Editing Politics of Egypt (section)

==Legislative branch==
{{Life in Egypt}}
{{main|History of Parliamentary life in Egypt}}
[[Parliament of Egypt|Parliament]] meets for one eight-month session each year; under special circumstances the President of the Republic can call an additional session. Even though the powers of the Parliament have increased since the 1980 Amendments of the Constitution, the Parliament continues to lack the powers to balance the extensive powers of the President.

===The House of Representatives (Maglis El Nowwab)===

The [[House of Representatives (Egypt)|House of Representatives]] is the principal legislative body. It consists of a maximum 596 representatives with 448 are directly elected through [[FPTP]] and another 120 elected through [[proportional representation]] in 4 nationwide districts while the President can appoint up to 28.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.aswatmasriya.com/news/view.aspx?id=d1c74bd4-fc9f-416d-9507-7c7585506bd4|title=Cabinet preliminarily passes law regulating electoral districts|publisher=Aswat Masriya|date=10 December 2014|access-date=10 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141211105347/http://en.aswatmasriya.com/news/view.aspx?id=d1c74bd4-fc9f-416d-9507-7c7585506bd4|archive-date=11 December 2014|url-status=live}}</ref>  The House sits for a five-year term but can be dissolved earlier by the President.

The Constitution reserves fifty per cent of the House may force the resignation of the executive cabinet by voting a motion of censure. For this reason, the [[Prime Minister of Egypt|Prime Minister]] and his cabinet are necessarily from the dominant party or coalition in the assembly. In the case of a president and house from opposing parties, this leads to the situation known as [[cohabitation (government)|cohabitation]].

The recent elections were held in [[Egyptian parliamentary election, 2015|2015]] and most recently in [[2020 Egyptian parliamentary election|2020]].

===Senate (Magles El Shiyoukh)===
The [[Senate (Egypt)|Senate]] was the 264-member upper house of Parliament created in 1980. In the Senate, 176 members were directly elected and 88 members were appointed by the President of the Republic for six-year terms. One half of the Senate was renewed every three years.

The Senate legislative powers were limited. On most matters of legislation, the People's Assembly retained the last word in the event of a disagreement between the two houses.

It was called '''Shura Council''' which was abolished in the [[Constitution of Egypt|2014 constitution]].<ref>{{cite web|title=50 member constitution committee eliminates Shura Council|url=http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/87991/Egypt/Politics-/-member-constitution-committee-eliminates-Shura-Co.aspx|publisher=Ahram Online|date=1 December 2013|access-date=19 January 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304121653/http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/87991/Egypt/Politics-/-member-constitution-committee-eliminates-Shura-Co.aspx|archive-date=4 March 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Parliamentary Elections===
Political parties in Egypt are numerous and exceeds 100 parties. The formation of political parties based on religion, race or gender is prohibited by the Constitution. Before the revolution in 2011, power was concentrated in the hands of the President of the Republic and the [[National Democratic Party (Egypt)|National Democratic Party]] which retained a [[super-majority]] in the People's Assembly.

Many [[List of political parties in Egypt|new political parties]] that mostly were fragile formed in anticipation of running candidates in the [[2011–12 Egyptian parliamentary election]] that was considered the first free one since the 1952 revolution. However the elected Parliament was dissolved by the constitutional court and new elections were held in [[Egyptian parliamentary election, 2015|2015]].

Below the national level, authority is exercised by and through governors and mayors appointed by the central government and by popularly elected local councils.