El-Sisi's last parliament?

Early next year, the new House of Representatives begins work. Under its watch, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s third and final term is due to end in April 2030.

But given how candidate lists were assembled; competition pared down, rival lists excluded, and opposition figures edged out of individual races, experts who spoke to Al Manassa did not rule out that the new parliament might move to amend the constitution to lift presidential term limits.

So far pro-government parties have not taken public positions on amending the constitution. Yet in July, Mohamed El Baz, editor-in-chief and chair of the state-aligned daily Al Dostor, launched what he called a “popular demand” campaign for a fourth presidential term, arguing that people “have grown accustomed to a leader who works tirelessly.”

Such demands recalled the call once made by the late journalist Yasser Rizk, who was very close to the president, when he called in December 2018 for extending Sisi’s presidential term. His call ignited the wave of demands that ended, in September 2019, with a set of controversial constitutional amendments that enabled Sisi to remain president until 2030.

Talk of a fourth term has drawn political criticism. Hossam Badrawi, the last leader of the National Democratic Party, which was dissolved after the January 25 revolution, warned against embracing such calls. In an interview with Al Manassa last month, he also spoke of what he described as “the crudeness and mockery of the people in the management of elections.”

Possible amendment

Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, places pro-government media coverage of the president’s activity in the context of a bid for another term, citing the 2019 precedent.

The Middle East studies scholar, who compares political and economic roles of Arab armed forces, notes “the use of every external event to burnish the president’s image and shield what might otherwise be open to criticism in other areas, coupled with calls to rally behind the leadership.”

Accordingly, he told Al Manassa he expects El-Sisi to seek another term and to launch an attempt to amend the constitution to make that possible, likely alongside a further expansion of the military’s powers.

That is what happened in 2019, when amendments proposed by 155 MPs, mostly from the Support Egypt bloc, granted the armed forces additional authorities including “safeguarding the constitution and democracy” and “protecting the rights and freedoms of individuals.”

Likewise, Amr Hashem Rabie, a parliamentary affairs researcher at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, does not rule out another constitutional amendment. “But the question remains: is it to reset the presidential terms, or to introduce genuine changes that open the public sphere to everyone?”

Nasser Kandil, an expert on parliamentary systems and legislation, warns against amending the constitution without genuine social consensus. He called for a different kind of national dialogue than the previous round, which “produced very respectable outcomes that were praised by everyone, but unfortunately the government did not commit to them,” he told Al Manassa.

Logical concerns

Designing the next parliament much like its predecessors, “which provoked widespread public discontent”, could, in Kandil’s view, lay the ground for another round of constitutional changes.

The Socialist Popular Alliance Party withdrew from individual seats late last month after the National Election Authority/NEA disqualified two of its candidates, including Haitham El-Hariri.

The National List for Egypt, which contains a pro-government majority, will secure half the chamber’s seats unopposed after the NEA disqualified rival slates. Excluded were the Generation Party’s lists in the East and West Delta super-constituencies, the Popular List: Your Voice for Egypt, and the Call of Egypt list in the West Delta.

The National List for Egypt comprises 12 parties led by pro-state groups. Although Nation’s Future retains the top share, its dominance has ebbed to 120 seats (42%), down from 145 seats (51%) in the previous term.

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Seat shares also shifted after the National Front Party joined the list. The party—formed this year by former ministers, governors, sitting and former MPs, and business figures—includes prominent names such as former housing minister Assem El-Gazzar; Essam Ibrahim Gomaa El-Organi, son of the head of the Union of Arab Tribes and Egyptian Families; and the union’s secretary-general.

The strongest surge comes from the Homeland Defenders Party, which jumps to second place with 53 seats (19%), up from just 19 seats (7%) previously. The National Front takes 45 seats (16%).

Others decline: the Republican People’s Party falls from 28 to 15 seats; the Wafd Party from 21 to 7. Independents shrink from 25 seats to just 8.

By contrast, parties seen as centrist or opposition double their list seats. The Justice Party rises to eight seats; the Egyptian Social Democratic Party to nine; and the Future Egypt Party appears on the list for the first time.

Even so, the shifts are limited and unlikely to change voting behavior.

No candidates, no competition

Engineering of lists and individual races has marked parliamentary life, fueling apathy and low participation while stifling efforts to check executive overreach.

Rabie calls the winner-take-all list system “a forgery of voters’ will,” because a list that wins 51% of the vote receives 100% of the seats, turning the other 49% into zero.

Kandil says the conduct of previous elections has directly shaped the current race, producing what may be the smallest candidate pool in Egypt’s parliamentary history.

In 2011, 10,251 candidates stood for election, Kandil recalls. “Now we have only 2,598—about a quarter of those who ran less than 15 years ago.”

Rabie agrees, arguing that pre-orchestrating the results has reduced competition to its lowest level since 2000. Candidates per seat have fallen from nine in 2000 to 4.5 for the 2025 elections.

Competition rose markedly in the first elections after the January 25 revolution, which used two-thirds proportional lists and one-third individual seats. There were 10,251 candidates for 498 seats—an overall ratio of 20 candidates per seat.

Rabies notes competition fell again in the first elections after El-Sisi took office in 2015, when 5,876 candidates contested 568 seats, halving the ratio to 10 candidates per seat. The decline continued in 2020 to roughly eight per seat.

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Oversight of MPs

Voters remain largely absent from the parliamentary scene. MPs oversee the executive, but the legislature itself should be under public scrutiny.

Kandil calls for institutional evaluation of parliamentary performance, noting that there is no national index to measure MPs’ effectiveness. No annual public report answers basic questions: “Did this parliament perform well or not? Did these MPs do the work or not?”

He is less concerned with who allocates list shares than the quality of those selected. He says current quotas reflect failure: “I’m looking at candidate names that are the product of security-agency interventions or of popular will, but the total number is an insult and unsatisfactory to a wide segment of citizens. Judging by their CVs, these people are not the most qualified to express the ambitions of this society at a pivotal moment that will be followed by the presence of a new president.”

He argues parliament must redefine its relationship with society. “That can only happen through a genuine societal dialogue between parliamentary committees and civic and institutional forces, one that proves that parliament listens to others’ views and is not just a space for groups of wealthy businesspeople and their children to protect their personal interests.”

Rabie agrees the next parliament matters despite concerns about its formation. He says changing its image requires passing laws mandated by the constitution—some with deadlines—that stalled because of the failings of the government, the executive, and parliament alike.

He cites laws on combating discrimination, ending the secondment of judges to nonjudicial bodies, transitional justice, personal status, and local administration, as well as amending the elections law to replace the winner-take-all list with proportional representation.

As talk grows that this will not be the president’s last parliament, the body’s legacy may hinge less on the laws it passes than on the constitutional ground rules it dismantles or entrenches—rules meant, at least in theory, to enable the rotation of power.