Egyptian Parliamentary Elections To Be Held In October Under New Election Law: Mursi

Egypt may hold parliamentary elections in October, not in April as planned earlier; state news agency MENA has reported President Mohamed Mursi as saying.

Mursi said the elections that will be held six months later than originally planned and the he expected the new parliament to convene before the end of the year, Reuters reported citing a MENA report.

"Perhaps the elections will be held in the coming October," MENA quoted him as saying. Mursi was addressing the Egyptian community in Doha, on the sidelines of the two-day Arabic summit.

President Mohamed Mursi's original plan was to hold a four-stage election that would start Apr. 22 and end on late June under a revised law. The new parliament would have convened in early July, according to the original plan.

However, his plans were rejected by an administrative court that overruled his decree of calling the election timetable. Mursi said it will take about four months to approve a new election law and to prepare for the elections.

The delay would drag the country’s political uncertainty by another six months, but will give breather to the government to negotiate a deal with International Monetary Fund for a $4.8 billion loan to ease the economic crisis.

It also gives Mursi time to convince the opposition parties which has planned to boycott the elections, to take part in the elections. The major opposition parties with secular credentials had said they would not participate in the election process as the new election law was drafted to benefit the Islamists, Reuters reported.

Egypt is in political turmoil since 2011, following the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, and the country has been without a lower house of parliament since the middle of last year, following a court order that leads to its dissolution on technical grounds.