The two houses of Parliament spent the last week debating the amendment of the constitution to allow multicandidate presidential elections, leading some to wonder if the whole constitution shouldn't just be reworked completely. During the three sessions that began last week, MPs focused on the principle of Article 76, which stipulates that potential candidates must obtain the backing of the People's Assembly, Shoura Council and local councils. Despite a heated debate over how a potential candidate should be chosen, most members agreed that candidates should not be required to obtain the backing of members of the two houses of Parliament. "The Parliament backing is unfair as it is mainly composed of members of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP)," said independent Abdel Monein Alimi. "The dilemma we have now is deciding the number of signatures of registered voters a candidate has to collect," he told Parliament.NDP Assistant Secretary-General Kamal El-Shazli said presidential hopefuls should have to get the backing of 120 elected members in local councils in 12 governorates. "This means that a presidential hopeful will have to obtain the support of 10 elected members in each of the required 12 governorates," El-Shazli said. The NDP also strongly recommends that presidential hopefuls obtain the backing of "a reasonable number of elected MPs in the People's Assembly and Shoura Council." One MP said that despite the importance of President Hosni Mubarak's proposal for a single amendment, the current constitution has many flaws and it would be best to draft a new one soon. "During the past three sessions we figured out that amending one article of the constitution would not work," said independent MP Hamadine Sabahy. "For instance talking about multicandidate elections leads to issues like the limitation of the president's powers, canceling the emergency laws, the freedom of the press and the freedom to establish political parties," he told Arab News.