CAIRO: Leading members of Egypt’s hardline Islamist movement unveiled a new political party yesterday, pointing to new rivalries that could split the Islamist vote in an impending parliamentary election.
The creation of the Al Watan (‘Homeland’) Party is part of a political landscape that was dominated by a variety of Islamist parties in the last election a year ago, but is still evolving.
The polls, due to begin in about two months, will be defined by competition between the Islamists, many of them from the Muslim Brotherhood that propelled Mohammed Mursi to the presidency, and secular-minded critics who have closed ranks in opposition to him.
Al Watan’s founders include the former leader of the Nour Party, a hardline Salafi Islamist group that came second to the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) in the last election.
The last parliament, in which the FJP and the Nour Party together won some 70 percent of the seats, was dissolved in June by a court ruling that found the election law had been flawed.
One of Al Watan’s founders, Emad Abdel Ghaffour, was Nour Party leader until he quit last week following internal disputes over the role of clerics in decision-making and bickering over internal elections. He unveiled the new party yesterday at a news conference alongside Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, a popular Salafi preacher who said an Islamist party that he plans to set up would enter an electoral alliance with Al Watan.
Abu Ismail was a front-runner for the presidency until he was disqualified on the grounds that his mother had held US citizenship. Salafi Islamists had kept out of politics until the uprising that overthrew Mubarak, but have emerged as a potent force since his political demise. Their stated aim is the application of Islamic law, or Shariah.
Meanwhile, President Mohammed Mursi met here yesterday with a group of Egyptian economy experts and businessmen. The Presidency Spokesman Dr Yasser Ali said that the meeting addressed the current situation, the challenges facing the economy and solutions in addition to the problems of the business community in Egypt after the new constitution enters into force.
Work to create an appropriate environment for attracting foreign investments to the country also featured in the talks.reuters/QNA
