Egypt Assembly hears 36 parties in session

The Constituent Assembly of Egypt (CA) will hold two sessions on Monday to hear political parties’ stance about the voting system, the transitional constitutional texts and their views about the first draft of the constitution. The assembly has already sent invitations to the party leaders, officials said. Nader Bakkar, a member of CA told Arabstoday: “Thirty six parties will participate in the first session.” Some of the participating parties are Freedom and Justice, al-Wafd, Liberal Egyptian Party, Egyptian Social Democratic Party, el-Adl Party (Justice Party), and el-Dostour Party. According to Bakkar, 32 parties will participate in the second session and a constitution awareness campaign is also set to be launched at a press conference on Monday. The campaign aims at raising citizens’ awareness before voting for the constitution next month. Assembly member Amr Abdel-Hadi said that the "Know your Constitution" campaign will have a budget of LE100,000 which make up the salaries of directors, organisers and workers. The budget is supplied by the Ministries of Youth, Information, culture, Radio and TV union and the State Information System (SIS). CA was found in March 26, 2012 and is the committee tasked to create a new constitution for Egypt.