CAIRO – Egypt’s electoral commission said Wednesday that it would send prosecutors to nearly 54 million people who did not vote in the previous election this month for two-thirds of the Senate, the top and most commonly impotent chamber of the country’s parliament.
This progression is unlikely to lead to genuine trials, as Egypt’s judicial formula has the monetary means to prosecute such a gigantic majority of voters.
Some 63 million voters were eligible to vote for two hundred of the three hundred seats in the Senate, but only 8.99 million, or 14.23 percent, took part in the vote from August 11-12, according to the National Electoral Authority. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi will occupy the remaining hundred seats.
The vote took a stand amid the coronavirus pandemic, but the commission said it had taken all steps to make sure the electorate could simply vote.
Lasheen Ibrahim, the chairman of the commission, had promised a law punishing any boycott with a fine of up to 500 Egyptian pounds ($32).
However, little attention was paid to his warning, as similar data had been published in past elections, aimed at increasing participation and without real application.
Many turned to social media to criticize the decision, saying it was to prosecute some 53 million people. Others said it only showed that the government was looking to raise cash by any means.
Writer Gamal Taha wrote on Facebook that risk can simply galvanize the public’s anger as the Senate has an advisory role and has no legislative power, unlike the House of Representatives, the lower house.
El-Sissi’s leadership advocated the recovery of the Senate, a component approved of constitutional amendments in a referendum last year to update the Shura Council, which it pulled from the country’s 2014 constitution.
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