It seems that Egypt’s new administration is inclined to adopt a “majority election system” with single-member districts for the upcoming parliamentary elections. According to Ali Awad, the constitutional adviser to interim President Adly Mansour and the rapporteur of the 10-member constitutional experts committee, most proposals received by the committee have requested adopting the single-member district system, and not the proportional representation (list) system. He added that this and other controversial issues will be left for the “50-member constituent assembly” to decide upon.

Most secular and even Islamist political parties vocally came out opposing this trend.  A statement signed by 24 parties and women’s organizations has requested that the committee amend the constitution by deleting Article 191, which provides for single-member districts in the parliament and local elections, and adopt the proportional lists system for all parliamentary seats at this stage, stressing that this would be an important factor in supporting women’s participation in the political process especially if the law would require political parties to place women near the top of their proportional lists.

In May 2012, immediately after the first round of the presidential elections, I wrote an article titled, “Voters’ messages hold the key to resolving the political crisis.” The first message was the election result itself, which showed that no single political current could claim to speak for all Egyptians. The second message came from the 75% of Egyptian voters who refused to be ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood’s supreme guide. The third message came from 64% of Egyptian voters who rejected Mubarak’s regime with its figures and symbols. Also, 75% said that they were with the revolution in all its new and diverse forces, and the 99% who said that they wanted to preserve the Egyptian state and opposed chaos in the name of the revolution, because a revolution is not an amusement park bumper car to be driven by zealous activists seeking an adrenaline rush through violent collisions.

But the election’s most important message was that parliament was flawed and does not truly represent Egyptians. The religious current, which won nearly 70% of parliamentary seats, received only around 33% of the votes in the first round of the presidential election. So when the Supreme Constitutional Court annulled the parliament two weeks after the results of the first presidential election round had been announced, it was actualizing the voice of the people. No one demonstrated against the court’s decision, except a few member deputies.