IFES Election Guide - Country Profile: Egypt

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Egypt
Arab Republic of Egypt
Region: Middle East

Description of government structure:

Chief of State: President Mohammed MORSI
Head of Government: Prime Minister Hesham KANDIL
Assembly: Egypt has a bicameral Parliament consisting of the Advisory Council (Majilis Al-Shura) with 264 seats and the People's Assembly (Majlis Al-Sha'b) with 498 seats.

Description of electoral system:

The President is elected by absolute majority vote through a two-round system to serve a 6-year term.
The Prime Minister is appointed by the president with the approval of the parliament.
In the Advisory Council (Majilis Al-Shura), 176 members are elected by absolute majority vote through a two-round system to serve 6-year terms and 88 members are appointed by the president to serve 6-year terms. In the People's Assembly (Majlis Al-Sha'b), 166 members are elected by absolute majority vote through a two-round system to serve 5-year terms and 332 members are elected through a closed-list proportional representation system to serve 5-year terms.**

** In the nominal tier, every district contains two seats and electors are given two votes. At least one seat in each district is reserved for a worker or farmer. If no candidate receives an absolute majority in the first round, a second round is held one week later. This round will contain the top 4 vote-getters, provided 2 are workers and/or farmers. If the two top candidates in the first round are not workers or farmers, the top candidate is elected, while a new simple majority poll is held a week later among the top workers and farmers. PR seats are broken into 46 districts, which are based on Egypt’s 27 governorates. In the nominal tier of seats, 166 members are divided into 83 districts. The threshold for entering parliament is .05%.