CAIRO: Egypt’s parliament has put a rush on voting on proposed constitutional amendments that would allow President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to stay in office well beyond his current term, which ends in 2022.
The vote was initially scheduled for next week, but is now being held as early as Wednesday, lawmaker Nadia Henry said Monday.
The development comes despite concerns that Egypt is slipping back into authoritarianism, eight years after a pro-democracy uprising ended autocrat Hosni Mubarak’s nearly three-decade rule.
El-Sisi led the 2013 military overthrow of elected but divisive Islamist President Muhammad Mursi, and was elected the following year. Since then, he has presided over an unprecedented crackdown on dissent, and was re-elected last year after all potentially serious challengers were jailed or pressured to exit the race.
Once approved by lawmakers, the constitutional amendments would have to be put to a national referendum, Parliament spokesman Ahmed Saad el-Din said Sunday.
The 596-seat assembly had given its preliminary approval to the changes last week. The motion is near-certain to be approved by the legislature, packed with El-Sisi’s supporters.
The amendments also include novelties: the office of vice president, a revived Senate, and a 25 percent quota for women in Parliament. It also calls for “adequate” representation for workers, farmers, young people and people with special needs in the legislature.
The president would have the power to appoint top judges and bypass judiciary oversight in vetting draft legislation before it is voted into law.
The amendments are no surprise; pro-government figures and media have been lobbying for months that two terms are not enough for El-Sisi to fulfil his vision of modernizing the country, including overhauling its economy and defeating Islamic militants.
Yasser Rizq, chairman of the state-owned Al-Akhbar daily and a close confidant of El-Sisi, argued that the amendments were necessary to prevent Islamists from gaining power. He said he expects the referendum to take place before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. This year, Ramdan is expected to start in early May.
Former foreign minister Amr Moussa on Saturday called for “a wide national dialogue” on the amendments. Moussa, who also served as Arab League secretary-general, had chaired the panel that drafted Egypt’s current constitution in 2014.
He urged that all voices, advocates and opponents, should be heard “to enrich the political life in the country and guarantee credibility to the amendments.”
Egypt parliament to vote this week to extend El-Sisi’s rule
Egypt parliament to vote this week to extend El-Sisi’s rule
- The vote was initially scheduled for next week, but is now being held as early as Wednesday
- The development comes despite concerns that Egypt is slipping back into authoritarianism
Inaction over UAE’s role is prolonging ‘worst proxy war in the world,’ Sudan justice minister says
- Had international community characterized it as ‘military rebellion’ and countered Emirati sponsorship of ‘terrorist militia’ it would not have endured, he tells UN Human Rights Council
- He accuses paramilitary Rapid Support forces of ‘targeting basic infrastructure, strategic facilities and public services,’ and ‘atrocities beyond our capacity to describe’
NEW YORK CITY: Sudan’s justice minister on Wednesday blamed the prolongation of the near-three-year conflict in his country on what he described as the failure of the international community to properly label the war as a rebellion.
He also accused the UAE of sponsoring and arming a militia, the Rapid Support Forces, he said was responsible for widespread abuses.
“The war has outstayed its welcome and it should not have gone on for this long had the international community, and particularly the UN and its bodies, fulfilled their responsibility in rightly characterizing this military rebellion,” said Abdullah Mohammed Dirif, “and had they called a spade a spade and countered the Abu Dhabi government, which sponsored this terrorist militia and provided it with high-tech arms and provided it with mercenaries.”
Speaking during the high-level segment of the 61st session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, he warned that “the misleading characterization of this war has given a green light for the militia to keep its flagrant violations.”
The minister, who said he was speaking “on behalf of the government of Sudan and its people,” described the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF, which began in April 2023, as “one of the worst proxy wars in the world,” which had “targeted the very existence of Sudan and its people.”
The RSF has “continued its methodic targeting of basic infrastructure and strategic facilities and all public services,” Dirif said, adding that “the aim is to displace civilians against whom it has committed atrocities beyond our capacity to describe them.
“The violations and crimes of the militia are going unabated. Yesterday it invaded Moustahiliya region in northern Darfur. It targeted civilians, killed them. It looted. It scorched villages and cities.”
Sudan’s military was “conducting its constitutional responsibility by standing up to the militia, protecting the civilians, preserving the unity of the country and the rule of law,” he said, and it remains “committed to international humanitarian law and the rules governing military engagement, and taking into account proportionality principles in order to protect civilians.”
Khartoum remains “open to genuine efforts which aim to end the war and the rebellion” based on a road map presented by the president of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, and a peace initiative submitted by the prime minister to the UN Security Council on Dec. 22, he added.
Dirif stressed his government’s commitment to continued “cooperation and coordination with human rights mechanisms in Sudan,” including the presence of the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the country and the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Sudan.
“We recall, nationally, that achieving justice and redress to victims and ensuring impunity is a top priority for us,” he said, adding that authorities had made progress by investigating violations of national laws and international humanitarian laws.
He also underscored Sudan’s “commitment to continue facilitating and expediting delivery of humanitarian assistance to those affected by the war, including those under the control of the rebellious militia.”
Later, Sudan’s representative to the UN in Geneva exercised his right of reply and responded to prior remarks by the representative from the UAE.
“This is not a mere accusation, it is a well-known fact that is predicated on a number of evidence and documented proofs,” he said, referring to the UAE’s sponsorship of the RSF.
He cited in particular a report by a UN panel of experts on Sudan published on Jan. 15, 2024, which he described as “an official document of the Security Council” that referred to “lines of transferring weapons from Abu Dhabi International Airport” based on “clear-cut evidence.”
Other major international organizations and Sudan’s national commission of inquiry have provided further proof, he added, and Khartoum had submitted “a number of complaints, with proof, to the Security Council of the proven sabotage by the Abu Dhabi authority.”
The Sudanese representative continued: “It is paradoxical that the same authority that is sponsoring criminal militia, that the whole world is seeing and is attesting to its crimes, is now talking about peace in the Sudan. Peace is a noble value, that you have to be full of peace before you talk about it.
“The people of Sudan are only requesting this country stop sponsoring this criminal militia that is killing the innocent people in my country on a daily basis.”
The UAE has denied accusations that it provides military support to armed groups in Sudan, and says it supports efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
