Cairo: Egyptian President Mohammad Mursi has decreed that the country’s legislative polls will begin on April 27 and run for two months, a move that could further deepen a political crisis between the Islamist leader and the opposition.
Mursi said in a decree, issued late Thursday, that elections for the 546-seat House of Deputies or the lower house of parliament will be held in four stages, ending on June 27.
The first phase will be held over two days in a set of major electoral districts covering Cairo, Port Saeed, Minya, North Sinai and Beheira.
Each of the three other stages will also run for two days, covering the country’s remaining 22 provinces. The new legislature is to convene its first session on July 6.
Mursi issued the decree hours after the Shura Council, Egypt’s temporary legislator, approved a revised poll law after introducing changes ordered by the country’s top court.
As part of these changes, the legislature’s seats are to increase by 48 to reach 546 after redistributing electoral districts.
Egypt has been for months gripped by a sharp political crisis over Mursi’s policy. At least 60 people have been killed in the past four weeks in anti-government protests, including 42 people in the restive Suez Canal City of Port Saeed.
The secular-leaning opposition accuses Mursi of betraying the revolution that brought him to power in June. The Muslim Brotherhood, from which Mursi hails, accuses the opposition of seeking to topple Mursi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president.
The opposition has recently called for delaying the elections, saying that prevalent political tensions and economic woes in the country make it hard to hold fair voting.
The Popular Current, a major grass roots movement led by former presidential contender Hamdeen Sabahi, said this week it will not participate in the forthcoming polls in protest against Mursi’s policy.
“The [presidential] call for the elections emphasises the regime’s policy of disregarding public protests and reflects a feverish pursuit of stealing power and dominating it,” wrote Mohammad Abu Hamid, a vociferous critic of Mursi and the Brotherhood, in a tweet.
The main opposition bloc, the National Salvation Front, has repeatedly threatened to boycott the vote and demanded “guarantees” for fair elections. Demands include replacing the current Islamist-led government with a caretaker cabinet and allowing local and foreign civil society groups to monitor the polls.
Mursi’s Islamist allies say the legislative polls are necessary for fast-tracking the country’s democratic transition.
Islamists held more than two thirds of seats in the previous legislature, which was dissolved by the Supreme Constitutional Court in June last year after its electoral rules were found unconstitutional.
