• January 19, 2007
  • 3 minutes read

122 MPs Rejected Mubarak’s Constitutional Amendments

122 MPs Rejected Mubarak’s Constitutional Amendments

122 members of the Egyptian Parliament rejected the constitutional amendments proposed by President Mubarak to both chambers of Parliament.


122 members included members of the Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary bloc, and MPs of Tagamue, Karama, Al-Ghad and number of independent MPs in addition to several MPs affiliated with the rulling National Democratic Party, declared their rejection to the general committee’s report on the constitutional amendments in the People’s Assembly. The parliamentarian naysayers confirmed their rejection in a memo presented to the People’s Assembly speaker, in which they explained the reasons for their rejection to these suggested amendments.


The most prominent signatories included Dr. Mohamed Saad Al Katatni- the MB parliamentary bloc chief, Dr. Gamal Zahran and Ahmad Al-Nasser from Wafd Party, and Alaa Abdul Moneim, Mohamed Al-Omda, Mohamed Abdul Aziz Shaaban, Dr. Hamdi Hassan, Hussein Mohamed Ibrahim, Saad Abboud, Hamdein Sabahi, Muhammad Anwar As-Sadat, Saad Al Husseini, Mohsen Radi, an addition to the National Party MP Mohamed Hussein and another number of independent and Muslim Brotherhood MPs.


The Parliament Speaker, Dr. Fathi Serour, called 316 National Democratic party MPs by the name to declare their approval of the amendments in principle. He decided that the deadline given for completing the report of the legislative committee on the amendments will be March, 17, 2007, so that the Assembly can discuss every article of them and be submitted to a referendum for approval.


Sorour confirmed that every MP has the right to submit his suggestions around these amendments within a month from now to put it in the report of the legislative committee.


From their part, the MPs who rejected the amendments confirmed that they refuse them in principle for several reasons, the most prominent of which is that they reflected a one-sided view that does not express a national societal agreement and that they neglecting the suggestions proposed by the MPs at the end of previous legislative round, in addition to fiercely violating public freedoms under the pretext of fighting terrorism, although the current legislations are more than sufficient, specially law No. 97 of the year of 1992. Also, these amendments will definitely and certainly lead to an authoritarian and everlasting monopoly of power through “an electoral system which is tailored only for the size of the current regime and the ruling party; add to this the method of excluding the other, through excluding the independent candidates and those opposing the current regime through keeping the obstacles mentioned in Article 76, in addition to insisting on not defining the presidential term in Article 77.


They said that:” Add to all these giving the president the right to dissolve the People’s Assembly- which is elected by people- without consulting people (through a referendum or other methods).
 
The MPs who rejected the constitutional amendments said also that these amendments lead to subverting and stealing people’s will through excluding the judicial full oversight on all the election processes, and establishing the control of the capital at the expense of the social justice and the socialist gains.