The local councils coordination committee of the Civil Democratic Movement parties has met again after a hiatus of nearly a year; the committee, which includes a number of representatives of the movement’s 13 parties, met on 24 May. Formed in 2022 to prepare for local elections, the committee had stopped meeting when the National Dialogue sessions began, in whose first round the Civil Democratic Movement took part last year.
Local councils are responsible for monitoring the implementation of the development plan, overseeing various activities, exercising tools of oversight over the executive authority, such as proposals, questions, briefing requests, interpellations and others, and withdrawing confidence from heads of local units, as regulated by law.
Despite reports that the Civil Democratic Movement parties had agreed on an electoral system for local councils of 75% absolute lists and 25% proportional lists, which was confirmed by the general coordinator of the National Dialogue, Diaa Rashwan, who announced last August that consensus had been reached among dialogue participants on the electoral system for local councils, there appears to be a lack of consensus on this proposal, as shown by the absence of some party representatives from the committee’s latest meeting.
Disputes Over the Electoral System
Zawia3 has learned that, as of the time of writing, the Civil Democratic Movement parties had not agreed on the announced electoral formula, and that parties within the movement (Karama, Bread and Freedom, the Socialist Popular Alliance, the Nasserist Party and the Egyptian Socialist Party) rejected the electoral system presented and approved by the movement’s representatives in the National Dialogue sessions (75% absolute list, 25% proportional list), while the Constitution, Egyptian Social Democratic, Justice, Reform and Development, and Conservatives parties approved the proposed system.
Under the closed absolute list system, the list that obtains 50% or more of the valid votes wins all the seats in the district, while all the other lists that did not obtain 50% of the votes lose.
The proportional list system is the opposite of the closed absolute list system, particularly in how seats are calculated: in this system, parties and independents form closed or open electoral lists in each electoral district, and the list that wins the majority of votes does not take all the seats in the district, as happens under the closed list system, but rather a number of seats proportional to its share of the votes.
So far, the Egyptian government has not announced a date for local elections, and the local election system has not been approved. Since 2016, local elections have been postponed without any declared reason. They were supposed to be held in 2016, according to directives from President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to the government, before the government announced their postponement to the end of 2017, then the beginning of 2018, and the postponements continued.
Since June 2011, Egypt has been without elected local councils, after a court ruling dissolved them following the 25 January 2011 revolution. The last elections were held in mid-2008, and most of the seats were won by members of the (dissolved) ruling National Democratic Party.
Local Councils Are Meaningless Under Absolute Lists
On the importance of local councils, economic researcher Elhamy El-Merghany, a member of the political bureau of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, believes that local councils are the foundation of democracy in every country in the world, but Egypt has lived for nearly 13 years without local councils, and therefore “we live in an era of restricted democracy and appointments in many organisations, such as the Federation of NGOs and other positions filled by appointment, so it is difficult to talk about a democratic climate”.
The economic researcher went on to tell Zawia3 that local councils are where leaders are prepared for higher representation in the House of Representatives and the Senate, so there are no alternative cadres because local councils have been absent for many years, in addition to the continuation of an undemocratic system that relies on absolute-list elections, wastes the voice of the opposition in all its shades and prevents real democracy.
El-Merghany explains that the Socialist Popular Alliance Party believes in participatory democracy from below, with all citizens in villages, Upper Egypt and residential neighbourhoods taking part in managing their public affairs and everything related to utilities and services, exercising all forms of popular oversight of the executive’s performance, and being immune from dissolution by decision of the executive authority; without this, elected local councils become mere democratic decor.
On the points of disagreement among the Civil Democratic Movement parties, the Socialist Popular Alliance leader says: “There are a number of disagreements among opposition parties over local councils, including: do we want local government or local administration? Do we want executive posts (governors and district heads) by appointment or by election? Do we want proportional or absolute lists? Unfortunately, some parties even call for appointed local councils, which aborts the idea of participatory local administration at its roots and brings opportunists and the corrupt to represent citizens in nominal councils.”
The economic researcher concluded that local councils are meaningless under absolute lists, and meaningless without electing local leaders and having the right to oversee and hold them accountable. Political parties’ positions on local councils differ: some want them as a mere nominal democratic appendage, while we in the Socialist Popular Alliance Party want them to be a school of real democracy, with proportional list elections, full oversight of the executive authority, immunity from dissolution, and broad popular participation in discussing the budget, the plan, the final accounts and the distribution of investments under the supervision of elected local councils.
On the delay and postponement of local elections, Wafaa Ashry, representative of the Bread and Freedom Party on the Civil Democratic Movement’s local councils coordination committee, says that supporters of delaying local elections argue that political and economic stability in the country is more important than holding elections in the absence of political or economic stability, and claim that the current government is focusing on implementing crucial economic reforms, such as the IMF-backed austerity programme, and that holding elections would divert attention and resources away from this effort.
She tells Zawia3: In contrast, we believe local elections must be held with proportional lists, in an attempt to stabilise the country and maximise resources for each governorate. This was the main feature of the Bread and Freedom Party’s paper, which we presented to the coordination committee and discussed in the National Dialogue before we suspended our participation because of the authorities’ handling of the detainees file and the continuing security prosecutions.
The Bread and Freedom leader explains that those opposed to proportional lists basically have electoral interests with the pro-government parties, given the possibility of obtaining seats, whether in local councils or parliament.
She stresses the need to hold local elections soon, as the absence of local councils has led to deteriorating infrastructure in the governorates and local corruption, because development projects are awarded directly, with no elected local council to monitor and question executives about these violations, resulting in the waste of public resources that could have benefited each governorate, whether in services or investments.
