdrawal of more than 40 liberal and leftist deputies (Al-Ahram Online 2012; Ottaway 2012a, 2012b); second, the preparation of the presidential electoral law; and third, the elaboration of the political-rights law (which excluded former NDP members from holding political office). The lack of willingness to compromise, particularly among members of the FJP, prevented the parliament from being more fruitful, and also contributed to the MB’s unprecedented decline from summer 2013 onwards. The MB and its FJP party ‘failed in large part due to its blind belief in majoritarian politics’ (International Crisis Group 2013, 12).

Relations between the parliament and the interim government turned out to be complicated. Government bills often reached the parliament at the very last minute, so that parliamentary inquiries were repeatedly rejected due to time pressure. Then-MP Amr Hamzawy (2012; translated from Arabic by Hossam Khalil) remembers that:

[i]t was for this reason that I, as well as other MPs, demanded voting no confidence in the government, and forming a coalition government from the parties with considerable seats in the Council, so that we can hold it accountable, conduct oversight on its performance, and, hence, effectively develop its work.

When the Supreme Constitutional Court dissolved the lower chamber on 14 June 2012 (two days before the second round of presidential elections), citing unconstitutional procedures in its election (Roll 2016, 29), the Shura Council formally took over legislative tasks. However, far-reaching legislative powers remained with the SCAF ‘including complete control over its budget and military appointments’ (Abdelrahman 2015, 76). The Shura Council suffered from a low degree of legitimacy (only 12% of the eligible voters had participated in its elections) and many shortcomings regarding its members’ qualifications, experience and professionalism. Executive oversight came essentially to a halt, while legislative functions too were all but frozen, with massive negative consequences: domestic legislation was put on hold, including the drafting of the national budget (El-Fekki 2015a), while external relations became increasingly strained as the adoption of international agreements slowed due to parliamentary inaction (European Commission 2013, 10). The quantity of unprocessed legislation became a reason for concern for potential investors, many of whom hesitated to channel funds into Egypt due to unclear regulations (Ayyad 2014).

While the level of public interest in the parliament dropped tremendously, deliberations over a new constitution, being held in the constituent assembly (al-gama‘iya at-ta’asisiya) established on 26 March 2012 by both chambers of parliament, continued to attract people’s attention. This body successfully presented its draft of the new constitution on 29 November 2012, despite very difficult external and internal working conditions. Not only did dozens of secular deputies leave the assembly in order to protest the Islamists’ perceived dominance, its unclear legal basis left it in permanent danger of being dissolved on judicial grounds. While much emphasis was put on the question regarding the extent to which religion and politics should be merged or separated in the future, the FJP did hope to transform Egypt into a parliamentary system in the long run, with a strong prime minister responsible to the parliament as head of government and a mere representative president as head of state (Ottaway 2012c). However, given the ‘lack of substantive political parties and a non-existent legislative process’ (Auf 2012), a mixed system with parliamentary and presidential elements was finally agreed upon, once again providing the basis for a strong president. This role was ultimately taken by Mohamed Morsi, a former ‘independent’ member of parliament (MP) belonging to the MB (2000–2005) who became the MB candidate for the state’s highest office in 2012.

New constitution and electoral law: the basis for a broadly ineffective parliament

Following the Supreme Constitutional Court’s 2 June 2013 ruling that the second chamber too was unconstitutional, conditions fundamentally changed with President Morsi’s ouster on 3 July 2013. The interim government under President Adly Mansour (who also took over all legislative competences) and Prime Minister Hazem Beblawy established a handpicked committee of 50 deputies (the ‘Lagna 50’) tasked with drafting a new constitution by December 2013. This was approved in a public referendum in January 2014. This document provided for a unicameral parliament (House of Representatives, HoR) with at least 450 members. Articles 101–138 specify the details: elections are to take place every five years, the age of active voting eligibility is 18, and the age of passive voting eligibility is 25. The president may still appoint 5% of the body’s deputies (Article 102). Deputies are accorded immunity during their tenure, although the parliament allows for criminal investigations in individual cases (Article 133). The HoR may revoke its confidence from the prime minister (Article 131) and even from the state president. This is a new right for the Parliament; the 1971 constitution allowed for impeachment of the president only based on criminal accusations. For such a motion to be successful, a two-thirds legislative majority is needed, followed by a majority in a public referendum (Article 161).

