Parliamentary elections in September and presidential elections later in the year

Sources revealed that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) started holding consultative meetings yesterday to discuss the details of the constitutional announcement which is expected within days, following the announcement of the results of the referendum and the people’s acceptance of the amended articles with 77.2%.

Sobhy Saleh, member of the Committee to Amend the Constitution, stated that the committee finished amending the articles before the referendum was held.

A military source stated that the sessions of SCAF started after Tantawi finished his meetings with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the head of the committee of foreign relations in the US Senate and the Foreign Minister of Russia yesterday.

It also stressed that the amended articles will be the basis of working in the next period. He expected that parliamentary and Shura elections will be held in September 2011 and that presidential elections will be held before the end of this year.

The source also stressed that following parliamentary and presidential elections and giving power to an elected and civil president of the state, the elected government will have to draft a new constitution within a specified period of time.

Dr. Yehya Elgamal, deputy Prime Minister, stated during his meeting with Dr. Ahmed El-Tayeb, Sheikh of Al-Azhar, that the constitutional announcement, including the amended articles and other ones, will be issued soon.

Sobhy Saleh pointed out that the legal texts of the amended articles are laws on political rights, Shura Council and Parliamentary and presidential elections. He stated that the committee finished amending these articles before the referendum, before finishing the recommendations of amending the texts.

He added that the committee finished adding recommendations for the amendment of the constitution in four days then applied these amendments in two days. 

Saleh pointed out that SCAF met with the members of the committee three times, when it was first officially appointed to put recommendations for amending the nine articles, the second when the committee finished applying these recommendations and the third was when the committee handed its amendments of the three laws on the constitutional amendments.