The High Council of State (HCS) has postponed - for the fourth time in a row - its session that was scheduled to be held Sunday morning to vote on the 13th constitutional amendment approved by the House of Representatives (HoR) earlier and although the HoR officially approved the amendment by publishing it in the Official Gazette before it received the approval of the HCS, the latter is still trying hard to convene a session to discuss the amendment amid disagreements among its members between a team supporting the amendment led by the Head Khalid Al-Mishri and another rejecting the amendment, saying that they are the majority in the HCS and that if a valid session is held, the amendment won't pass.
After Sunday's session was postponed, 54 HCS members issued a statement affirming their rejection to pass the 13th constitutional amendment without resolving the controversial points and transferring them to laws.
The signatories said the reason for their rejection is the failure of the amendment to include the conditions for the president’s candidacy, granting the president broad powers, and not obligating the elected National Assembly to fulfill the constitutional tasks within a specified period of time, in addition to canceling the parliamentary elections in the event of the presidential failure, as stated in the amended constitutional text in Article 29. They said that it is necessary to include and resolve these issues in the text of the constitutional amendment.
In a televized statement Saturday, Al-Mishri said that more than 95% of the 13th constitutional amendment corresponds to the articles voted on by the HCS, with the exception of 3 or 4 articles. He explained that the system of government in the 13th constitutional amendment is not presidential, but rather a mixture between presidential and parliamentary, pointing out that this amendment dispels fears about the powers of the head of state.
