The arrest of lawyer Tariq Jamil Saeed confirmed the rifts and fissures in the pro-Sisi front and his intelligence services since the national list that will run in the House of Representatives elections. The lawyer close to the intelligence services, Tariq Jamil, one of al-Sisi’s most prominent supporters, was arrested and detained for 15 days pending investigations, after his appearance before the Supreme State Security Prosecution. Tariq Jamil was transferred to Tora Prison after charges were brought against him for disturbing public peace, spreading rumours, lies, and misusing social media. Tariq published a video clip through his social media accounts before deleting it later. He attacked the National Future Party of the Security and Intelligence and exposed selecting candidates for the elections through the national list.

Activists reacted to the news of the arrest of the well-known lawyer. Their comments were not without irony and ridicule about the situation of freedom in Egypt under a regime that did not spare even the closest people from its oppression. The pioneers of social networking sites also mocked the new video clip broadcast by Tariq Jameel before his arrest. He tried to remedy the situation by attacking the Muslim Brotherhood and opponents of the regime.

Tariq Jamil described opponents of the regime outside Egypt as being financiers, cursing them, claiming that he opposes from inside Egypt, which prompted many tweeters to ridicule his sentence after his arrest, explaining that everyone who opposes from the inside will be imprisoned. Tariq is the son of Counselor Jamil Saeed, the famous lawyer who defended many icons of the ousted President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.

Counselor Saeed’s law firm handles many cases involving prominent officials in the current Egyptian system. Lawyer Tariq Jamil did not have any political presence, except that he worked as a legal advisor for some of the media owned by the intelligence. He recently entered into a propaganda clash with the Zamalek club President, Mortada Mansour, who is supported by the intelligence. It was also reported that his father tried to mediate with him recently to appoint him to the senate, the elections of which ended weeks ago.

The arrest of Tariq Jamil after exposing the intelligence administration of the electoral scene shows the extent of the conflict within the sovereign apparatus and the extent of anger and splits within the system over the national list. In his video clip, Tariq described the youth and women quota as a pure lie and revealed that parliamentary seats are given to those who pay the most. He pointed to the vast sums that the candidates pay to representatives of the security services supervising electoral lists’ formation to win their endorsement, which in some cases reached EGP 35 million pounds ($2.2 million). He warned of those in charge of the nomination and endorsement process of the deputies that they would leave as those who preceded them left, and if they did not respect themselves, the people would hit them with shoes. He also asked about the extent of al-Sisi’s knowledge of gifting parliamentary seats to those who pay more.

Tariq considered that the parliamentary elections are a deception and a cartoon, and called on citizens not to allow any official, regardless of his position, to leave them or threaten to leave his post. Although the prominent lawyer seemed to realise the seriousness of what he would be exposed to because of his video clip, he took the initiative to delete it. He published another clip attacking opponents outside Egypt, but it was too late. Tariq Jamil is not the first to dissent from the regime because of the national list and the parliament’s nominations. Party officials supporting al-Sisi appeared to protest their shares of the list seats.

Among the most prominent cases of cracks within the system is the article written by the former military spokesman Muhammad Samir entitled, “Do not assassinate hope,” in a news site before the site deleted it. Samir opposed running the Nation’s Future Party for the elections and choosing the candidates of security and intelligence agencies on the only national list that is not contested by other lists. Brigadier General Mohamed Samir’s article caused one of the lawyers affiliated to the regime to submit a complaint against him to the Public Prosecutor, demanding that he be tried on charges of destabilising and stirring up public opinion.