Egypt’s Parliamentary Elections: A Political Banquet Served by the Seats of Power

Egypt’s upcoming parliamentary elections, encompassing both the House of Representatives and the Senate, have morphed into what critics describe as a political banquet, one devoured by the powerful and well-connected, with ordinary citizens left entirely outside the room.

Following the scandal-ridden Senate elections, widely accused of being "cooked" in advance, fresh concerns are emerging over the engineering of November’s House of Representatives vote. 

Behind closed doors, a quiet coordination is reportedly underway between pro-government parties and token opposition groups, aimed at pre-allocating seats well before a single ballot is cast.

Several prospective candidates have revealed that running for parliament has become an exorbitantly priced transaction, with the cost of securing a single seat estimated at between 30 and 70 million Egyptian pounds. 

With the dollar currently trading at 47.58 pounds, these sums reflect not a commitment to public service, but a bid for power, influence, and immunity.

The elections, rushed into place for November 10, 11, 2025, with candidacy opening on October 8, are being met with broad public indifference, mirroring the Senate vote held this past August. 

For millions of Egyptians grappling with daily economic hardship, elections have become a sideshow, often noticed only when polling stations are decorated and pre-selected candidates begin staging hollow campaigns powered by money.

The last parliamentary elections, held in October and November 2020, produced a chamber dominated by the regime-aligned Nation’s Future Party, which claimed 316 out of 596 seats. The remainder went to other loyalist parties.

The 2025 vote will mark the third parliamentary election since the head of the regime Abdel Fattah el-Sisi seized power in a 2013 military coup. Like its predecessors, this contest is already marred by reports of vote-buying, widespread manipulation, and political exclusion, far removed from the only free and fair parliamentary elections in Egypt’s modern history, held in 2011, 2012, in which the Muslim Brotherhood secured a commanding victory.

Pre-Allocated Seats

Egypt’s new electoral law has, in effect, quietly carved up the seats of the 2025 parliament among pro-regime and loyalist parties, leaving little room for genuine political competition.

The question now is not how many seats the ruling coalition, known as the “National List for Egypt,” will win, it is how those seats will be divided among them.

As with the Senate elections earlier this year, the aim of the “National List” alliance, a bloc of regime-aligned parties, is to preserve its grip on parliament through closed electoral lists, a method that ensures continued dominance while projecting an illusion of pluralism.

Only a fraction of seats, contested through individual candidacy, remain open to token competition. These races are largely the domain of nominally independent actors or non-aligned parties, such as the Salafi Nour Party or unaffiliated individuals, but their influence is marginal, given the strength of the regime’s political machinery.

To fine-tune the seat distribution, parties involved in the National List held an extended meeting at the coalition’s headquarters on October 5, 2025, according to the pro-government website Parlmany. The purpose, insiders say, was to coordinate positions and finalize allocations ahead of the vote.

A source from one of the participating loyalist parties told Al-Estiklal that negotiations remain ongoing, with no final decisions yet reached. The source, who requested anonymity, revealed growing tensions among the allied parties, as each jostles for a larger share of the pie, delays that have stalled the final makeup of the list.

He also anticipated “changes” to the expected lineup, hinting that some high-profile MPs from the past decade could be excluded. Internal disputes have reportedly erupted within smaller, parties over nominations, particularly in the leftist Tagammu Party.

An investigative report by Mada Masr, published on September 23, 2025, confirmed that internal rivalries are plaguing both loyalist and nominal opposition parties alike, driven by fierce competition over parliamentary seats.

This contrasts with the Senate elections, which were described by observers as tightly engineered to fit the loyalist mold, offering only token representation to the opposition through closed lists, and excluding them entirely from individual races.

On October 5, the National List’s headquarters saw a flurry of activity, as key figures from pro-regime and security-aligned parties, including Nation’s Future, Homeland’s Protectors, and the National Front, gathered to cement their electoral alliance.

The National List coalition currently comprises 12 political parties, along with the Youth Coordination of Parties and Politicians, a group also widely seen as aligned with the government.

Since the military takeover in 2013, Egypt’s security and intelligence agencies have tightened their grip on political life. This control extends beyond vetting candidates and hand-picking party leaders, to actively embedding former military and security officials into the political arena, either by establishing new parties or taking senior positions in existing ones.

These parties, formed or backed by state institutions, now dominate the political scene and are expected to retain control of the next parliament.

In a surprising twist, Mohamed Anwar el-Sadat, head of the Reform and Development Party, and long regarded as a voice of the "loyal opposition", appeared on Saudi-owned MBC's Al-Hekaya program on October 4, where he openly discussed the seat-sharing arrangements.

