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@ Assembly ofDissidents

An Analytical Study on Social Interactionwith the Egyptian Parliament

Prepared By

Essam ShihaAttorney-at-Law

Infront of the Cassation and Supreme Administrative Court

Assembly of Dissidents

Prepared by:




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Mr. Essam Shiha

Publisher:

Maat Centre for Legal and Constitutional StudiesRegistration Number: /2008

Supported By:

Middle East Partnership Initiative

Address:

King Faisal Street- Borg Al-Atebaa- 9th Floor-Appt. 908-Giza

Fax: 37759512

Mobile: 6521175012- 6521170012

Email: [email protected] – [email protected]

Director of the Centre:

Mr. Ayman Okeil

mailto:[email protected]









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Why the Assembly of Dissidents?

The active observer can obviously realize the extend of dissent and

disagreement among members of parliament regarding constitutional

amendments and draft laws, let alone requests of investigations and

apprehension. It is worth noting that not a single law has been passed or

amended with the total consent of all members of parliament, on the

other hand, all laws that have been passed managed to do through the

mechanical majority of the National Democratic Party (NDP), even if

the matter required violating what has been previously passed of laws.

From here, stems the correct naming of this assembly in its current

session,” the Assembly of Dissidents”.

Target Governorates:

Greater Cairo ( Cairo-Giza-Qalibyiah)

Dakliyah

Menya

Target Catagories:

The project aims at forming 3 popular committees from popular

leaderships with the rate of a committee inside each governorate among

the target governorates with 25 participants having the mission of

evaluating the performance of the Assembly and the extend of its

capability in expressing peoples’ desires and ambitions through

communication with a number of deputies in elected legislative

councils and opening a discussion forum with them in order to come up

with recommendations and means of joint collaboration to achieve

realized solutions.

Provided that the beginning shall be the selection of members for

popular committees among candidates (200 candidates) in each sector




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and conduct hearing sessions with them in order to choose the best

qualified among them for carrying out the targets of the project.

Training Program:

3 training programs have been carried out in each of the target

governorates with a total of 9 programs aiming at familiarizing

participants with the Egyptian political system, the role of the

parliament and its historical evolution, its activities, skills and criteria

for evaluating parliamentary performance.

Communal Committees:

Communal committees shall be composed of the target category in

each governorate ( 25 volunteer) from popular leaderships in addition

to members of the Egyptian Parliament. 5 joint sessions shall be held

with the rate of a session each month to discuss and evaluate the role of

the parliament in dealing with major national issues (education-health-

unemployment-housing-transportation-local issues-political

reform…..etc) provided that each session shall be preceded with a draft

working paper on behalf of project coordinators on the national visionof parliament in dealing with the suggested issue. The draft working

paper shall serve as a background for the specialized discussions on

local community issues. The sessions shall come up with solutions or

suggestions or recommendations identifying means of dealing with

problems and mechanisms of overcoming them.

The main aim for the study at hand is to evaluate the performance of

the Egyptian Parliament and the extend of its capability in expressing

peoples’ desires and ambitions through measuring the opinion of voters

in target governorates, namely, Cairo, Giza, Qalibyiah, Dakliyah and

Menya and that is through the evaluation of the parliamentary

performance of deputies in the above mentioned electoral districts, the

extend of representing the ambitions and needs for which they were

elected, their knowledge of the role of parliament and deputy

competencies stated in the Constitution and the Law and that is throughcarrying out a survey including a number of key questions.




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Introduction

The ideal mode of governance changes according to prevailing

conditions of time, place and people being governed. However, while

agreeing to the relativity of modes of governance, there is no doubt that

there are some modes that are closer to the ideal pursued by all and

some other modes are completely far from ideal. In an attempt to

demonstrate human trials in the field of governance, we find out that

humanity knew three major types of modes of governance as follows:

Firstly: Patriarchal Rule: it is a mode of governance which places

complete authority in the hands of one individual, to whom the peoplecompletely submit in all matters. It is considered to be a type of

suicide. Examples of this mode of governance are: The single party

system in most of the third world countries. It is sufficing to emphasize

that the single party system or the single political organization usually

leads to the formation of dictatorships and prevents revealing errors at

the right time.

Secondly: Rule of the Few (Aristocracy Rule): Governance lies withinthe hands of those who are qualified for it.

