Egypt's President Sisi ratifies new election law

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al Sisi has reportedly given formal consent to amendments in an election law regulating electoral constituencies, making way for the setting of a date for the much-delayed parliamentary poll.

The changes will allocate 448 seats to individual candidates and 120 seats to winner-takes-all lists, with quotas for youth, women, Christians and workers, as opposed to 420 seats for individuals and 120 for lists in the previous law, reported Xinhua.

The amended law will also cut down the number of constituencies from which individual candidates can be elected from 237 to 205, while maintaining four constituencies for the party lists.

The approval comes after Sisi ratified three other draft election laws earlier this week.

Egypt has been without a parliament since June 2012, when a court dissolved the lower chamber after ruling that it was not constitutionally elected.