Compared to the 2012 constitution, the 2014 constitution contains fewer safeguards for the parliament. For instance, under the former constitution, the parliament could not be dissolved during its first year of existence (Article 127). The 2014 version by contrast allows parliamentary dissolution immediately after the election, and enables the state president to dissolve it without restrictions. This makes parliament susceptible to dissolution at any time. The 2012 constitution also restrained the Supreme Constitutional Court from dissolving the parliament on procedural grounds, a safeguard which has been revoked in the 2014 constitution (Al-Jazeera 2014). However, the State Council (Maglis ad-Dawla), the ‘independent judicial body that is exclusively competent to adjudicate in administrative disputes, disciplinary cases and appeals’ (Constitution, Article 190), approved a law on 23 June 2015 that protects the parliament from dissolution by the Supreme Court even if the court finds further constitutional irregularities (Afify 2015).

The most important constitutional change for the Egyptian parliament was the dissolution of its upper chamber, the Shura Council. Though the 2012 constitution had given the second chamber ‘wide legislative and oversight prerogatives’ (Abd Rabou 2015, 3) for the first time, public protests against its abolition were marginal. In fact, many people even welcomed this step, as many regarded the Shura Council as a waste of money for the benefit of the elites. Created in 1980 by then-President Anwar al-Sadat, the Shura Council was widely perceived as being dominated by the president’s friends and allies, as he appointed two-thirds of its deputies. Needless to say, a second chamber of this kind had no effective power to oversee the government (Lust 2009, 123).

During the consultations for the 2014 constitution within the Lagna 50, those who initially supported retention of the second chamber seemed to hold the upper hand, with a majority voting in the Shura Council’s favour during the committee’s first (preliminary) vote. However, a rumour subsequently arose that Amr Moussa, the country’s former foreign minister and head of the Lagna 50, was preparing to become the next Shura president. Public opinion turned against this eventuality, and the Lagna 50’s second (final) vote on the issue was negative, resulting in the dissolution of the Shura Council. This sequence of events was supported by the recollection of Ahmed Abd Rabou, who had advised the Lagna 50 on the issue of the second chamber in a public hearing (conversation in Cairo on 21 June 2014).

The electoral law also had to be revised, and was subsequently enacted in June 2014. It abolished the traditional quota of 50% of seats reserved for workers and farmers, and excluded participation by candidates from organisations that engaged in religious discrimination or advocated violence, a provision obviously directed against the MB (Kirkpatrick 2014). Furthermore, it stipulated that the unicameral parliament (‘Maglis al-Sha‘b’) should consist of 567 seats, the highest number in the body’s history. Of these, 420 seats (78%) were to be allocated to individual candidates elected in constituencies by majoritarian (first-past-the-post) vote. Another 120 seats were to be allocated to candidates from closed (‘absolute’) party lists, and 27 seats appointed by the state president (under Mubarak and the SCAF rule, only 10 deputies were appointed by the president, and the 2012 constitution stipulated that all deputies had to be elected).

After the Supreme Constitutional Court cancelled the elections again on 1 March 2015, due to remaining unconstitutional provisions in the electoral law regarding the division of electoral districts (Kingsley 2015), the electoral law underwent still another revision. Besides the replacement of the former stipulation that deputies’ mothers and fathers both had to be Egyptian with a new provision rendering Egyptian citizenship sufficient for eligibility, there were only two changes of note: first, instead of the former 420 candidates, 448 candidates were now to be elected as individuals, with the number of candidates elected through lists remaining at 120. In turn, the state president would appoint 28 instead of 27 deputies, resulting in a record total number of 596 deputies, 79.9% of which would be independents. This made the construction of stable majorities even more difficult, with the disadvantages faced by small political parties even greater (Essam El-Din 2015). Second, the number of electoral districts producing the individual candidates was reduced from 237 to 205; however, it remained impossible for most newly founded parties to present their own individual candidates in so many districts (El-Fekki 2015b).

