4 candidates run for Egypt's newly-elected House of Representatives Speaker, secret ballot begins

CAIRO – 12 January 2021: After all members of the newly-elected House of Representatives took the oath, Writer and Parliamentarian Farida al-Shobashy – who presided over the inaugural session – began the selection of the Speaker and two deputies through secret ballot after receiving candidacy requests.

At the beginning, Shobashy greeted the soul of late Chairman of National Elections Authority Lashin Ibrahim for running a successful electoral process.

The four candidates running for Speaker are Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court Chancellor Hanafy Ali El Gebali; 2nd term MP and former official at the Administrative Control Authority Mohamed Salah Abou Hemela; Medical doctor Ahmed Abdel Hakim Youssef Darag; and, Mohamed Medina, member of Al Wafd Party.

At present, the MPs are casting ballots to elect the Speaker of Egypt’s House of Representatives.

Shobashy was chosen to preside over the inaugural session for being the eldest among the members and she happens to be the first female parliamentarian to run a plenary session in Egypt. She has as deputies in that session the youngest two parliamentarians.

The lower chamber has 596 members. Two thirds of seats are allocated to members who ran on lists, while one third is allocated to individual candidates. At least 25 percent of members must be women, and the president has the right to appoint 28 members.

Currently, 162 seats are occupied by women. Of those, 148 have been elected MPs while the rest were appointed by the president to make up 50 percent of members appointed.

For elected female parliamentarians, 142 ran on lists while only six ran as individual candidates.