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1923–24 Egyptian parliamentary election
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Kingdom of Egypt Parliamentary 1913 Egyptian parliamentary election 1913 1925 Egyptian parliamentary election 1925 27 September 1923 (first stage)12 January 1924 (second stage) 130x130px ModernEgypt, Saad Zaghloul, BAP 14785.jpg Saad Zaghloul Wafd Party 179 49.41% YakanPasha.jpg Adly Yakan Pasha 20 Liberal Constitutional Party (Egypt) 24.72% 3x4.svg Muhammad Hafiz Ramadan Pasha National Party (Egypt) 7 7.56% Prime Minister Subsequent Prime Minister Yahya Ibrahim Pasha Saad Zaghloul Independent politician Wafd Party
Parliamentary elections were held in two stages in Egypt in 1923 and 1924, the first since nominal independence from the United Kingdom in 1922. The result was a victory for the Wafd Party, which won 179 of the 211 seats.M.F. Khatib (1954) "The working of parliamentary institutions in Egypt, 1924-1952", Appendix II Table II
Background
The British government unilaterally recognised Egypt's independence on 28 February 1922. The Kingdom of Egypt was established two weeks later. On 21 April 1923 a new liberal constitution was promulgated. A royal decree was published on 6 September, which ordered the holding of the first elections under the new constitution. Nationalist leader Saad Zaghloul, who had been exiled to Aden, Seychelles and Gibraltar, returned to Egypt on 1 September to take part in the campaign.Toynbee Arnold Joseph Arnold J. Toynbee The Islamic World Since the Peace Settlement https://books.google.com/books?id=S0UOAQAAIAAJ&q=Zaghlul+September snippet view 2010-07-22 Survey of International Affairs, Vol. 1 1927 Oxford University Press London 21169232 205 Zaghloul and his partisans ran a campaign that exposed the problems of the newly established constitutional order. He was especially critical of the electoral laws, which he viewed as incompatible with democracy since they made eligibility of candidacy conditional on income. The Students Executive Committee of Zaghloul's Wafd Party played a crucial role in the campaign.Maghraoui Abdeslam Liberalism Without Democracy: Nationhood and Citizenship in Egypt, 1922–1936 https://books.google.com/books?id=ad2T-QGuJAMC&pg=PA131 2010-07-23 Politics, History, and Culture 2006 Duke University Press Durham, NC 978-0-8223-3838-3 469693850 131
thumb|400x400px|Political cartoon in Cairo Punch supporting Sa'ad Zaghloul and Safiya Zaghloul during the 1923 elections. In the background from left to right are the Egyptian politicians ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz Jāwīsh, Makram Ebied, Mustafa Kamil and Muhammad Farid.
Electoral system
The election was held over two stages. In the first stage on 27 September 1923, 38,000 delegates were elected by the general population, where each delegate represented 30 votes. These were announced on 3 October. In the second stage on 12 January 1924 the delegates elected members of the new parliament.Democracy is born http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/483/chrncls.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20140904030548/http://weekly.ahram.org.eg:80/2000/483/chrncls.htm 2014-09-04 2025-02-25 Ahram Online For the Senate, two-fifths of the seats were appointed by the King, while the remainder were elected.
Results
Zaghloul's Wafd Party, which had run for all Chamber of Deputies seats, won a landslide victory, winning 179 of the 211 seats. However, it fared less well in the Senate because it was harder to find qualified candidates to run for its constituencies.Goldschmidt Arthur Johnston, Robert Historical Dictionary of Egypt 3rd 2004 American University in Cairo Press 978-977-424-875-7 58833952 412 It won 66 Senate seats.1924-02-25 Nationalists Win in Egypt The New York Times 7 https://www.nytimes.com/1924/02/25/archives/nationalists-win-in-egypt-zaghlulists-are-elected-to-66-senate.html fee required 2010-07-22 Wafdist voters included the medium and small landowners, urban professionals, merchants and industrialists, shopkeepers, workers and peasants.
Members of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority received 10% of the seats.Schrand Irmgard Jews in Egypt: Communists and Citizens https://books.google.com/books?id=o0wMAAAAYAAJ&q=Copts+1924 snippet view 2010-07-22 Studien zur Zeitgeschichte des Nahen Ostens und Nordafrikas, Vol. 10 2004 Lit Münster 978-3-8258-7516-9 56657957 36 This was higher than the Copts' share of Egypt's population, which stood at six percent according to the 1917 census. The social origin of the Copts who had been elected was very similar to that of the Muslims: mostly wealthy landowners, but also a small number of middle-class professionals, mostly lawyers as well as a few doctors. Two-thirds of the districts that elected Copts were in Upper Egypt, and one-third in Lower Egypt. The Wafd was the only party that managed to get Coptic candidates elected in the Nile Delta region of Lower Egypt, where Copts were not very numerous. It felt vindicated by these results, which were a clear sign of the party's strength and a testament to its commitment to secularism and national unity.Hassan Sana Christians versus Muslims in Modern Egypt: The Century-Long Struggle for Coptic Equality https://books.google.com/books?id=A7eczMo0VIoC&pg=PA40 2010-07-22 2003 Oxford University Press US New York 978-0-19-513868-9 40
File:Egypt Parliament 1924.svg Wafd Party 33354 179 Liberal Constitutional Party 16690 20 National Party 5103 7 Independents 12357 5 67504 69689 Khatib, pp. 486–487
Aftermath
The Wafd Party's resounding victory meant that King Fuad I had no choice but to ask Zaghloul to form a new government. He did so on 27 January, and Zaghloul was named Prime Minister of Egypt.Sicker Martin The Middle East in the Twentieth Century https://books.google.com/books?id=gHfw0Mv_uFUC&pg=PA107 2010-07-22 2001 Greenwood Publishing Group 978-0-275-96893-9 107 The Wafd felt it had a mandate to conclude a treaty with the United Kingdom that would assure Egypt complete independence.Egypt: a country study Federal Research Division, Library of Congress Washington, D.C. https://www.loc.gov/item/91029876/ 1991 Metz Helen Chapin Helen Chapin Metz 5th 50 0-8444-0729-1 24247439 As prime minister, Zaghloul carefully selected a cross-section of Egyptian society for his cabinet, which he called the "People's Ministry". On 15 March 1924 King Fuad opened the first constitutional parliament amid national rejoicing. The Wafdist government did not last long, however.
On 19 November 1924 Lee Stack, the British governor general of Sudan and commander of the Egyptian Army, was assassinated in Cairo. The assassination was one of a series of killings of British officials that had begun in 1920. Viscount Allenby, the British High Commissioner to Egypt, considered Stack an old and trusted friend. He was thus determined to avenge the crime and in the process humiliate the Wafd and destroy its credibility in Egypt. Allenby demanded that Egypt apologize, prosecute the assailants, pay a £500,000 indemnity, withdraw all troops from Sudan, consent to an unlimited increase of irrigation in Sudan and end all opposition to the capitulations (Britain's demand of the right to protect foreign interests in the country). Zaghloul wanted to resign rather than accept the ultimatum, but Allenby presented it to him before Zaghloul could offer his resignation to the king. Zaghloul and his cabinet decided to accept the first four terms but to reject the last two. On 24 November, after ordering the Ministry of Finance to pay the indemnity, Zaghloul resigned. Parliament was dissolved on 24 December 1924.M.F. Khatib (1954) page 171 He died three years later.
See also
Egypt's Liberal Experiment
References
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Category:Election and referendum articles with incomplete results