The Egyptian parliament approved, on Sunday, the amendments proposed by the pro-government Support Egypt Coalition of the law of political rights’ practice no. 45 of year 2014.

The amendments include maintaining the old system of parliamentary elections, which gives 50 per cent of the elected seats to individual candidates and 50 per cent to the closed absolute lists. The opposition has demanded the conversion to the relative lists.

The closed absolute lists system gives the authorities the advantage of excluding the opposition lists completely even when these lists manage to obtain high votes, as the system gives all seats to only one list that gets the majority.

Ahmed al-Tantawy, the prominent dissident MP and member of the 25-30 parliamentary bloc, said in an official statement that the pro-government bloc has made use of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis to pass the amendment without giving the other proposed amendments the chance of being discussed, or giving time for conducting a social dialogue about the changes.