Egypt election thrown into limbo as parliament dissolvedBy DALLIA MONIEM in Cairo | Thursday, June 14  2012 at  17:56

Egypt's Constitutional Court Thursday rendered parliament dissolved after ruling that a third of its members made it to the House illegally.

Speaking on the country’s state television, the High Constitutional Court (HCC) Vice-President, Mr Maher Samy, said the recently constituted parliament would be dissolved as a result of the judgement.

The court's ruling stated that one third of the House members' election was null and void “as the elections law allowed political party candidates to contest seats reserved for individual, non-partisan candidates, thus violating the constitutional principle of equal opportunity”.

According to Mr Samy, the ruling meant that both the Peoples Assembly (Lower House) and Shura Council (Upper House) were null and void.

HCC also ruled that the Political Disenfranchisement Law was unconstitutional, meaning that Mr Ahmed Shafiq was free to contest the presidential runoff.

Mr Shafiq would have been banned from running if the law had been implemented as he had served as prime minister during the last days of former President Hosni Mubarak's rule.

The army

The court's ruling also casts doubts on the continuation of the Constituent Assembly as “the law issued on Monday to immune the constitution-drafting body has not yet been signed by Parliament”.

As such, the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces will in effect take over as the “legislative authority” of Egypt until the parliamentary elections are repeated, a law expert told the media.

Analysts and observers seem to agree that the latest events took Egypt back to Square One.

The military was back in power, the Muslim Brotherhood gambled, miscalculated and lost and many feel it was time to go back to Tahrir and take back the revolution that had seemingly been hijacked by the army.

The question that remains is: Will the presidential round runoff still take place over this weekend, when there was no parliament in place?