Speaker of the House of Representatives Ali Abdul Aal announced that the majority of the House of Representatives approved the report of the General Committee on a request to amend some articles of the Constitution and referred it to the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee to study it.
Abdul Aal added that 485 MPs voted in favor of the amendment, which constitutes the majority of the parliament, and therefore the amendment request was referred to the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee pursuant to Article 136 of the parliament’s bylaws.
The Committee shall prepare a report on the amendment, including the draft of the amended articles within sixty days from the date of referring the matter to the Committee.
Several Egyptian political parties declared their support for a request submitted by the Support Egypt coalition to amend some articles of the 2014 constitution, saying that the constitution came out during exceptional circumstances and is in need of updating.
The pro-government parliamentary coalition Support Egypt, which controls a majority of 350 seats in the House of Representatives, proposed the amendments after discussing the matter during a meeting for its political bureau.
Coalition head Abdel Hadi al-Qasabi said that that the discussions unanimously agreed on the importance of amending certain constitutional articles. It was proposed to add a new parliamentary chamber under the name of the Senate (formerly known as the Shura Council), a woman quota in the parliament of 25 percent of the members, extending the presidential term in office from 4 to 6 years, and the appointment of one or more deputies to the president.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
