Rashwan: Amendments to electoral districts will benefit ruling party

Rashwan: Amendments to electoral districts will benefit ruling party

Experts and politicians from different national opposition parties agreed on the need to prepare a report documenting their observations on the new amendments to the Shura Council’s districts during upcoming elections 

 The decision came during a workshop organized by Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS),  where  Islamist movements’ expert and deputy director of ACPSS Diaa Rashwan analyzed  that  it was  proposed to dedicate further dominance of the ruling party over the political process, demonstrating that the amendment resolution was designed  to  benefit only the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP)  denying participation from NGO’s and political parties besides the marginal role of the Supreme Commission for Elections.

 “New amendments did not take into account the voter’s proportional representation as they equated between low population constituencies and high population ones, which proves the imbalance in the constitutional amendments.”, Rashwan said.

 “All the amendments to Egypt’s 222 electoral districts controlled by security considerations are not consistent with sound political practices,” he said, citing the example of the constituency of Ahmed Ezz Secretary of the Organization in the National Democratic Party (NDP) where number of voters listed in the voters’ list during the  last People’s Assembly election rose to approximately 35,5000 registered voters rising at the rate of 105%, compared with the 2000 parliamentary elections, due to the fact that Sadat City was annexed to the same constituency of Ahmed Ezz because most of his factories exist in the same city.