Many political parties are set to merge with Mohamed ElBaradei’s newly-created Dostour Party and contest the next parliamentary elections, the Nobel laureate said on Tuesday in a conference.
The one-hundred member founding committee of the newly-formed Dostour Party met on Tuesday in a conference to discuss the party’s ideology and the next steps it would take before its imminent official launch.
“We have to admit our failures and change our ways in order to offer a real alternative in Egypt’s political life. We have to start working and look at the big picture,” ElBaradei said.
He added that protesting in Tahrir Square is now merely a pressure tool and that the time has come for offering political solutions in order to put the revolution back on track.
According to the one-time presidential hopeful, the new party was not formed to compete with other parties but rather was created in order to offer a platform for unity.
“Our next battle is the parliamentary elections and we must participate in it strongly,” he added.
ElBaradei called on the youth to unite and think only of Egypt.
“It is time we corrected the revolution’s path and give it back its ownership to the youth,” he said.
ElBaradei said that the party’s ideology would be “bread, freedom and social justice” and that it aimed to represent and communicate with all sectors of Egyptian society such as farmers and workers.
ElBaradei had announced his intention to run for president following the January 25 uprising but pulled out of the race in January 2012, citing the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces’ mismanagement of the transitional period and the lack of a constitution as reasons.
His name was again touted as a possible candidate for prime minister after President Mohamed Morsy’s victory in the election before Morsy appointed Irrigation and Water Resources Minister on Tuesday instead.
The Dostour Party was founded to offer an alternative between Islamist political groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and the forces of the former regime and SCAF, according to its founders.
One of its primary aims is to unite revolutionary youth activists who splintered into different political groups following former President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster and have suffered from a lack of real leadership.
The party launched its founding manifesto on Tuesday where it vowed to “restore balance to political life in Egypt against attempts of hegemony because the party believes Egypt’s renaissance cannot be achieved by only one group.”
The manifesto added that freedom was not only about the right to elect one’s leaders in a free and fair process, or just having one’s basic rights in the face of the state’s control, but also the freedom of the nation itself from the hegemony of outside forces.
Other founding members of the party include prominent novelist Alaa El-Aswany, Al-Shorouk daily newspaper managing editor Wael Kandil and revolutionary figure Ahmed Harrara who lost both his eyes in protests, one against Mubarak and the other against SCAF.