This voting system in general received harsh criticism, as it was seen as guaranteeing a parliament dominated by members of the old regime. Not only the 28 appointed deputies were questionable; the high number of individual candidates meant that the parliament would be generally composed of individuals with the greatest financial means, the closest relations with the regime, or the strongest traditional (or tribal) bonds within their constituencies (‘asabiyyah’). The 120 party-list seats would also be dominated by regime figures, as they were to compete in four large constituencies: 2 with 45 seats each, and 2 with 15 seats each. In these, seats would not be allocated on a proportional representation basis (as in the 2011–2012 parliamentary elections); rather, any party list receiving 50% plus one vote would be awarded all the constituency’s seats (under the ‘closed’ or ‘absolute’ party-list system). ‘Instead of helping to open doors for new or small parties, the law creates a winner-takes-all system in which all of a large bloc of seats are rewarded to the party that gets the most votes in a district’ (Kirkpatrick 2014).⁴

In addition, each list has to fulfil certain quotas (‘conditioned list’). For example, in the two 15 seats constituencies, each list must include at least 3 Copts, 2 workers and/or farmers, 2 youth candidates, 1 handicapped, 1 expatriate, and 7 women; in the two 45 seats constituencies, the minimum requirements are 9 Copts, 6 workers and/or farmers, 6 youth, 3 disabled, 3 expatriates, and 21 women; the women’s quota can in both cases overlap with the other quotas (Taha 2014). Small and newly established independent parties are thus forced to join into alliances in order to meet these conditions, becoming dependent on the more influential old-regime representatives (Chams El-Dine 2014, 5). The fact that business organisations and influential interest groups are also allowed to create election lists renders newly created parties even less competitive. Businessmen today occupy one-fifth (116) of the parliament’s seats, more than ever before (Ramadan 2015), and thus wield substantial influence (Essam El-Din 2016a).

By engaging in lengthy political deliberations and repeated legal interventions, the government tried to delay the electoral process as long as possible (Mühlberger 2016). Neither Adly Mansour nor Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi had an interest in governing alongside an elected parliament, as Article 156 of the 2014 constitution granted them legislative power via presidential decrees as long as no parliament was in place. They used the time gained through delays not only to craft the new electoral law, but also to influence the post-electoral era through the issuance of 342 decrees that the new parliament had to approve (or disapprove) after its election, keeping it busy with addressing past presidential decrees instead of present-day governmental oversight.

The long period without a parliament was a particular challenge for small secular parties. Businessmen supported this type of party in the 2011/2012 elections in order to prevent the MB from gaining power, an eventuality feared by many in this community. As explained by a leading member of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party in a personal conversation in Cairo on 26 May 2016, the business community stopped their donations following the 2013 change, turning instead towards the new leadership under al-Sisi, as they now saw opposition parties as potentially undermining the unity of the state.

Abd Rabou (2015, 9f.) has summarised further severe implications of the repeated postponement of elections, beyond these costs. For example, state authorities remained without proper supervision, allowing them to defend their privileges and prepare the potential return of former elite members; the president presented himself as the only relevant locus of power, while parties remained broadly unknown to the public; and civil society actors had to take over oppositional tasks vis-à-vis the government, making them increasingly vulnerable to police clampdowns and judicial prosecution.

Given the blatant restrictions on fair elections and the assignment of parliamentary seats, opposition figures again debated whether to participate in the 2015 elections. Newcomers such as the Egyptian Social Democratic Party engaged in tense internal discussions over the virtues of participation in or boycott of the elections, while representatives of traditional parties such as the Wafd Party argued ‘that the new draft House of Representatives law kills any hopes of creating a vibrant political life or a strong multiparty system in Egypt’ (Essam El-Din 2014). Various small opposition parties such as former MP Amr Hamzawy’s Freedom Egypt Party and former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh’s Strong Egypt decided to boycott the elections (Afifi 2015). In both cases, political parties saw further declines in standing among the population, as it became clear that they would not be the appropriate vehicles for achieving political goals in the near future.

Unfit for broadcast: the performance of the new parliament in its initial months

Given the carefully crafted provisions of the electoral law, observers expected only two parties to show any measure of success: the Free Egyptians Party headed by business tycoon Naguib Sawiris, which welcomed former NDP cadres as members and joined the dominant For the Love of Egypt list, and the al-Nour party, which continued to receive generous funding from the Gulf monarchies (Dawoud 2015). For the Love of Egypt indeed turned out to be the clear winner, securing all 120 party-list seats, with the Free Egyptians Party becoming parliament’s strongest bloc with 65 (list and independent) seats, followed by the similarly pro-Sisi Nation’s Future Party with 53 seats. Much attention was drawn by an article by journalist Bahgat (2016) that exposed the involvement of the state’s security apparatuses in the creation of For the Love of Egypt, and their continuing general involvement in the run-up to the elections. Al-Nour, meanwhile, failed to fulfil expectations after a massive campaign discrediting the party, ultimately securing only 11 of the ‘independent’ seats (Mühlberger 2016).

