House of Representatives Speaker Ali Abdel Aal on Tuesday refuted claims that extending the presidential term for six years violates Article 226 of Constitution 2014, which according to several constitutional experts supposedly bans term extension.
During the second session of social dialogue on the proposed amendments, Abdel Aal said that the article only bans the extension of the presidential terms for above two successive terms, and does not identify the term’s duration.
Abdel Aal explained that the proposed article, which would enable President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to nominate in the 2022 presidential elections, was transitional and ‘permissible’.
He clarified that the legislative and constitutional affairs committee could re-adjust the proposed article of the presidential extension with different stipulations.
On February 3, 155 MPs, equal to more than one-fifth of the members of the parliament, submitted a request to Abdel Aal to amend some articles of the Constitution.
Article 226 of the Constitution states that it is permissible to amend some provisions of the Constitution either at the request of the President of the Republic or one-fifth of the parliament’s members.
The proposed constitutional amendments included the implementation of a senate, a second chamber for parliament, a women’s quota in parliament that designated female presence of no less than 25 percent of the members, the maintenance of youth and special percentages, appropriate representation of workers, farmers, youth and Copts, extending the presidential term in office from four to six years, and the appointment of one or more deputies to the president.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
