Voting for a new parliament begins in Egypt

The much-delayed vote for the 596-member parliament is being held in the absence of any opposition, and will be staged in two phases ending on December 2, with Egyptians overseas casting their votes for the first round from Saturday.

Voters in the remaining 13 provinces will head to the polls during the second stage scheduled to take place from November 22-23.

Former army chief Sisi won the disputed 2014 presidential election despite having no political party of his own, and insists he has no political allies.

Of the 596 lawmakers being elected, 448 are standing as independents, 120 are on party lists, and 28 will be presidential appointees.

Egypt has been without a parliament since it was dissolved by a court ruling in 2012.

Hundreds including Morsi himself have been sentenced to death after mass trials which the United Nations denounced as “unprecedented in recent history”. Hamid predicted that the next parliament will be, “a place for people to vent a little, while telling the global community Egypt is making progress and allowing opposition, which is what Mubarak did”.

The vote is boycotted by political parties that supported Morsi, including the moderate Wasat Party and Strong Egypt Party of former Brotherhood leader Abdel-Moneim Abul-Futuh.

With a despondency around the prospects for the coming parliament, voter turnout is expected to be low – as was the norm before the 2011 revolution. Sisi went even further to criticize the constitution and its provisions that set out the powers of parliament and said, “Many of the constitution’s provisions were written in good faith, but, the country can not be governed by good intentions, and the next parliament shall either be a hindrance or a blessing”.

“The upcoming parliament will be distorted and not representative of Egyptian society; as a result, parliament will be the scene of great political turmoil”, political writer Abdullah al-Sinawi said in an interview with Al-Monitor.

With the Brotherhood out of the running, the Islamist mantle will be carried by the Al Nur Party – an openly pro-Sisi Salafist group that backed Morsi’s ouster. “I don’t want the old regime to come back”, he said, in reference to former members of the National Democratic Party (NDP).

Yet observers and candidates alike say Sisi will likely be eyeing more than a simple majority in parliament to uphold his decrees.