Thirdly: Democratic Rule: its slogan is: the government of the people

by the people and for the people. It is a mode of governance which

does not hand in authority to a single individual but to the people at

large. Democracy is based on two major building blocs which are:

Voters: who are citizens having the right to vote

Candidates: who are elected according to a number of preconditions in

addition to having proper education and proper age granting the ability

to practice legislative tasks as well as political awareness.

Electoral Democracy:

It is the most applied in our modern times. It is based on the fact that if

the people are the source of all authority, they should not practice suchauthorities directly, however, such authorities are to be practiced




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through the selection of deputies in the peoples’ name and for their best

interest. Electoral democracy has evolved through the trials of nations

and constitutional jurisprudence asserts that the building blocs of

electoral democracy are four as follows:

An elected Assembly: under our current Constitution promulgated in

1971 prior to its amendment in 1980. There was only one Assembly;

however, the Egyptian Parliament under the 1923 Constitution was

composed of two Assemblies namely: the Senate and the Congress.

Following the year 1980, its composition included two assemblies

namely, the Peoples’ Assembly and the Shura Council.

Does the Member of Parliament (MP) represent the whole nation

or its electoral district only? :

This issue has been a point of controversy and elicited many opinions

such as:

• The freedom of the Member of Parliament to express his own views

without being restricted to obligatory instructions given by voters.

• The member of parliament has only the public interest in his/hermind not only the best interest of his voters and thus has the right to

defend any issue that matters to the public interest even if it contradicts

with the narrow interests of his electoral district. For instance, the

approval of MPs representing Nubia on the construction of the High

Dam, was not considered a violation of parliamentary requirements, as

long as it achieves the best interest of the nation as a whole.

• Voters- in an ideal electoral democracy- may not dismiss their

deputy on the basis that he/she no longer represents their real hopes and

needs.

The right of Voters to dismiss their deputy:

This is common in the United States of America, where voters can

request the dismissal of their deputy before the end of his/her naturalterm, if a defined number of voters- ranging from four to five voters-




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filed this request and elections are to be repeated in the designated

electoral district and the dismissed deputy may participate in the

repeated round of elections and may defend himself/herself against

alleged accusations of misrepresentation. If the same deputy was re-

elected, his election expenses shall be borne by those who requested his

dismissal and thus a defined bail shall be deposited upon filing the

dismissal request.

The electoral scene is totally different in Egypt, despite the widely

spread phenomenon of deputies changing their party affiliation or

capacities by moving to the Government’s party after being elected.

This phenomenon was easily noticeable in the parliamentary electionsof 2005, when a large number of independent candidates became

members of the National Democratic Party (NDP) and thus the

government managed to control the parliament through this method.

The Age of Parliaments:

It became very apparent to the world that democratic transition requires

a strong parliament and that the role of parliaments in political life is onthe rise to the extent that some observers call our age,” the age of

parliaments”. Countries started revisiting the concept of a strong

parliament and its competencies. Furthermore, countries started

conducting periodic and transparent elections, allowing public opinion

to follow up parliamentary activities through various means such as

airing parliamentary sessions, the press and the freedom of reviewing

minutes of meeting, at the same time supporting MPs with required

legal and parliamentary knowledge to practice their tasks. The key

question is no longer: Do we need a parliament to achieve democracy?

But became: How can the parliament become strong enough to support

the achievement of democracy? .

Thus, the establishment of parliaments became a vital cornerstone in

democratic life and a mandatory stage in the process of democratic

transition. Furthermore, the development of parliamentary performancebecame the key to political reform.




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How Parliaments Came About?

The establishment of parliaments was not an invention, but came about

as a result of historical events which made it up and defined its form

and shape. The appearance of parliaments came on stages full of

several difficulties and challenges, where parliaments were able to fight

for its authorities under dictatorships and patrimonial modes of rule.

Some opinions go further to maintain that the main reason behind the

establishment of parliaments is the achievement of social stability in its

comprehensive sense.

Advantages and Disadvantages of a Parliamentary System:

Advantages:

The interaction between powers sometimes leads to enforcing

democracy and preventing dictatorships in addition to facilitating the

knowledge of the real responsible for errors in the light of politicalresponsibility.

Disadvantages:

May lead to governmental instability in some countries, also, in the

light of political and opposition trends, it becomes difficult for the

performance of the government to gain support and that may lead the

government to fall under the influence of pressure groups and thus

narrow political affiliations shall gain more importance in the political

scene.

Formation of Parliament:

Basically, a parliament is formed through election; however, it may

include certain appointment elements in order to complete itsefficiency.