He revealed that the ruling coalition had agreed to leave “no fewer than 40 seats” out of the 596 in the House of Representatives to the opposition and independents. The revelation prompted incredulous laughter from host Amr Adib, who asked, “You’re telling me the ruling parties, Nation’s Future, Homeland’s Protectors, and the rest, will leave 40 districts open for the opposition in individual races?”

El-Sadat defended his party’s decision to join the National List, citing the lack of financial resources, limited political cadres, and the absence of a mixed electoral system that combines proportional representation with individual candidacy.

El-Sadat also implicitly revealed, during his appearance on the channel, how Egypt’s parliamentary elections are effectively "cooked" in advance, both through closed, winner-takes-all lists and the allocation of individual seats, in a way that guarantees victory for regime-aligned parties, while reserving a handful of seats for their loyal allies.

He stated that there is a prior agreement whereby the dominant parties will leave a portion of seats, possibly up to 40 percent of the individual races, for so-called opposition parties. Both sides, he said, would appear together on a single electoral list.

He justified the arrangement by saying, “There needs to be another voice in parliament,” a remark that underscores the broader reality that both the loyalist and opposition parties orbit within the regime’s sphere of influence. 

The entire process, then, amounts to a pre-arranged distribution of seats, rendering the elections little more than a formality.

The outgoing parliament, dominated by a pro-government majority, successfully passed all the legislation it set out to approve, despite objections raised by opposition-aligned MPs. 

Among the most controversial laws were those on criminal procedures and the long-disputed old rent law.

In what observers have described as part of the ongoing “parliamentary chair game,” 14 senators submitted their resignations from the Senate just one month after being elected on September 4, 2025. 

The resignations came as the members prepared to run for the House of Representatives on guaranteed tickets offered by the regime’s security-backed parties.

The Senate accepted their resignations during a session held on October 2, 2025, citing the members' “wish to contest seats in the upcoming House elections scheduled for November 2025.”

Meanwhile, the Civil Democratic Movement, a coalition of Nasserist and leftist currents, announced on September 6, 2025, that it would coordinate candidates from the opposition across electoral districts. This would include members of its own affiliated parties, allies, and independents.

The movement set clear conditions for its support, requiring that all candidates adhere to its political principles. These include refusing to coordinate with pro-regime parties, rejecting economic policies seen as harmful to the country and its citizens, and maintaining a principled stance on the Palestinian cause.

It also stipulated that any candidate seeking coordination must oppose constitutional amendments that would undermine the peaceful transfer of power as outlined in the current constitution, or that would further restrict Egypt’s already narrow democratic space.

Militarization and Politicization

Regime-aligned newspapers have attempted to suggest that this year’s parliamentary elections might mark a shift in Egypt’s political landscape. In reality, sources say, over 90 percent of seats are expected to remain in the hands of military-backed and loyalist parties.

Party sources familiar with behind-the-scenes electoral negotiations from both camps told Manassa that the upcoming House elections may allow for a limited return of opposition figures via individual candidacies, mirroring the 2015 parliament.

This would mark a departure from the 2020 elections, in which pro-government candidates swept nearly all seats, both on closed party lists and in individual contests.

The 2015 parliament saw the rise of opposition figures grouped under the "30/25 bloc", which included around 30 MPs. Among the most prominent were Khaled Youssef, Ahmed Tantawy, Haitham ElHariri, Diaa El-Din Dawood, Ahmed el-Sharkawy, Khaled Abdel Aziz Shaaban, Mohamed Abdel Ghani, and Abdel-Hamid Kamal.

That bloc, however, was effectively excluded from the 2020 elections, with only Dawood and el-Sharkawy managing to secure seats after the coalition fell out with MP Ahmed Tantawy, who was later imprisoned for expressing his opposition to head of the regime el-Sisi and announcing plans to run against him in future elections.

According to Manassa, party sources say the security services, who are widely believed to manage the electoral process, are leaning toward a repeat of the 2015 model, featuring a dominant ruling party, forming a parliamentary coalition similar to the “Support Egypt” alliance, which brought together loyalist parties and independents.

This would open limited space for opposition representation, effectively ending the outright majority held by the ruling Nation’s Future Party, which secured 52 percent of seats in the 2020 parliament.

Even so, a political science professor told Al-Estiklal, speaking on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation, that such changes would not alter the true nature of the elections. 

He described the process as a "banquet" in which loyalist parties divide seats among themselves, offering token representation to once-historic but now weakened parties like the liberal Wafd and leftist Tagammu.

