Egypt to elect parliament by year-end: Sisi

CAIRO

 Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi has said that a new parliament will be elected by the end of the year.

“We will have a parliament by the end of this year,” Sisi said at a military ceremony on Sunday.

Earlier this month, Sisi, a former army chief, signed election-related bills into law, paving the way for holding the delayed polls.

The amended law allocates 448 seats to individual candidates and 120 seats to lists. The previous law had allocated 420 seats to individuals and 120 through lists.

Originally slated for March, parliamentary polls were postponed following a ruling by the country’s constitutional court, which said that laws governing Egypt’s electoral districts were unconstitutional.

Egypt has not had a parliament since the dissolution of its 2012 assembly. In the absence of a functioning parliament, Sisi currently holds legislative authority.

Refaat Komsan, an adviser to the prime minister for electoral affairs, earlier told Anadolu Agency that the first round of parliamentary polls will be held in October.

The upcoming parliamentary vote will be the final step of a political "roadmap" imposed by the army in mid-2013 following the ouster of democratically-elected President Mohamed Morsi in a military coup.

The roadmap also included a constitutional referendum and a presidential poll, both of which took place last year.