Next Egyptian municipal elections

Concrete preparations were supposed to have begun in late 2015.[4] In March 2016 Prime Minister Sherif Ismail announced that his government aimed to hold local elections during the first quarter of 2017.[5] This was soon contradicted by a proclamation by President el-Sisi that he had ordered local elections to be held by the end of 2016.[6] Members of the majority 'Support Egypt' bloc in parliament, to the contrary, reported that local elections would be held in the second half of 2017.[7] The Egyptian Council of Localities pointed to this lack of clarity on the date, as well as the absence of a local electoral law to implement the Constitution's provisions, as obstacles to actually holding the elections.[8] By mid-2017 parliament decided to postpone the election until late 2018 or early 2019.[9]

After drafting a local elections law in May 2018, parliament renewed its commitment to hold the election by the end of that year — before the expiration of the existing local administrations in early 2019, as stipulated by the Constitution.[10][11] But the draft law was tabled in parliament pending further discussions, again postponing plans to organize a vote.[12] That November el-Sisi directed that the elections be held early in 2019,[13] but by the following June the president was openly indicating that the proposed elections laws would have to be redrafted before the process got underway.[14] A new draft was eventually submitted by the government to parliament only in late December 2019.[15] Supporters of the original draft law pointed to the apprehension of the security services, heightened by recent protests, behind the repeated delays and resistance to implementing decentralized responsible government.[16]

While parliament was waiting for el-Sisi's new draft law, the president again proclaimed that the elections would be held soon, "in early 2020".[3] But other officials were quick to clarify that this was not seriously to be expected.[17] In early 2020 a number of parliamentarians and jurists stated that if el-Sisi's suggestion of organizing local elections concurrently with elections to the House of Representatives and Senate were implemented, then the local polls might be held at the beginning of 2021.[18] As of 2020, although the national elections proceeded as expected in late 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, no further progress has been made public on organizing local elections.