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Parliament Mandate:

The parliament practices its normal mandate that is stated in a

parliamentary system. As for the Senate or the Shura Council, it merely

practices a consultancy mandate.

The peoples’ Assembly in Egypt:

It is the key legislative member in Egypt. The constitution stated its

mandate in a general sense in article 86 which states that,” the Peoples’

Assembly shall be responsible for legislature, deciding the general

policy of the state and the general social and economic plan, thegeneral budget for the state and practices the review process on the

tasks of the executive power, according to the constitution”.

Financial Mandate:

It is stated in articles 114 until 123 of the Constitution which state that:

Article 114:“The Peoples’ Assembly shall determine the general plan for economic

and social development. The law shall define the method of preparing

the plan and presenting it to the Peoples’ Assembly”

Article 115 (replaced according to the referendum of 26/3/2007):

“The draft general budget of the state must be represented to the

Peoples’ Assembly at least 3 months in advance before the start of the

financial year and it shall not be considered applicable unless it has

been approved by the Assembly. Each chapter of the draft budget shall

be subject to the members’ votes. The Assembly may amend expenses

stated in the draft budget except those expenses which are considered

as an execution of a definite obligation of the state. If the amendment

resulted in an increase in expenses, the Assembly must agree with the

government on finding sources of financing such amendment…………if the new budget has not been approved before the beginning of the




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financial year, the old budget shall be applicable for the period of 60

days, after which the President has the right to issue a new budget.

Political Mandate:

The government is responsible infront of the Assembly as follows:

• The right to question

• The right to suggest a public matter for discussion

• Expressing needs

• Investigation and tracking facts

The right to interrogate: It is one of the most important parliamentary

tools infornt of the government where one or ministers shall be held

responsible and thus it has been given great care when mentioned in the

Constitution.

Aims of the Study

The main aim of the study is to evaluate the performance of the

Egyptian Parliament and the extend of its capability in expressing

public needs and ambitions and in order to be able to define the above,

several questions must be answered which are:

• What is the end result of having a parliament?

• What is a parliament? And how and why was it established?

• What is the meaning of the word”Assembly or Council”?

• Why do people join an assembly or a council?

• Why do people elect a certain candidate? What is the nature of

the interests of voters?

• Was the parliament established for defending political, social

and economic interests or family interests or tribal interests or

national interests?

• How can confidence be increased in the parliament?




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The study tries to answer the above mentioned questions and aims at

evaluating the parliamentary performance in the first place through

recording and analyzing the extend of members’ practice for the roles

they were elected for according to the Constitution and executive

regulations of the Assembly and the extend of the contribution in

directing governmental policies or achieving a vital and efficient

review of these policies.

Nevertheless the process of recording in itself might not sufficient

enough for evaluating performance since the real performance of the

Assembly and its members, the extend of becoming closer to or further

from the ideal efficiency of performance is connected with the previousquality of the performance of the Assembly whether the legislative, the

political, or the supervisory performance. The key to proper evaluation

does not lie in the quantity but in the quality of performance.

It is worth noting that despite the long history of the electoral

experience in Egypt, yet the performance of the Assembly has not

gained any sufficient interest or creditability from public opinion and

that is due to the mixing up which occurs between public and privateopinions and the interest of most MPs in the private affairs of their

electoral districts at the expense of their public roles in supervision and

legislature.

Parliamentary Elections

Parliamentary elections of the Egyptian Peoples' Assembly were

conducted in November of 2005. Needless to mention that the

controversy regarding the political reform and its priority in the

national agenda was reflected in the results of the elections, let alone

the constitutional experience of amending article 76 of the Egyptian

Constitution which deals with the method of selecting the president.

It is worth mentioning that the Peoples' Assembly completed nearly 37

years of its life, where political conditions greatly changed since theappearance of the Assembly under a single party system ( 1971-1976)




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S e r i a l

P a r l i a m e n t

O

p p o s i t i o n

I n d e p e n d e n t

% o

f

o p p o s i t i o n

a n d

i n d e p e n d e n t

d e p u t i e s

%

o f N D P

d e p u t i e s

1 1976 36 3.1 48 7.13 24% 76%

2 1979 33 6.8 14 6.3 2.1% 8.87%

3 1984 65 2.14 - - 2.14% 9.84%

4 1987 95 4.21 8 8.1 2.23% 8.76%

5 1990 6 3.01 56 6.12 9.13% 1.86%

6 1995 12 7.2 31 9.6 6.9% 4.90%

7 2000 17 84.3 37 37.8 2.12% 8.87%

8 2005 12 3.1 1.9 311

Conclusion:

