Egypt's parliament approves revised election law

PanARMENIAN.Net - Egypt's parliament approved a revised election law on Thursday, April 11 setting rules for a parliamentary poll later this year, but opposition politicians denounced the new statute and repeated a threat to boycott the vote, Reuters said.

The Islamist-dominated upper house will now send the text to the Supreme Constitutional Court to check the legality of the voting procedures for a new lower house. The court has 45 days to review the bill.

President Mohamed Mursi, an Islamist elected last year, originally called elections for April but postponed them when the court annulled the decree setting the dates.

Mursi has said elections could now begin in October, completing the democratic transition from the rule of ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak after more than two years of political and economic turmoil.

However, opposition members told Reuters they believed the upper house's passage of a flawed law showed that Mursi and his Islamist allies were determined to press ahead without seeking a national consensus.

A separate court ruling last year dissolved the Muslim Brotherhood-led lower chamber elected in 2011-12.

The opposition National Salvation Front, a loose alliance of leftist and liberal parties, had said it would boycott the April elections, arguing that the law was rigged to suit Islamists and demanding a neutral government to guarantee a fair vote.

Members of the opposition alliance said the adoption of the new law gave them no reason to participate in the polls.