Egypt's 75-Percent Islamist Parliament Holds First Session

January 24, 2012

Egypt's new parliament -- elected in the first vote since the ouster of president Hosni Mubuarak nearly a year ago -- held its inaugural session yesterday, with Islamists making up nearly 75 percent of the 498-seat chamber, Fox News reports. Egypt's minority Coptic Christians, among others, are worried and anxious about what the Islamist domination will mean for the tone of the new legislative body, which will soon be forming a committee to write a new constitution. The lower and more powerful of the parliament's two chambers, the People's Assembly, is also expected to soon elect a speaker and two deputies; the speaker is expected to come from the Muslim Brotherhood, the extremist group that won just under half the seats.