Internal regulations governing how parliament would conduct its work were revised by the Supreme Committee for Legislative Reform (short version: Legislative Reform Committee), a body created by President al-Sisi on 16 June 2014 in order to draft legislation on his behalf and called by some a ‘transitional parliament’ (Samir 2014). This group was chaired by then-Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb, and also included the ministers of transitional justice and of parliamentary affairs. Ali Abdel Al, who was already a member of the 10-person preparatory council for the Lagna 50, and who was elected speaker of the parliament in the new legislature’s first session on 10 January 2016, was also a member.

The speaker of the parliament is a very powerful position. Even under Mubarak, this was a highly influential post, with its holder deciding nearly everything relating to the legislature. This ranged from the question of how standing and ad hoc committees were to be composed to decisions regarding which MPs would participate in international meetings with bodies such as the European Parliament in the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean parliamentary cooperation, or in other similarly lucrative events. Previously, remembered Ahmed Abd Rabou in a personal conversation in Cairo on 21 June 2014, the Egyptian delegation to such meetings usually consisted of representatives from the NDP plus some regime-loyal ‘oppositionists’, with the hierarchic selection criteria often used as an instrument to punish deputies who behaved too independently or who voiced too much criticism against the regime.

The first 10 months of the new parliament seem to confirm Abd Rabou’s expectations. Even from its first session, the performance of the assembly as such (not necessarily of each individual deputy) stirred considerable criticism both by analysts and by the broader public (El-Fekki 2016). The inauguration ceremony, which featured the election of Parliamentary Speaker Ali Abdel Al, was so chaotic that its live TV broadcast was spontaneously stopped (Mühlberger 2016). The assembly’s sessions, originally also supposed to be broadcast live on television, have not found their way back onto the screen since. Abdel Al quickly announced parliament’s full support for the government, indicating from the beginning that he believed the parliament’s main task to be helping the government to achieve its goals, not criticising them or providing a critical oversight function. He has repeatedly demanded that deputies avoid being too critical of the government, intentionally undermining the parliament’s right to independence (Hidji 2016).

Indeed, Abdel Al has become the central locus of power for all legislative procedures. Though technically bound by rules and regulations, he decides independently how to proceed with certain actions. His deputies, Mahmoud El-Sharif and Soliman Wahdan, two former NDP members, have lodged no objections to Abdel Al’s leadership style. The dismissal of MP Tawfiq Okasha from parliament in March 2016 for meeting the Israeli ambassador (Mikhail 2016) was a clear violation of the constitution’s Article 133, which allows revocation of a deputy’s immunity only in cases of criminal allegations. Yet, Abdel Al was aware that as long as there was no independent judicial framework to which individual MPs could turn, there would be no legal consequences to the exercise of his personal rule in parliament. The fact that he issued a gag order barring deputies from speaking out on the current economic misery and currency crisis (Egyptian 2016) offers another example of the speaker’s unrestricted (?) power. With this order, he tried to stop the vociferous criticism of the government’s economic policies by MPs who feared that further cuts in subsidies and the ongoing devaluation of the Egyptian pound would lead to social unrest (Essam El-Din 2016b).

After serious disputes with Abdel Al over specific procedures, appointed MP Sirri Siyam stepped down in February 2016 with the aim of protesting mismanagement by the speaker (Bahaa-Eldin 2016). This marked the first time a presidential appointee had stepped down from a parliamentary seat. Similarly surprising was the 18 April 2016 expulsion of Safwat Ghattas for defending the criticism of the parliament voiced by satiric TV puppet Abla Fahita (Hussein 2016).

In terms of performance, the parliament’s first months were marked by the successful drafting of 440 bylaws to regulate the body’s internal processes, as well as the establishment of 25 permanent committees (Essam El-Din 2016c). Of these, 15 were chaired by members of the pro-Sisi Support Egypt coalition that followed the For the Love of Egypt electoral list, with others vice-chaired by members of this group. One notable exception was the Human Rights Committee, which was led by Mohamed Anwar Sadat of the Reform and Development Party until his August 2016 resignation as committee chairman. This decision came after repeated confrontations with Abdel Al regarding Sadat’s participation in a human-rights conference in Geneva, as well as his remarks on the appropriateness of continuing to provide pensions for retired military officers who had taken new positions in public or private enterprises – here, Abdel Al interrupted him, saying, ‘You are not allowed to talk about soldiers who paid the blood tax’ (Essam El-Din 2016d; Hassan 2016).

