High Elections Commission (HEC) has not decided yet about number of stages of the parliamentary elections, judicial sources said adding that holding the elections in two stages is the most probable.
Speaking to Al-Masry Al-Youm, the sources said that the committee is still reviewing all choices related to the elections date. Door will be opened for nominations in January.
Stages of the election will mixed between Delta and Upper Egypt governorates.
Medhat Idris, HEC spokesperson, denied setting a date to receive nominees’ applications, timeline of elections, deadline to obtain monitoring permissions for the NGOs or stages of the elections.
He added that HEC convened on Sunday and mulled the required arrangements ahead of the elections including duration of the electoral process, deadline for submitting candidates’ documents, declaring names of candidates, the method of ceding candidacy and filing challenges as well as a deadline for local and foreign NGOs that demand monitoring of elections.
HEC, according to Idris, is resuming update of the voter database. ID card holders 18 years of age will be included. Whoever should be exempted or deprived from exercising political rights will be removed from the database.
Idris called on all citizens to revise and amend their data before door is opened for nomination. He indicated response toward checking if information in the database was accurate.
HEC, according to the sources, prepared the database of judges and members of the judicial authorities who will supervise the electoral process. Number of supervisors is expected to reach 16,000 judges. Database of Egyptian expatriates is being updated. They will cast their ballots using their IDs or passports.
Meanwhile, Writer Abdel Haleem Qandil said that 2015 parliament will be worse than the Muslim Brotherhood’s that he described as ‘oil and sugar parliament’. He explained that the single-winner system will waste votes.
In an interview with talk show aired on the privately-owned MBC Masr TV channel on Sunday, Qandil said that the disbanded, formerly ruling, National Democratic Party does not exist anymore, however, the network of interests related to it still exists. Three million citizens still hold the NDP cards, exactly like the ration cards.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