Given the previous demonstration of the surrounding conditions and

circumstances in which Egyptian elections -whether presidential or

parliamentary – were held, it is possible to come out with the following

observations:

1. Egyptian elections can be classified as classical elections, i.e.

election results are known in advance and there is no doubt that this

fact reflects the result of a group of conditions, which are persistent for

long decades out of the state of political polarization created by a single

political organization on the political scene. Furthermore, the ability to

change the state of political polarization became so difficult due to the

weakness of available competitors and lack of their political will.2. There is a state of obvious unconsciousness among Egyptians

regarding necessary reform; despite that Egyptians yearn for reform but

yet do not carry out what is required to achieve such reform. This is

obvious in the low rate of voters’ participation in elections, low

percentage of enrollment in political parties and organizations, weak

role of civil society organizations and associations and the weak role

played by the press and the media in raising political awareness.




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3. The debate on political reform necessitated some amendments

that are related to the electoral process- whether presidential or

parliamentary- and necessitated also the amendment of certain existing

laws such as the Law on the Peoples’ Assembly, the Elections Law and

the Law on Political Rights.

4. In the light of the pressures Egypt is subjected to – in some way

or another- from outside such as the US in order to induce democratic

reforms, it becomes necessary to respond positively to the new

conditions and variables witnessed in the world of today and work hard

on adopting a reform program that is genuine and that reflects a real

and honest desire in reform that interacts with the needs and aspirations

of the people.• Attached is the lecture given by Dr. Ahmed Fathy Sorrour, the

Head of the Peoples’ Assembly on the legislative structure and

means of its development to match development requirements in

Egypt – Cairo in February 15th

, 2001.

The Peoples’ Assembly (2005) : Between numbers and trends

The 2005 elections was a distinctive mark in the history of the Egyptianpolitical life following the amendment of article 76 of the Egyptian

Constitution, which made the process of selecting the president by

means of direct election through a secret ballot rather than by means of

a referendum to enable Egyptians for the first time in their modern

history to select their next president from among ten candidates.

In addition to the above, the 2005 elections being the first and last

experience of judicial supervision over the elections following the

issuance of the ruling of the Constitutional court dated 8/7/2000 of the

necessity of judicial supervision over subsidiary committees. As an

application of the ruling, the President issued a presidential decree

promulgating Law no. 167/2000 amending the Law on the exercise of

Political rights and Peoples’ Assembly Law to have judges supervise

subsidiary committees instead of the Ministry of Interior as it was the

case previously.




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The 2005 elections were distinctive in many ways since it marked the

participation of civil society organization in monitoring elections in

addition to the noticeable liberty enjoyed by political parties including

the Muslim Brotherhood in their election campaigns.

More importantly, the opposition managed to cross the 100 seats

boundary out of the total number of seats amounting to 432 seats. The

Muslim Brotherhood acquired 88 seats, while the National Democratic

(NDP) acquired 141 seats according to its official list of nominees

announced before 170 independent candidates joined the NDP prior to

the announcement. Thus, the number of MPs belonging to the NDP

becomes 311 MPs according to the head of the supreme electionscommittee. Such results may have been the reason for the increased

percentage of public interest in the performance of MPs and the extend

of their capability in expressing the real goals of political reform.

Such interest has later witnessed a decrease, which we tried to explain

its reasons through designing a questionnaire in order to measure the

opinions and trends of citizens towards the performance of deputies in

the parliament. The questionnaire was also designed to reach a publicanswer regarding several controversial issues of concern regarding the

relationship between MPs and the executive power. Recording

identification data of the voter has been taken into account while

designing the questionnaire such as the voter’s governorate, its

geographical nature, age group, level of education and occupation. The

second part of the questionnaire included a group of questions about

MPs in the voter’s district, the voter’s evaluation for MPs performance

in addition to the voter’s opinion about the role of MPs in the

parliament. The third part of the questionnaire included questions about

the opinion of the voter in several controversial matters of concern in

society such as the difference between services MPs and legislative

MPs, the nomination of ministers for the membership of the parliament,

the commercial transaction between the government and MPs and the

change of political affiliation among MPs following elections.

