Local polls to be held before 2019: Parliament speaker

CAIRO – 7 May 2018: Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel Aal said Monday that the local elections will be held in 2018, which is sooner than the date expected by some officials.

"The Local Administration Committee in the Parliament has finished discussing a draft law for the local administration," Abdel Aal said in a statement, referring to the draft law which is set to allow the first local polls in a decade to be held.

"This draft law will be discussed [by the Parliament] soon, and local elections will be held before the end of 2018," Abdel Aal added.

The four-year term local council members are responsible for monitoring service facilities and following up on governmental plans carried out across Egypt’s governorates.

MP Abdel-Hamid Kamal of the Local Administration Committee said Monday that the government and the state have to be keen on holding the local polls before the end of this year.

"The current immense corruption that exists due to the absence of local councils affirms the need to hold local polls, which is a constitutional right," Kamal explained.

The former local councils, formed after 2008 polls, were dissolved in 2011 following the popular uprising that ended the 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak. Government-appointed officials have run local affairs without council oversight since then.

Prime Minister Sherif Ismail told Parliament in March 2016 that the local elections were scheduled for the first quarter of 2017, but they did not take place.

Parliamentary spokesman Salah Hassaballah told reporters earlier in April, that “the local elections will be held during the first half of 2019 after the local administrative draft law is passed by the Parliament.”

According to the law, women have 25 percent of the local councils’ seats. Parliament Speaker Abdel Aal said in January that local councils’ female members will hold more than 25 percent of the seats.