On the basis of the definition used in this blog, Egypt now has a semi-presidential constitution. Following the 2007 constitutional amendment, Art. 76 states that “The President shall be elected by direct, public, secret ballot”, Art. 153 states that the government “shall consist of the Prime Minister, his deputies, the Ministers and their deputies”, while Art. 127 elaborates the way in which the People’s Assembly may pass a vote of no-confidence in the government that forces its collective resignation. Bear in mind that even autocracies have written constitutions. Therefore, identifying a country as semi-presidential does not imply that it must be a democracy or even a semi-democracy. Moreover, countries with semi-presidential constitutions can have strong, weak or balanced presidencies. Therefore, identifying a country as semi-presidential does not imply that the president has to be only moderately strong. Clearly, Egypt is not a functioning democracy and the president is very powerful. An article on the 2007 reforms is available here.

Anyhow, I report elections that take place in countries with semi-presidential constitutions. On 1 June elections were held to the Shura Council in Egypt. This body is, in effect, the upper chamber of the Egyptian legislature. As wikipedia notes, the Shura Council is composed of 264 members of which 176 members are directly elected and 88 are appointed by the president. This year 88 seats were up for election and 44 presidential appointments were due to be made.

I have no information about the electoral system. However, Jeune Afrique is reporting the following result:

National Democratic Party – 80 seats
National Progressive Unionist Party – 1 seat
Tomorrow Party – 1 seat
Arab Democratic Nasserist Party – 1 seat
Democratic Generation Party – 1 seat
Independents – 4 seats
Muslim Brotherhood – 0 seats

Overall, there is perhaps some evidence that there will be a slightly greater degree of pluralism in the Council than before. Obviously, though, the dominance of the ruling National Democratic Party has not, in effect, been altered.