He also said the phenomenon of selling parliamentary seats to millionaires seeking political clout has only worsened, with prices reaching up to 70 million Egyptian pounds per seat. 

Vote-buying, too, remains rampant, with low-income Egyptians being enticed with cash handouts of 200 to 300 pounds, or vouchers for basic goods, tactics that have been documented in every election since 2014.

In a rare and striking twist, allegations of seat-buying emerged not from critics or whistleblowers, but from within the regime-aligned Homeland’s Protectors Party itself, a party co-founded by former military officers that is typically silent about internal disputes.

Party member Hanan Sharshar posted a video to her social media account, later deleted following a major internal backlash and mass resignations, in which she accused the party of demanding 25 million Egyptian pounds, roughly half a million U.S. dollars, for a parliamentary seat.

Sharshar said the party’s secretary-general in Giza, Nafaa Abdelhady, informed her that 25 million pounds was the fee required for her to appear on the National List under the party's banner. 

She added that seat prices typically range between 25 and 50 million pounds, and claimed the party offered her a reduced rate due to her being an existing member.

The problem is no longer confined to pro-government parties. Even those officially labeled as opposition have become entangled in political horse-trading, striking deals with regime-aligned blocs to secure parliamentary seats. Among them are the Reform and Development Party, and the Egyptian Social Democratic Party.

Hossam Gobran, a member of the Reform and Development Party, told Manassa that “buying parliamentary seats is a real issue,” revealing that when he offered to run and contribute what he could to the party, the chief of staff of the party leader told him, “The going rate for a seat has reached 40 to 50 million Egyptian pounds.”

Ahead of the Senate elections in September 2025, an investigation by the independent platform Third Angle, published on July 14, 2025, exposed negotiations between businessmen and power brokers seeking access to parliament through the regime-backed National List for Egypt.

The report stated that those wishing to run on the "security list" must pay 70 million pounds for a House seat, 30 million for a Senate seat, and 50 million for appointments made by head of the regime Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

While political money has long tainted Egyptian elections, the report noted that since 2015, a new form of electoral commerce has emerged, candidates making up-front payments to the ruling party or its coalition partners in exchange for being placed on a closed electoral list that is all but guaranteed to win.

These lists typically include all regime-loyal parties and a handful of familiar opposition figures, handpicked to lend legitimacy to the process.

Journalist Jamal Sultan also reported that candidates have paid between 30 and 50 million pounds to buy their way onto party lists, effectively purchasing a seat in parliament.

TV host Tawfiq Okasha, writing on his X account, claimed the Senate elections cost around 1.5 billion pounds in total, calling the entire process a "distorted play."

Since the 2013 military coup, political parties created to support the new regime, and sideline or dissolve older political entities, have been shaped by former army and intelligence officials. As a result, observers argue that Egypt’s parliament has been fully militarized.

In the 2020 elections, which produced the current House of Representatives, 71 of the 596 total members, 568 elected and 28 appointed, were former military or police officers, according to Al Jazeera, in a report dated July 7, 2020. That’s roughly 12 percent of the legislature.

In 2015, the figure was even higher. Former army and police officials secured 75 seats, around 13 percent of the total, across various regime-aligned parties.

The largest bloc of these was found within the Nation’s Future Party, which won 316 seats. According to Third Angle on October 4, 2025, the party is believed to have included between 50 and 55 former officers.

Another 23 military and security-affiliated MPs came from the Homeland’s Protectors Party, according to the Washington-based Middle East Democracy Center, in a report published June 12, 2017.

Despite this entrenched military dominance in political life, the ruling parties passed legal amendments on May 21, 2025, that further tightened their grip over the electoral process.

The changes reduced the number of electoral districts to just four, while maintaining the mixed system of closed party lists and individual races used in the 2015 and 2020 elections.

Under the new structure, two districts were allocated 40 seats each, and two others were assigned 102 seats, totaling 284 seats elected through closed lists.

Similar amendments were made to the Senate’s electoral law, redistributing its 100 list-based seats across four districts as well, two with 13 seats each, and two with 37 seats each.

Egypt’s opposition Civil Democratic Movement condemned the changes, calling them a "democratic setback" and an "elimination of genuine political pluralism." In a statement, the movement described the amendments as an attempt to "nationalize political life."

It warned that the real aim was to create "ornamental, clientelist legislative institutions with minimal public participation and complete exclusion of citizen will."

The group said the system had led to "a lack of accountability and the spread of corruption," weakening the state's ability to confront external threats. It argued that the ruling regime's trajectory reflects a clear intent to "monopolize political life" and "suspend the people’s will."