Ali Abdel Aal

Abdel Aal was born on 29 November 1948.[1] He studied law and obtained a degree in 1972. The next year he started working as a deputy to a prosecutor. In 1974 he became a university lecturer.[1] Ten years later he obtained his PhD in State at the University of Paris.[1][2]

Abdel Aal was cultural attaché in the city of his alma mater from 1987 to 1991. The next year he served as constitutional advisor to the Parliament of Egypt. In 1993 he helped with the drafting of the Constitution of Ethiopia. As a constitional advisor he was employed by the Royal Court of Kuwait between 1993 and 2011.[1][2] Abdel Aal worked as constitutional law professor at Ain Shams University.[1][3]

Abdel Aal was one of the constitional experts who worked on the Egyptian Constitution of 2014.[1][4] In 2015 he was the head of a committee which drafted three new electoral laws.[5]

In the 2015 parliamentary elections Abdel Aal was elected on the For the Love of Egypt list for the Aswan Constituency.[1] He was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives on 10 January 2016. He obtained 401 of 585 votes.[2]

In 2019, Abdel Aal defended President Sisi in fall 2019, but via a favorable comparison to Adolf Hitler. “Hitler has his mistakes," he reportedly commented. "But what enabled him to expand east and west was the country's infrastructure he built. Even now that is the engine that drove Germany to become a top-tier country." He said "harsh measures" are required when "institutions are built and infrastructure is laid down". He later said his words had been taken "out of context"; pro-government sources reported his comments.[6][7]

After the 2020 Egyptian parliamentary election Abdel Aal did not run for re-election as Speaker and was succeeded by Hanafi Ali Gibali on 12 January 2021.[8]