People's Assembly of Egypt - Formation of The Assembly

Formation of The Assembly

The Constitution of Egypt states that the law shall determine the number of the People's Assembly elected members, provided that it is not less than 350 members. The Assembly is made up of 508 deputies, 498 of whom are directly elected while the remaining 10 are appointed by the President of the Republic. Under the new constitution that is being created, the president will no longer be able to appoint any members to the House of Representatives. It also stipulated that at least one half of the members should be workers and farmers. The Assembly sits for a five-year term but can be dissolved earlier by the president. All seats are voted on in each election. Law No. 206 for 1990 determined that the number of constituencies shall be 222, with two members each, provided that one of whom at least should be a farmer or a worker. The People's Assembly members are elected by absolute majority of legitimate votes cast.

The People's Assembly may demand the resignation of the cabinet by adopting a motion of censure. For this reason, the Prime Minister of Egypt and his cabinet are necessarily from the dominant party or coalition in the Assembly. When the president and assembly come from opposing parties (a situation which did arise historically, but not since the 1970s), this would lead to the situation known as cohabitation. While motions of censure are periodically proposed by the opposition following government actions that it deems highly inappropriate, these are purely rhetorical; party discipline ensures that, throughout a parliamentary term, the government is never overthrown by the Assembly.