On Monday, Egyptians will head to the polls in the first of a two-phase process aimed at electing a new House of Representatives. Expatriates already voted on November 7 and 8.
Egypt has taken an increasingly proactive role regionally as of late, joining Qatar as a key negotiator for the ceasefire in Gaza. The country has also deployed Foreign Ministry representatives to Lebanon in recent weeks.
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The elections for the House come on the back of last year’s Senate elections and are expected to be the final elections in President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s third term.
So why is this significant? Read on, and find out.
What is happening?
Monday will see the start of voting for the 596-member House of Representatives.
Of those seats, 284 are individual seats, while another 284 are filled via a closed party list system. Twenty-eight more members are appointed by presidential decree. A quarter of the seats must be held by women.
There are 70 counting committees, and voting will be conducted across 5,606 polling stations, according to Egyptian media. Fourteen governorates vote in the first phase and 13 vote in the second.
Results for the voting may not be fully known before the end of December.
Phase one includes the governorates of Alexandria, Assiut, Aswan, Beheira, Beni Suef, Fayoum, Giza, Luxor, Matrouh, Minya, New Valley, Qena, Red Sea, and Sohag.
Phase two includes Cairo, Daqahlia, Damietta, Gharbia, Ismailia, Kafr El-Sheikh, Menoufia, North Sinai, Port Said, Qalyubia, Sharqia, South Sinai, and Suez.
Phase one results will be announced on November 18.
If phase one requires run-offs, voting will be held internationally over the first two days of December and then in Egypt on December 3 and 4, with results announced on December 11.
Phase-two voting for Egyptians abroad will take place on November 21 and 22. Voting inside Egypt will take place on November 24 and 25, with results announced on December 2.
In case of phase-two run-offs, voting will take place on December 15 and 16 abroad and 17 and 18 inside Egypt, with the final results announced on December 25.
Who is running?
First, voting has to be broken down by “party-list constituencies” and individual candidates. Each group is competing for 284 seats.
The party-list constituencies in Egypt divide the country into four areas. Cairo and the Central and Southern Delta has 102 seats. North, Central, and South Upper Egypt has 102 seats. The Eastern Delta and Western Delta have 40 seats apiece.
Then, individual candidates are running for another 284 across 143 constituencies.
The electoral lists are closed, meaning that parties must be approved to run.
The current lists include 12 politic