By Amira El-Fekki and Hoda Badry
Four members competed for the parliamentary speaker position, including Egypt’s Support coalition candidate Ali Abdul Aal, Kamal Ahmed, Ali Moselhy, and Tawfik Okasha.
During the session, MP Mostafa Bakry addressed Moselhy to convince him to renounce his candidacy but the latter refused.
Abdul Aal, the candidate presented by the Egypt’s Support coalition, was also supported by the Free Egyptians Party (FEP) despite previous conflicts between the coalition and the party. Head of FEP parliamentary body Alaa Abed announced his party’s support for Abdul Aal for the parliamentary speaker position.
The Egypt’s Support coalition also provided its support to El-Sayed El-Sherif and Alaa Abdel-Moneim for the two deputy speaker seats. FEP member Hatem Beshat, as well as Emad Gad and Ibrahim El-Qasas are also competing for the post.
Abed announced that his deputies’ are supporting the Egypt’s Support coalition’s candidate, El-Sayed El-Sherif, who is running for deputy speaker. Abed said in press statements Sunday that his party did not hold any discussions or coordination with Egypt’s Support to support its candidates, and that his party sees merit in them.
In reference to Beshat’s chances of competing for the deputy position, Abed said there is a split among the members of the coalition and the coalition has not agreed on a specific candidate for the two deputy seats.
Meanwhile during the first parliamentary session, a number of members diverged from the oath text, which caused disorder.
Some added their own words, such as “long live Egypt”, while others mispronounced some words in the text, although the temporarily parliamentary speaker Bahaa Abo Shoka previously urged all members to stick to the text as it is a constitutional oath.
Some members also raised requests to discuss the amendments to the code of conduct, but Abo Shoka interrupted them and said nothing should be amended until all members swear in according to Article 104 of the 2014 Constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt.
The members began swearing in according to the governorates lists in the electoral districts law starting with Cairo. Three members, Gawaher Al-Sherbiny, Farag Amer, and Mahmoud Attia, excused themselves from attending the first session for personal reasons.
The session was also interrupted for a few minutes when one member fainted suddenly and had to be transferred to the clinic for medical treatment.
Political researcher at Al-Ahram Centre for Political Studies Youssry Al-Azabawy told Daily News Egypt Sunday that in general, he though the session went smoothly with the exception of the “inappropriate actions of [Mortada] Mansour”.
