CAIRO: A former member of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) on Sunday launched a campaign rallying support for his breakaway liberal opposition party. Osama Ghazali Harb, editor of the quarterly Al-Siyassa Al-Dawliya, presented plans for the new party, the Democratic Front, which is based on the build up of a true and complete democratic system and a free market economy. Oppression, corruption and hypocrisy have led us to suffocation, the party said in a statement. It highlighted the need for “new social governance that is based on the rule of people by the people and which relies on the transition of power and the limitation of terms. Harb was joined by 77 founding members including former minister Yehya Al-Gamal and a handful of businessmen and celebrities. Harb announced his resignation from the influential Policies Committee of the NDP headed by President Hosni Mubarak s son Gamal Mubarak in March, accusing the government of not fulfilling promises of reform. In September 2005, Mubarak secured his fifth six-year term as president when he won the country s first ever multi-candidate presidential elections, in which only 23 percent of registered voters cast their ballot. The new party s logo, which is the number 77 in Arabic, represents the 77-percent silent majority that did not vote as a form of protest and disapproval of the present alternatives and the integrity of the elections, the statement said.
The ageing president has been in power since 1981 and promised a series of political reforms during his election campaign. But opposition groups and the international community have criticized his government for its heavy-handed tactics which saw hundreds of pro-democracy activists detained in recent weeks. Egyptians remain opposed to oppression and impermeable to the corruption and hypocrisy of those who preach the right way but stray away from it with their actions, read the statement. AFP
