Reform advocate Mohamed ElBaradei reiterated his call to reconsider the timeline for the transitional period devised by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) Tuesday. The SCAF has ruled Egypt since the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on 11 February 2011.
“In light of this constitutional, political and legal tampering, is not it time to revise the timeline, which is getting more and more complicated by the day?” ElBaradei said on his Twitter.
He also wrote that “the Supreme Administrative Court has ruled that the elections were illegitimate and referred the matter to the Supreme Constitutional Court.”
“How can this Parliament then choose the constituent assembly that would write the constitution before the Supreme Constitutional Court has its say?” he wondered.
The Supreme Administrative Court on Monday referred some of the provisions of the law regulating the People's Assembly and Shura Council elections, the basis for forming the current Parliament, to the Supreme Constitutional Court to determine their constitutionality.
The SCAF had issued the law in July, allocating individual and list-based candidatesin the elections each 50 percent of the People's Assembly seats to compete on. But in September, the SCAF issued amendments to the law, allocating two-thirds of the seats to lists and one-third to individual candidates, banning political parties from competing on individual seats. And in October, the SCAF passed yet a new amendment, allowing political parties to field candidates for individual seats.
State-run Al-Ahram newspaper’s website on Tuesday said the Supreme Administrative Court found suspicion of unconstitutionality, as the law allowed political parties to vie with independents over individual seats.
The court said the law has thereby violated the principle of equal opportunity for all contestants.