The total number of sample questionnaires amounted to 500questionnaires distributed as follows:




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Governorate Cairo Giza Qaubiya Dakhliya Menya Excluded Total

Number 112 58 132 57 118 23 500

Percentage 22.4% 11.6% 26.4% 11.4% 23.6% 4.6% 100 %

Analysis of Opinion Trends according to Sample Governorates

Firstly: Cairo “Sample”

Cairo represents the political and economic capital of the Egyptian state

in addition to being the largest in terms of population density due to the

centralization, which rendered the city as the headquarters for most of the ministries and governmental institutions. From the electora point of

view, the project has divided Cairo into 25 districts, where each district

is represented by two members; at least one of them is a worker or a

peasant. The number of candidates was 529 distributed as follows:

Candidates White Collar Workers Peasants Total

Number 294 227 8 529

Candidates Men Women

Number 508 21

Candidates Muslims Copts

Number 501 28

C a n d i d a t e s

a c c o r d i n g t o

p o l i t i c a l p a r t i e s

N D P

W a f d

N a s s e r i t e

K a r a m a

L a b o u r

T a g a m u

P o p u a r

C a m p a i g n

T a g m u W a t a n i

G h a d ( N o u r )

G h a d ( M o u s s a )

L i b e r a s

M u s l i m

B r o t h e r h o o d

I n d e p e n d a n t

T o t a l

Number 50 13 3 2 2 4 2 1 2 3 2 14 431 529

Cairo was among the governorates included in the first round of

elections, where the number of registered voters reached 2,786,066




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voters, among which 394,156 voters actually placed their vote. The

number of correct votes reached 373,670 votes while the number of

null votes reached 20,486 votes. The Basateen district scored the

highest percentage of voting where the number of voters reached

33,249 voters out of 139,034 registered voters, if compared with Al-

Sahl district where the number of voters reached 12,074 out of 140,865

registered voters. Final results revealed the winning of the NDP with 27

seats with a percentage of 54 % of its official list of nominees before 9

independent candidates joined the NDP so that the geographical

distribution of Cairo MPs becomes as follows:

Party NDP Wafd Tagmu Ghad Muslim Brotherhood IndependentNumber 36 1 1 1 9 2

The rate of change reached 48 % of the total Cairo membership as the

number of former MPs reached 26 MPs, while the number of new MPs

reached 24 MPs divided into 23 White collar MPs and 27 Workers

MPs.

Ser. District Members Affiliation

1. Al-Sahl Hazem M.F. Abd El Halek

Sayed A.R.Hassan

White Collar

Workers

2. Technical InstituteDr./Youssef R.Y.B.Ghali

Gharib S.I.Younis

White Collar

Workers

3. Road Al-FaragAbd El Rahman R. M.Sayed

Tarek M.S.A.Sebaq

White Collar

Workers

4. ShubraMohamed M.M.Goweily

Reda A.M.Wahdan

White Collar

Workers

5. Al-Zawya Al-HamraIhab A. S.Badawy

Tarek Salah

White Collar

Workers

6. Nasr CityMoustafa M.K.Sallab

Magdy M. S.Ashour

White Collar

Workers

7. Al-NozhaMahmoud M.A.Khalil

Abd El Fatah M. A.M.Mentawy

White Collar

Workers

8. Al-MatariahDr./Zakaryia H.M.Azmi

Moustafa M. M.Abd El Wehab

White Collar

Workers

9. Al-ZaitounMohamed Abd El Aziz Shabaan

Mohamed A.A.Hosni

White Collar

Workers




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10. Hadayek A-KobaDr. Shereen A. Foud

