Muslim Brotherhood Member Elected as Speaker of Egypt’s Upper House
Egypt’s upper house of parliament has chosen an Islamist as its speaker, consolidating the powerful political wing Muslim Brotherhood’s control of the country’s legislature.
Ahmed Fahmi, a pharmacology professor and a member of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), was elected during the Shura Council’s inaugural session.
The vote for Fahmy followed the election of the party’s Mohammed Saad el-Katatny last month to lead the much more powerful lower house, The Washington Post reports.
The Muslim Brotherhood is Egypt’s oldest Islamist organization, and since President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster last year, has become the nation’s most influential political force.
Its Freedom and Justice Party emerged from recently concluded elections with just under half of the 508 seats in the lower house and almost 60 percent of the 180 seats in the upper house.
Egypt’s ruling generals are supposed to appoint an additional 90 lawmakers to the lower house, but are expected to leave that job to the nation’s first elected president, who will be chosen before the end of June.
Meanwhile, the two parliament houses are expected to hold a joint meeting on Saturday to begin the selection of a 100-member constituent assembly, the most important undertaking of the new parliament.
The assembly will be tasked with writing a new constitution ahead of the presidential election.