CAIRO: Egypt’s Coptic and Catholic Churches have instructed clergy not to support any candidates or electoral lists during the upcoming parliamentary elections, Youm7 reported.
“The Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and the Catholic Church have frequently announced that they will not interfere with the electoral process or direct Coptic voters to vote for certain candidate, spokesman for Egyptian Catholic Church Rafiq Greiche was quoted by Youm7.
The Church also prevented holding of seminars in different churches in favor of certain candidate and it will “blame any priest proved to be involved in politics during the mass,” he added.
According to the parliamentary elections law no. 46 for the year 2014, each list of the party-based candidates must include three Copts with a total of 24 seats for Copts in the 2015 parliament. The quota represents 20 percent of the 120 seats to be elected through the winner-take-all party list system.
Egypt’s parliament will comprise of 596 members, with 448 to be elected as independents, 120 through the winner-take-all party lists system, with 28 seats to be appointed by the president.
In the first phase of the elections scheduled to kick off Sunday, 286 seats are available, the High Elections Committee (HEC) spokesperson Omar Marwan announced in a press conference earlier this month. He pointed out that 2,573 independent candidates, including 112 women, will be competing for 226 seats while six party lists will be competing for 60 seats.
However, the number of independent Coptic candidates remains unknown. Copts represent about 15 percent of Egypt’s population of 90 million.
A total of seven Copts were elected in the 2012 Muslim Brotherhood-dominated parliament.