CAIRO: A number of expatriates, politicians and activists slammed Thursday unconfirmed news about an amended law for practicing political rights that does not allow Egyptians living abroad to vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Daily independent Al-Masry Al-Youm quoted an unnamed military source as saying that the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) had already submitted the law to the Cabinet.
Contacted by Daily News Egypt, both the cabinet and the army refused to confirm or deny the published news.
Yet a source at the foreign ministry said, on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the press, that Foreign Minster Nabil El-Araby had earlier confirmed in media statements the right of Egyptians expatriates to vote.
On April 30, the caretaker government announced that Egyptians abroad will be able to cast their votes in both parliamentary and presidential elections at Egyptian embassies in about 140 countries.
However, Media Advisor to Prime Minister Essam Sharaf Ahmed El-Samman said that the law would not be active unless the SCAF accredited it.
The law is yet to see the light during a press conference on Saturday, the military source was quoted as saying.
“How come I can’t vote and have a role in deciding the destiny of my homeland. I’m still a patriotic Egyptian even though I live abroad,” Noha Mahmoud, an Egyptian who settled down in the US 25 years ago, told DNE.
“It’s illogical that Egyptians who want to play an influential role in the future of their country, especially after the success of the January 25 Revolution, have to fly thousands of miles to vote,” she added.
Ahmed Badawy, a civil engineer working in the UAE, believes that depriving any Egyptian from the right to vote even if they live abroad violates their basic constitutional rights.
“Living or working out of the country does not mean we are not loyal Egyptians who care about our homeland,” Badawy told DNE.
A page on the social networking site Facebook, called the Popular Campaign for Supporting the Right of Egyptians Abroad to Vote, was created hours after the news was published.
The page administrators wrote that they targeted to collect 1,000 supporters by the end of the day to object to the SCAF decision. Over 550 supporters joined the page at the time of press.
Nevertheless, Dr. Amr Hashim Rabie, senior researcher at Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, argued that casting votes in parliamentary elections will not be feasible with hundreds of candidates and dozens of constituencies nationwide.
“It would be more logical if Egyptians cast their votes in presidential elections,” he said.
Abdel-Rahman Samir, member in the January 25 Revolution Youth Coalition, agrees with Rabie.
“It is very difficult at this phase to set up an electronic voting system that guarantees fair elections. Had the government begun the necessary measures to facilitate this process, it could have been a valid option,” Samir, also an IT specialist, told DNE.
Fatheya El-Assal, senior member of Al-Tagammu political party, described the decision as being “wrong and unfair.”
“How come millions of Egyptians living abroad cannot choose the rulers of Egypt since parliamentarians take part in running the country?” she asked.
The anonymous source further told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the amended law entails that both the systems of the electoral list and the election by constituency will be concurrently followed in the coming parliamentary polls that will be held over three phases in September.
“This approach could only be acceptable if the two systems are equally applied,” Rabie said.
The would-be amendments also include calling off the women’s 64-seat quota in the People’s Assembly (the Lower-House of the Parliament) authorized last year by ousted president Hosni Mubarak.
“Canceling the women’s quota means that women can equally compete with men over an unlimited number of parliamentary seats,” Rabie told DNE.
On March 30, the SCAF announced a constitutional decree for running the country until a new constitution is drafted.
The decree, based on 11 amended articles derived from the suspended constitution of 1971, dictated that the 50 percent quota of workers and farmers in the People’s Assembly would remain the same.
The 11 constitutional articles were approved by a sweeping yes vote of 77.2 percent during a public referendum held on March 19.
The SCAF suspended the constitution on Feb. 13 after Mubarak stepped down two days earlier following an 18-day nationwide uprising demanding his ousted.
An appointed committee of legal experts drafted the proposed amendments in 10 days.
Committee Member Atef El-Banna told DNE that the group of experts proposed the amendment of a few number of articles in the law for practicing political rights and presented it to the army council.
“But our suggested modifications did not included the articles in question,” El-Banna, a Cairo University constitutional law professor, said
