Many were displeased with the behavior of some candidates for the parliamentary elections with regards to how they jostled about while submitting their candidacy applications.
Many were also shocked to see certain candidates that should actually be sitting behind bars and not in parliament.
I wonder why people disregard the stipulated financial ceiling for campaigning and spend millions of pounds to win a seat in parliament?
Some believe a parliament with members like this would be useless, which is true in authoritarian regimes. But countries that seek to progress are keen on having a parliament that truly reflects the diversity of the community. And they set rules that help people choose the best representatives.
A useless parliament that is threatened to be dissolved any minute is the product of deliberate fraud and bad legislation, as was the case before the January revolution, not of the wrong choice of the people.
In fact, the election law for both the individual and the list-based runners is very bad and should be changed by the deputies of the next parliament, even if they stay for only one year.
Reducing the size of the individual runners’ constituencies allows any candidate to win as many as 10,000 votes, just from his own extended family or clan. It opens the door for buying votes and for bribery. A deputy who reaches parliament this way ends up serving only his clan.
The Egyptian Parliament has 568 deputies for a country with a population of 85 million, whereas the Indian Parliament has 550 deputies for a country with a population of 1.2 billion.
As to the lists, the government refuses to increase their number and give all political blocs an opportunity for a fair representation in parliament.
Is it because the members of parliament are meant to be like mere members of some local council so that the President can work alone without disturbance?
Is this done deliberately so that the parliament is dissolved and replaced with some alternative political system?
I hope this is the product of inefficiency and not conspiracy.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
