Egypt’s interim military rulers established a system on Wednesday for what is promised to be the first free and open elections in the country’s history, laying out a complicated plan evidently designed as a compromise between the competing demands of liberal and Islamist groups.
The parliamentary elections, which will follow the popular revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak in February, are being watched closely around the region as a test of the Arab democracy movement.
Rejecting the suggestions of American officials and many human rights groups, the military said that for reasons of national sovereignty it would not invite international monitors to oversee the elections. But it said that independent Egyptian human rights organizations and other groups would be free to do so.
Maj. Gen. Mamdouh Shaheen, speaking on behalf of the military’s ruling council, said “the electoral process” would begin in September in compliance with a referendum held in the spring. But for logistical reasons the final vote will take place in three stages over a month later in the fall.
Half the seats will be chosen by voters in each district picking individual candidates running in winner-take-all races, as in the American system. To fill the other seats, each voter will also choose a political party, and each party will receive a number of seats proportional to its share of the total vote, a system used in many countries to ensure the representation of minority views.
The defense minister, acting as interim president, will retain Mr. Mubarak’s power to name 10 of the 514 members of the lower house.
The military said it was abandoning a quota for the number of women in Parliament that Mr. Mubarak had imposed. But the military said it would retain an anachronistic requirement — widely ignored or abused under Mr. Mubarak — that half the seats go to workers or farmers. In a nod to the youth who led the revolution, the military lowered the minimum age of lawmakers to 25 from 30.
Maybe not perfect, but looking up. Getting closer to an Egypt for the Egyptian people.
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