As with any exclusive club, being a member of Parliament allows entry into new networks of privilege created by the economic shift, but it also enables access to information about economic rearrangements that is routinely hidden from public view. NDP hangers-on seek Parliament for the profits, while the opposition seeks Parliament for knowledge and proximity to the bureaucracy controlling public services. Because of its visible size, at 121 deputies, and its representation of normally excluded interests, the combined opposition in the 2005 parliament was able to clamor for the information and services that the NDP wanted to reserve for itself. So as to forestall a reprise, the regime decided to shutter Parliament as a place to do politics, reallocating the opposition’s valuable seats to a wider net of NDP dependents.
"The Liquidation of Egypt’s Illiberal Experiment"