Egypt Election - Bach | Gina | Fangda
Egypt is located in northern part of Africa known as the Middle East. The country is known for its vast desserts, and its rich ancient history of Kings and Queens with pyramids that still exist. Today, the country is the worlds 6th largest supplier of liquified natural gas and oil is the main export. Although the country's oil and tourism industries are still very prosperous, the recent revolution and overthrowing of former president Hosni Mubarek has left the country's current political state in disarray.
About Egypt's Election:
Election in Egypt is universal and compulsory to all Egyptian citizen over 18 years of age. Egypt has a two-round system for its presidential election. Previous to the revolution, Egypt's election process included a popular vote by the citizens for the head of state or president of Egypt. The president would be elected for a six year term after being nominated by the People's Assembly and then later confirmed by the popular vote. The People's Assembly is composed of 508 members, 498 of them are elected for a five year term and 10 members are added by the newly elected president each new term. The elections for the People's Assembly are carried out in three phases, in which there are 12 election days held throughout the country. Now that the revolution has occurred, the Egyptian people are currently writing a new legislature to carry out presidential elections.
Candidate Qualification:
- Be born in Egypt to Egyptian parents
- Not holding dual nationality
- Not marriage to a non-Egyptian
- Support of 30000 voters
Now in Egypt the top two candidates have decided to enter the runoff election next month (06/16-06/17). They are Mohamed Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood and Ahmed Shafik who served under Hosni Mubarak as the prime minister.
Mohamed Morsi has been Chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party(FJP) after the revolution happened in 2011. During 2000 and 2005, he was a Member of Parliament. Before the Freedom and Justice Party was founded, Mohamed Morsi had been a member of the Guidance Office of the Muslim Brotherhood. After that, he was elected by the Muslim Brotherhood's Guidance Office to be the first president of the new party. Mohamed Morsi was at first being nominated as a backup candidate, but later on he took the place of Khairat El-Shater as a formal candidate when the latter was disqualified.
Ahmed Mohamed Shafik was a senior commander in the Egyptian Air Force and later served as Prime Minister of Egypt for a period of 33 days, when Hosni Mubarak was in charge. Ahmed Shafik served in the army as an young officer and had attended the War of Attrition and 1973 October War. Later in 1983, he was appointed a military attaché in the Egyptian Embassy in Rome. In 1991, he had become the Air Force's Chief of Staff, and lasted for 5 years, when he became the Commander of the Egyptian Air Force. Seen as "one of Mubarak's old guard", Shafik became a member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces in February 11, 2011. Ahmed announced his candidacy in the Egyptian Presidential Election in November 2011.
Here is an interview he did with Democracy Now on the topic of Egypt Presidential Election:
The process of corresponding with an Egyptian person to interview them about their presidential elections was very long and required patience, however we are glad that we were able to learn something. Our group gained a new insight into this foreign land and was surprised to learn that presidents are elected in Egypt for a longer term than those in the United States and also the People's Assembly of Egypt has almost the same number of members as our American Congress and it functions similarly. We think that this was a good experience. If we were to do this again, we would definitely not procrastinate and spend more time talking to each other about the project. Our advice to others would be to pick a country that you're interested in so that you'll be able to fully appreciate the knowledge given to you in the interview.
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