Mahmoud Siddiq - Cairo

Many may not know that the shortest parliament in the history of the world was Egyptian, not more than nine hours long, on 23 March 1925, when King Fuad dissolved parliament after the surprise victory of the historic leader Saad Zaghloul, despite all the measures taken to prevent victory. Wafd Party with the parliamentary majority.

The story of the shortest parliament in history began under the 1923 constitution, which came as a result of the 1919 revolution. The first parliament came as Saad Zaghloul as the first Egyptian prime minister to be based on a parliamentary majority. He soon resigned in protest against his British warning following the death of Sir Lee Stack, The English Sardar in Sudan, and the issuance of the British High Commissioner at the time instructions to the soldiers occupying Alexandria Customs.

On the basis of the resignation, the parliament was dissolved on 22 December 1924 before the year was completed and delegates were invited to hold new elections.

Enemy of the People
The government loyal to the king, headed by Ahmed Zayor Pasha, exercised all measures to prevent the Wafd party from winning the majority again. It established a new party called "Al Ittihad" headed by Hassan Nashaat Pasha, the Royal Court's Undersecretary and the greatest enemy of Saad Zaghloul, to guarantee his full allegiance to the King. Called enemy of the people - minister of interior.

The electoral law was abolished by a single degree approved by the dissolved parliament, and the borders of nearly half of the constituencies were amended. Sadki Pasha issued a decision to make the vote with the pencil, which the redeemed saw as a deliberate intention of forgery and insisted on voting by irrefutable ink.

The Minister of Interior launched his men to suppress and chase down the candidates of the delegation, impose a siege on Zaghloul's house, and send all the governors a threat, threatening them with the bad consequences of any governor who succeeds in his constituency.

Ziyor Pasha announced the victory of the coalition government consisting of the Union Party and the Liberal Liberals, the National Party by a majority of parliament, and held the first meeting of the Council in the 11 and five minutes on the afternoon of 23 March 1925.

A lightning surprise
Al-Qasr pushed Abdul Khaleq Tharwat Pasha to run for the post of president of the council. He was confident that he would beat his rival Saad Zaghloul according to the results he believed represented a majority of his coalition supported by the king and the British, but he was surprised by Zaghloul's 123 votes out of 214 to 85 votes for Roth.

The surprise did not stop when Zaghloul won the presidency, but extended to include the sweep of the delegation's candidates in the elections of the members of the bureau of the Council, fell to the king, rejecting the resignation of the government of Zyor Pasha, and before proposing the dissolution of the Council, which did not complete nine hours.

Zahir Zayor
"I have the honor to inform you that the ministry has submitted its resignation to His Majesty the King, refused to accept it and decided to dissolve the council," Zeyor said.

The decision was followed by student and elite demonstrations led by Saad Zaghloul denouncing the negative decision of the will of the nation, which elected its parliament with will and freedom.

The parliamentarians decided to hold a meeting of the Senate and the deputies - according to the opposition in the parliament of Abdul Wahid Prophet - an emergency meeting, but the government occupied the parliament a military occupation, the deputies decided to hold one of the major hotels near the field of Ataba, and succeeded in this spirit to restore unity between the delegation and opponents of dissident parties , And encouraged some of the palace princes, such as Prince Omar Toson and Kamal Hussein, to demand the return of constitutional life.

Dissolution of other parliaments
It is noteworthy that parliamentary life in Egypt has seen since the July Revolution ten cases resolved parliaments, the parliament dissolved in 1958 after the declaration of unity between Egypt and Syria, and was dissolved again in 1961 after the separation between the two countries.

In the opinion of parliamentary expert Khalil Mari that the Authority has always resorted to the solution of parliaments elected whenever it came to its hasty, when President Anwar Sadat rejected the majority of the members of parliament for his path of reconciliation with Israel and their rejection of the Camp David agreement dissolved the Council, which was elected in 1976, Opponents in their constituencies even managed to get the approval of the House of Representatives by 329 votes, and only 16 deputies objected.

The former president Hosni Mubarak also resorted to dissolving the parliament three times in 1984, 1987 and 1990 after the opposition won a large percentage of it, especially the 1987 Council, in which the alliance of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Labor Party and the Liberal Party won nearly a third of the Council. Indirectly by a Constitutional Court ruling in 1990.

A coincidence or a conspiracy
It is curious that the ruling of the Constitutional Court in 1990 contradicts the decision of the People's Assembly and its counterpart to dissolve the parliament of the January Revolution, in which the Islamic movement won by a majority majority in 2012.

Mari asked: Is the similarity of the solutions in the two parliaments a mere coincidence or was deliberate - from the beginning - to reach a parliament is sentenced to resolve in advance to use it for necessity.