Abd El Hameed S.A.Shalaan

White Collar

Workers

11. Al-WailyDr./Hani M. F.M.Sorrour

Ibrahim S.A.A.Sayed

White Collar

Workers

12. Al Thaher Yehia M.W.AzabMohamed A.A.Ibrahim

White CollarWorkers

13. Bab Al-SheriayhMohamed I.Soliman

Mohamed H.Boghdady

White Collar

Workers

14. Al-GamaliyahAtef A.A.Youssef

Alaa Eldin A.Sayed

White Collar

Workers

15. Al-Darb Al-AhmarGamal H.G.Ali

Ragab H.B.Hemeida

White Collar

Workers

16. AbdeenMohamed A.Y.Nafaway

Badr Eldin S.Kady

White Collar

Workers

17. Boulak Abou El-EllaGamal H.G.Ali

Ragab H.B.Hemieda

White Collar

Workers

18. Kasr El-NilAbd El Aziz M.M.Moustafa

Hesham M.K.Kamel

White Collar

Workers

19. Al-Saida ZeinabAhmed F.M.Sorrour

Adel H.Moustafa

White Collar

Workers

20. Al-KhalifaAbd El Moneim A. M. Bekheet

Hassan T.I.Farahat

White Collar

Workers

21. Al-Manyal Fathy A.Abd El Hameed KhalilDr. Magdy Allam

White CollarWorkers

22. Old CairoAbu Bakr O.M.Abd El Al

Yousri M.M.Bayoumi

White Collar

Workers

23. Al-BasateenMohamed H.M.Morshedy

Hussein K.A.Megawer

White Collar

Workers

24. HelwanAl mouhmady M.A.Ghanam

Dr./Sayed A.M.Meshal

White Collar

Workers

25. Al-Tebeen

Mohamed M.B.Mohamed

Ali S.Fateh El Bab

White Collar

Workers




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Trend Analysis of the Cairo Sample

The sample represented about 22.4 % of the total target category

distributed according to the age group as follows:

Age Group Number %

Less than 30 28 25

Between 30-40 41 36.6

Between 40-50 20 17.8

Between 50-60 15 13.4

More than 60 8 7.2

As for the gender, the number of males reached 78 amounting to 69.6% while the number of females reached 34 amounting to 30.4 %. The

indicator was more oriented towards holders of university degrees and

that is due to the urban nature of the governorate. The samples was

distributed according to the educational level as follows:

Educational Level Number %

Literate 2 1.8Primary School 7 6.3

Average Qualification 34 30.3

University Degrees 51 45.5

Graduate Studies 18 16.1

The sample was distributed according to occupation as follows:

Occupation Number %Public sector 18 16.1

Private sector 19 17

Private business 19 17

Pensioner 9 8

Student 25 22.3

Unemployed 22 19.6

As for the awareness of citizens of the names of the deputies

representing their districts in the Peoples’ Assembly, it was very




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obvious that there is a wide gap between citizens and their deputies,

since only 13 individuals managed to identify their deputies as opposed

to 25 individuals who failed to do so.

Awareness of Deputy Number %

No answer 25 22.3

One Deputy 54 48.2

Two Deputies 13 11.7

Incorrect names 20 17.8

Lack of awareness was not only limited to deputies in the parliament

but also extended to their capacities as only 34.8 % of the sample

managed to identify the capacitates of their deputies in the parliament

while 65.2 % failed to do so.

As for evaluating the performance of MPs, 47 individuals amounting to

42 % saw that their deputies are doing a good job while 65 individuas

amounting to 58 % saw that their deputies are not performing well as

MPs, explaining a variety of reasons such as:

• Lack of services reaching voters (23%)• Limited services (19 %)

• Services are not in favor of the district (58%)

Regarding the role which an MP is supposed to undertake, the answers

were as follows:

• Building schools, universities and hospitals

• Combating corruption

• Defending the rights of citizens

• Eradicating unemployment

• Building new cities

• Helping the needy

• Solving society most difficult problems

• Solving the bread crisis

• Working on voicing the problems of the district to the Assembly




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As for the role which the Peoples’ Assembly is supposed to undertake,

the answers were as follows:

• Solving the bread crisis

• Solving the problems of citizens as they are key problems

• Working on democratizing the Assembly

• Dealing with society’s negatives

• Issuing laws in favor of the people

• Developing the skills of youth

• Putting an end to price increases

• Defending the rights of poor and weak citizens

• Paying attention to civil rights of citizens

• Encouraging the younger generation to participate in theparliament

• Protecting transparency and democracy

• Issuing laws and discussing the problems of the district

• Serving the nation and the legislative role of laws

As for the concept of “the Assembly is the sole source of its decisions”,

the opinion trends in the sample were as follows:

Stance Agree Disagree Neutral

Number 37 66 9

% 33 59 8

Those who agreed explained that the constitution emphasized the

concept of separation of powers and that is a guarantee in itself for the

non-interference in the internal affairs of the Assembly or influencingits decisions. However those who disagreed explained that the concept

is always used to defend the MPs of the ruling party in order to

maintain their membership in the parliament despite judicial verdicts of

the voidness of such memberships. Thus, the concept is regarded as a

means of factionalizing the opposition MPs.




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As for the issue of changing political affiliation following the elections,

opinions came as follows:

Stance Agree Disagree NeutralNumber 29 80 3

% 25.9 71.4 2.7

As for the issue of withdrawing confidence from MPs in case of not

performing their parliamentary roles in serving voters, opinions came

as follows:

Stance Agree Disagree Neutral

Number 95 15 2

% 84.8 13.4 1.8

!!assembly of dissidents!!

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