CAIRO: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and Al-Wafd Party will no longer contest the coming legislative elections on a joint party list, a Wafd member confirmed to Daily News Egypt Sunday.
“There are disagreements between Al-Wafd and the FJP regarding the electoral lists and distributions,” Hussein Mansour, member of Al-Wafd’s higher committee, told DNE.
“Either way Al-Wafd is ready and fully prepared to enter the upcoming elections with its independent electoral list,” he added.
The door is always open for alliances, coordination, agreements and any other efforts that would protect the country from pitfalls, Mansour said.
Al-Wafd has, however, denied numerous reports sounding the death knell of the Democratic Alliance, a coalition of 34 parties from the left and far right, bringing together proclaimed liberals and Islamists that was spearheaded by Al-Wafd and the FJP.
“This is not an end to the Alliance, it is just that the two parties decided to go into the upcoming parliamentary elections with their own electoral lists,” said Yassin Tageldin, member of Al-Wafd’s higher committee.
“The coordination and cooperation is still ongoing,” he confirmed to DNE.
Leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s FJP, Ahmed Abou Baraka, also confirmed to DNE that the two political powers are still allied and will continue to be.
“We were not able to reach a consensus regarding the electoral lists, so each party will have its own, but we are allied,” he said, noting that it’s important that all political powers stay allied and present a united front.
“We stand together as a strong front, we’ll continue to cooperate and coordinate even more so that we would have to ensure the emergence of a strong parliament,” said Abou Baraka.
“If there are small alliances they won’t make a strong successful parliament, however if we all stand together it will be a truly representative body,” he explained.
The parties in the Democratic Alliance had called for exclusively following an open party list system in the elections, instead of a combination of the individual candidates’ system and the closed party lists, describing it as the "best system" for “electing a parliament qualified to fill the historical role awaiting it."
The open party list would give voters more freedom in electing their chosen candidate from each party, instead of abiding by the order of a specific list of candidates, set by each party in the closed party list system.
The alliance includes Nasserist, Al-Geel, Al-Ahrar and the Egyptian Arab Socialist parties, as well as the Salafi Al-Nour, and Al-Tawheed Al-Araby parties.