The approval of Adly Mansour’s and Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi’s 342 presidential decrees marked the second milestone of the parliament’s performance in its initial months. With one exception, all decrees were accepted by comfortable margins, including 457 votes in favour of the controversial anti-terrorism law that ‘allows for civilians to be tried in military courts, applies harsh penalties for terrorism-related offenses, and shields the military and police’ (Wille 2016). The only decree rejected was a proposal on reforming the public sector (the so-called civil service law), which called for greater efficiency in the country’s administration (Mikhail 2016). After heated debate on this issue, MPs finally voted it down. However, observers suspect that even this may ultimately have fulfilled the government’s original interests: first, because parliament was extremely busy with this proposal, and was thus less able to concentrate on other controversial governmental ideas; and second, because even after parliament’s rejection of the decree, the government has not changed its course, continuing with its planning for the civil service reform. Again, without effective judicial supervision, consequences to such actions are minimal. In an interview in Cairo on 29 May 2016, an anonymous policy analyst predicted that the most likely outcome would be the presentation of a new but little-changed proposal to parliament, which would then be approved.

Conclusions

Post-revolutionary Egypt has oscillated between a relatively progressive constitution, which provides ‘for the first time in the Republic’s political history [that] the new parliament enjoys wide prerogatives that effectively make it a powerful authority that could bring equilibrium to the decision-making process’ (Abd Rabou 2015, 5), and the provisions of the latest electoral law that virtually guarantee a strong majority of deputies close to and supportive of the regime. Under these contradictory conditions, new independent parties will play little role in governance, and the parliament will be weak compared to the president, the prime minister and the cabinet. Hence, the parliament will remain a rubber-stamp institution whose only task is to approve the government’s actions and proposals. This is little different from how the parliament acted under Mubarak and before. As such, it can offer little stimulus for an expansion of democracy in Egypt.

Nonetheless, a senior member of the Egyptian Current Party expressed hope in a personal conversation in Cairo on 9 June 2014 that if even only a few opposition party candidates could make it into parliament, they could gain knowledge and expertise that might help them demonstrate greater professionalism in the following elections. This hope has thus far not been fulfilled, as opposition party legislators are essentially sidelined in the parliament by members or allies of the old elite, even if not by former NDP members themselves (Saied 2016). The pro-Sisi Support Egypt coalition is dominant, and alternative voices are rarely heard.

However, even ‘a weak and scattered parliament does not necessarily mean that the executive authority would be able to control it’. Rather, such conditions ‘could instead create a chaotic situation that destabilises a regime in search of political and economic stability at any cost’ (Abd Rabou 2015, 6). This is precisely why the established state institutions – the presidency, judiciary and security forces – fear the existence of a new parliament and aim to keep it under control.

Overall, the parliament played little role in Egypt’s transition process, particularly due to its dissolution in the summer of 2012. However, even since its reinstatement, it has been unable to achieve a proper degree of autonomy. Therefore, it would be of particular importance for Egypt to elaborate mechanisms that promote parliament’s and parties’ power. This could most easily be done through the introduction of proportional representation electoral systems (Faris 2012) and by guaranteeing judicial independence for the parliamentarians. Yet, for the time being, achieving either of these conditions appears unlikely in the foreseeable future.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Marie Skłodowska Curie Individual Fellowship of the European Commission [grant number 706113].

Notes

1. Cheibub (2006) refuses this stance, arguing that there is no difference in fragility between the different political systems. Siaroff (2003) rejects the classic trichotomy of presidentialism, semi-presidentialism and parliamentarism and suggests a roster of eight categories, depending on the level of presidential power.

2. Critics point out that parliamentary systems would bring legislatures into certain ‘captivity’ as government and parliamentary majority are identical, while (semi-) presidential systems would provide for a clear power separation with better chances for parliaments to develop an own, independent profile, see Elgie (2012). Powell (2004, 94f.) warns of too much power concentration in a parliamentary (means: prime-ministerial) executive.

3. Interestingly, the rising protests against the government of President al-Sisi in the second half of 2016 was not directed against his lack of democratic legitimacy, but against his flawed policy results, particularly in the economic sphere.

4. If no party reaches 50%+1, a second round will be held between the two best party lists. This will unnecessarily increase the expenses spent on the elections, and will probably lead to an extremely low participation rate in the second round, hence counterbalancing the expected effect of having ‘high legitimacy’ for the eventually chosen candidates (Faris 2012, 151).