Egypt's legislature approves election bill

Egypt's Shura Council (upper house of parliament) approved Sunday an election bill set to govern future parliamentary polls after integrating some modifications into its previous version, official MENA news agency reported. The Council agreed to expand the People's Assembly (lower house of parliament) to 588 members and increase the seats for some under-represented governorates to six each. "The seats for the governorates of Menia, Alexandria, Ismailia, Kafr al-Shaiekh, Beheira, Luxor, Qalioubeya have been increased," lawmaker Sobhy Saleh said. For his part, Minister of Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Hatem Begato said the modifications made sure that each governorate shall have no less than six seats in accordance with the constitution. Before Sunday's approval, the bill were referred to the Supreme Constitutional Court, which had ruled four articles in its previous version were "unconstitutional" on May 25, MENA quoted head of the Shura Council Ahmed Fahmy as saying. These articles were mainly related to unfair representation of electoral districts, non-prohibition of religious slogans in campaigns and the president's right to shorten or to lengthen the electoral period.