Egypt’s National Elections Authority (NEA), presided over by Lasheen Ibrahim, on Sunday announced the final list of candidates for the 2020 Senate elections.
The list includes the electoral symbols that have been given to candidates, for both individual and closed list members, as well as candidate attributes.
The NEA held a session with the government to complete the required processes for the election to take place on 9-10 August for Egyptian expatriates, and 11-12 August for citizens inside Egypt. The final results are to be announced before 16 September.
The authority stated that the candidate’s electoral campaign is to be conducted within two weeks, between 26 July and 8 August. Egyptians residing abroad have to register their data through the NEA’s official website within seven days, starting from 25 July.
In a televised phone interview, Senate election candidate Mahmoud Bakry said that there is a fundamental difference in campaigning this year, due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Bakry added that the spread of the virus has affected campaign activities, which includes gatherings, with electoral campaigns to be limited to social network platforms.
At the beginning of July, President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi approved the new laws regulating legislative elections, the exercise of political rights, and the NEA.
Egypt’s Senate will be made up of 300 members, with each elected senator able to take office for five years starting from the Senate’s first meeting. Senate candidates should have an Egyptian nationality and a university degree, as well as having undertaken and completed military service.
The Senate will be tasked with making suggestions on how to promote democracy and social peace, as well as maintaining values and freedoms in society.
The NEA has also set a number of rules that the candidates must adhere to during the electoral campaigns, including a prohibition on organising public meetings for electoral advertising, taking into account social distancing measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
The authority has prohibited any use of religious slogans or symbols that call for discrimination between citizens on the basis of gender, language, or belief, or that incite hatred. It has also forbidden candidates from any electoral propaganda that involves deceiving voters by publishing false news.
