Parliamentary polls by end of March, says Egypt’s Sisi

CAIRO // Egypt’s parliamentary elections will be held before the end of March 2015, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the president, told a visiting US business delegation on Monday, his office said.

Electing a new parliament is a key step in a road map announced by the army after it removed Mohammed Morsi from power on July 3, 2013.

“Egypt will achieve its third milestone announced in the post-July 3 road map ... of holding its parliamentary elections before an international economic conference scheduled in the first quarter of 2015,” Mr Sisi was quoted as telling the US delegation, according to a statement issued by his office.

The planned economic conference aims to attract foreign investments to kick-start the country’s battered economy.

Mr Sisi, then army chief, removed Mr Morsi and announced a political road map that envisaged adopting a new constitution, to be followed by presidential and parliamentary elections.

While the new constitution was adopted in January 2014, the presidential election, which Sisi won, was held in May.

The Supreme Electoral Commission announced in June the start of preparatory procedures for holding the parliamentary polls.

The commission recently said the date for the parliamentary polls will be fixed after a law finalising the constituencies was issued.

Egypt’s first parliament after the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak was dissolved after a court ruling in June 2012.

Since then, Egypt’s presidents have enjoyed both executive and legislative powers.

The nearly 160-member US business delegation is thought to be the biggest such US business group to visit Egypt since the 2011 uprising.

* Agence France-Presse