Could a new municipal bill open the door for constitutional amendments?

On April 2, the government re-submitted the local administration draft law to the House of Representatives, bringing to the forefront a debate that started with the first submission of the draft back in 2016.  Three years following initial submission, Parliament discussed the bill in a plenary session in 2019, but the pro-government Support Egypt majority bloc, led by Nation’s Future Party, opposed its passage. Then-parliamentary speaker Ali Abdel Aal accused what he described as “the deep state” of obstructing the law. Throughout this decade, both the government and Parliament have left the draft shelved, despite repeated directives from President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to expedite the vote.  An entire branch of the 2014 Constitution is dedicated to regulating how state administration should be divided into units including governorates, cities and villages. The Constitution tasks Parliament with passing a law within five years that outlines the requirements and processes for the appointment or election of governors and chairpeople of local administrative entities, as well as the process governing the election of local councils for each entity. The five-year period elapsed in January 2019.  According to a government source speaking to Mada Masr, the bill’s revival after many years of being shelved, might open a new opportunity for justifying constitutional amendments in the coming months, on the back of an argument stating that the bill, as is, is potentially unconstitutional.  The source adds that the government and Parliament are likely to prolong the debate until a “green light” is secured to promote what they described as a solution involving a second amendment to the 2014 Constitution. While an initial constitutional amendment in 2019 allowed an extension to Sisi’s presidency by one term (three terms instead of two) until 2030, it is yet to be seen whether a second amendment would further manage the country’s leadership future beyond the ballot box.   The parliamentary Local Government and Public Organizations Committee held 80 sessions between 2019 and 2020 to review and amend the government’s draft in line with the Constitution, MP Atef al-Maghawry tells Mada Masr. Those deliberations produced a complete bill resolving all contentious issues, including the electoral system, the powers of local councils and the status of new urban communities currently affiliated with the New Urban Communities Authority. Several sticking points have remained open since the bill was drafted in 2016. One of them, the electoral system, is repeatedly portrayed as the main obstacle to passing the law, over fears of constitutional conflict.  Article 180 of the Constitution provides that each local administrative unit shall elect a council by direct, secret ballot for a four-year term, with candidates required to be at least 21 years old. The law is to regulate other eligibility criteria and electoral procedures, while reserving one quarter of seats for youth under 35, one quarter for women, and no less than 50 percent for workers and farmers, with adequate representation for Christians and people with disabilities. The government’s proposal stipulated an electoral system of 75 percent closed-party lists and 25 percent individual seats, a formula endorsed by political parties and included in the draft debated in Parliament in 2019-2020. In 2023, the government’s draft was discussed during sessions of the National Dialogue, launched on presidential directives in April 2022, and it was agreed for the electoral system to combine a closed-list system for 75 percent of seats with proportional lists for the remaining 25 percent, instead of individual seats. Still, the electoral system continued to be framed as a constitutional dilemma, essentially leading to the draft being shelved.  However, in televised remarks from April, Samir Abdel Wahab, rapporteur of the National Dialogue’s Municipalities Committee, dismissed claims that elections cannot be held without constitutional amendments as “incorrect.” He stressed that local elections can proceed without amending the Constitution and would not be vulnerable to constitutional challenges, noting that a 75 percent closed-list system would secure the required quotas for youth and women, as well as representation for Christians and people with disabilities. While former head of Parliament’s Local Government and Public Organizations Committee Ahmed al-Siginy echoed Abdel Wahab’s view that the electoral system issue has effectively been settled, he did not rule out constitutional amendments. In an interview with Al-Shorouk, Siginy said that the Constitution sets specific quotas for youth, farmers and women, and that the committee concluded a 75 percent closed-list system would meet those requirements. If the state — government, Parliament, specialized councils, unions and parties — accepts this arrangement for the current phase, no constitutional amendment would be needed. However, he added, political objections could still claim that such amendments are necessary, even if constitutional requirements are met. Meanwhile, a party source close to the government tells Mada Masr there is no intention within the executive branch to hold local council elections in the near term. The reason, the source explains, is that the security apparatus aligned with Nation’s Future Party, which blocked the law’s passage in 2019, continues to oppose holding such elections, viewing them as potential threats to the party, if a sweeping victory is not guaranteed. The electoral system aside, another sticking issue is the government’s insistence on keeping new cities under the executive lead of the Housing Ministry, in accordance with the Law on the Establishment of New Urban Communities. However, many MPs have called for their transfer to the Local Development Ministry so that they would have local councils once elections are held. This issue and others will be debated in a joint committee comprising the committees of local government and public organization, planning and budget and constitutional and legislative affairs, to which the government bill was referred by Parliamentary Speaker Hesham Badawy. The panel began deliberations on April 6 and, in its first meeting chaired by Local Government and Public Organizations Committee head Mahmoud Shaarawy, agreed to form a smaller subcommittee to review the government’s draft alongside proposals submitted by MPs and to prepare a new version. Maghawry says he had proposed forming the subcommittee, citing the precedent of the Criminal Procedures Law, whose draft was prepared by a similar body after reviewing government and parliamentary proposals. He tells Mada Masr that the same approach could reconcile the government’s bill, the 2020 committee draft and the proposals submitted by MPs. Egypt last held local council elections in 2008, after a two-year delay following the end of the 2002-2006 council term. The postponement was based on legislation issued after the 2005 constitutional amendments, which deferred local elections until after presidential and parliamentary polls. At the time, members of the ruling National Democratic Party under Hosni Mubarak secured an overwhelming majority of the roughly 52,000 council seats, winning more than 45,000 uncontested before voting began. Following the January 2011 uprising, an administrative court ordered in June of that year the dissolution of local councils nationwide. And by September 2011, the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces issued a decree dissolving local councils across all governorates and mandating the establishment of temporary councils appointed by the prime minister. These were to include former members of judicial bodies, university faculty, public figures, community leaders and representatives of youth and women, in coordination with governors. However, these interim councils were never activated. Since then, the affairs of governorates, cities and villages and other local administrative units, have been managed by executive appointees without elected popular oversight.The post Could a new municipal bill open the door for constitutional amendments? first appeared on Mada Masr.