Eighth Newsletter - Your Bulletin (8/12/2020) has monitored the interaction of several hashtags with the Egyptian Senate elections, which began yesterday and continue today. Egyptian media focused their coverage on what they said was a wide participation of voters, while social media platforms were topped for the idea of elections in Egypt.
After constitutional amendments in Egypt last year, it was decided to establish the Senate to be a substitute for the Shura Council, which was previously abolished.
The Senate consists of 300 members, 100 of whom are appointed by the President of the Republic, while 100 are running for the closed absolute list system, and the third 100 under the individual seat system.
Interestingly, Sisi secured two-thirds of the assembly before the vote. In addition to the 100 he appoints, only one list advanced to compete for the next 100, and that is the list of the pro-Sisi National Future party, in association with other parties.
Egyptian politician Ayman Nour said, "He will write history in front of Sisi’s name, that he did not hold a single rigged election in order to participate in it or to reserve it. I testify before God and history that what happened yesterday in the Senate elections was nothing but a new chapter of the irony that Egypt is going through."
Writer Dalia Ziada said, "During the Corona pandemic, all candidates, old and young, for the Egyptian Senate elections have relied heavily on social media platforms to promote their election propaganda and attack their opponents in the elections."
And Ahmed Yahya wrote, "Was it the first with the expenditures estimated at millions of dollars ... the Senate or spending them on the dilapidated health sector in light of the current crisis ... and we are not poor, or rich, or hours."
As for Hamada Al-Zanati, he wrote, “Dancing is forbidden all year long except on election days, as it is a symbol of patriotism and love of goodness to the world and not only to Egypt. Rather, he considers these days to be close to God. The sheikhs or the parliament is not the dance of the slaughtered, but the dance of the rewarded. "