On the lack of consensus among the Civil Democratic Movement parties, Ashry says that the movement’s local councils coordination committee met regularly for about a year, and it was agreed that all members of the popular councils and executives would be elected, which was included in the committee’s first draft. “But after the National Dialogue, we were surprised that some parties within the movement began opposing proportional lists, even though they know the absolute list is not in our interest as opposition parties with weak resources and no presence in all governorates. There was debate over proportional lists in the meetings all the time, and in one meeting I asked what we would negotiate with the government about if the opposition was handing it the elections on a silver platter.”
She adds: After debate, we agreed to take part in the dialogue sessions and push for the adoption of proportional lists, which is what happened in the session; but we were surprised that the recommendations resulting from the session included a proposal for an electoral system combining closed and proportional lists. She pointed out that on the sidelines of the National Dialogue a closed session was held with some of the movement’s representatives, and an initial agreement was reached on an electoral system of 75% closed list and 25% proportional list.
Between Constitutionality and Unconstitutionality
For his part, Alaa Abdel Nabi, vice president of the Reform and Development Party, denies any disagreements among the Civil Democratic Movement parties over the electoral system for local popular councils, stressing that the movement’s parties agreed on a mixed electoral system of 75% closed absolute list and 25% proportional list, in line with Article 180 of the Constitution, contrary to what the representatives of the Bread and Freedom and Socialist Popular Alliance parties asserted.
He tells Zawia3 that the local administration law is divided into two parts: the first on elected local councils, and the second on executives, the district head and the executive cadre in local administration. Agreement was reached on the part concerning local popular councils, but discussion of local administrations is still ongoing and no final agreement has been reached. He confirmed that the mixed electoral system proposal for local administration was submitted among the National Dialogue’s recommendations and is expected to be submitted to parliament for approval.
In the same context, lawyer Ahmed Khamis, representative of the Constitution Party on the movement’s local councils coordination committee, says the local administration law contains many articles on which the Civil Democratic Movement parties agree, but the point of disagreement was the electoral system, proportional or absolute lists.
The Constitution Party representative tells us that the movement’s parties reject the absolute list, but the Constitution set a number of quotas that must be met, such as 25% for women and 25% for youth, fair representation for Christians and people with special needs, and 50% for workers and farmers, and these quotas cannot be met under the proportional list, but can be met well under the absolute list (fixed and closed). He explains that an absolute list either wins or loses, while the proportional list allocates seats according to votes, so as opposition parties the proportional list is better for us, but the constitutional text forces us to resort to the mixed electoral system.
Khamis points out that during the coordination committee’s sessions, some parties opposed to the mixed system asserted that there are solutions that could work around the constitutional text without the elections becoming unconstitutional, but all of these were unfounded talk with no application on the ground.
Local popular councils are formed according to the principle of direct election, with at least 50% allocated to workers and farmers, and each council elects its chair and deputy. The executive councils are the executive council of the governorate, the executive council of the markaz, the executive council of the city, the executive council of the district and the executive council of the village.
The governorate’s executive council consists of the governor as chair, with the membership of the governor’s assistants, the heads of markazes, cities and districts, the heads of public departments, agencies and authorities within the governorate, and the governorate’s secretary-general as the council’s secretary. The executive councils of markazes, cities, districts and villages consist of the heads and representatives of the relevant ministries and utilities in a similar way.
On the other hand, Islam Abdel Meguid, a lawyer before the Court of Cassation and a member of the Bread and Freedom Party, denies that the mixed system has anything to do with the constitutional text, stressing that the opposite is true and that the mixed electoral system is unconstitutional, according to the rulings of the Supreme Constitutional Court, which ruled three times, most recently in 2012, that combining absolute lists and proportional lists is not permissible because it results in unequal opportunities. He explains that the proposed mixed system of absolute and proportional lists is a blatant violation of the rulings of the Constitutional Court, on the basis of which the 2012 parliamentary elections were annulled.
As for the 2014 Constitution, Abdel Meguid says it allowed combining the individual system with the list system, whatever the type of list, absolute or proportional, but not combining two list systems, pointing out that there is no difficulty in allocating the quotas set by the Constitution; the matter is not easy, but it is possible and avoids all the flaws of the absolute list.
The Bread and Freedom member explains that the party had submitted a proposal during the coordination committee’s meetings to meet the quotas set by the Constitution under a proportional list electoral system. The proposal involves adopting an unconditional proportional list system (for three quarters of the seats allocated to each electoral district) and an individual system by relative majority (for a quarter of the seats allocated to each district), with two thirds of the seats allocated for proportional list election going to workers and farmers, a third to women and a third to youth, provided that one of the list candidates is Christian and one is a person with a disability, in the lists of candidates for membership of the governorates’ local popular councils.
As an example, “if an electoral district is allocated twelve seats, nine of them will be elected by proportional list: six from workers and farmers and three women, and three youth, provided that at least one of them is Christian and one is a person with a disability, in the governorates’ local popular councils, where any voter registered in the governorate’s voter lists may run for these seats regardless of the electoral district in which they are registered. In announcing the results, the representation quotas of these categories are observed regardless of the candidates’ order on the list, and the largest remainder principle is applied if the electoral quotient is not met for the last winner or the one before.”
Article 180 of the Egyptian Constitution states: “Every local unit shall elect a council by general, secret, direct ballot for a term of four years. A candidate must be at least twenty-one Gregorian years of age… provided that a quarter of the seats are allocated to youth under thirty-five years of age, and a quarter to women, and that the representation of workers and farmers is not less than fifty per cent of the total number of seats, and that this percentage includes appropriate representation of Christians and persons with disabilities…”
It is worth noting that the Supreme Constitutional Court had ruled the systems used to elect Egypt’s parliaments in 1984, 1987 and 2012 invalid, because it is unconstitutional to combine the principles of absolute majority and proportional representation in a single electoral system.
