Al-Dostour party chairman, Mohamed ElBaradei, said he would meet President Mohamed Morsy next Tuesday. The meeting was postponed twice due to ElBaradei being abroad and then going to Aswan on a visit.
ElBaradei’s meeting with Morsy will be the latest in a series the president is holding with opposition leaders and former presidential candidates. Morsy already met with Popular Current founder and third placed presidential runner up, Hamdeen Sabahy, as well as presidential candidates Amr Moussa and Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh.
The Nobel laureate held a party meeting in Aswan where he told Al-Dostour youth that if a fair electoral law were drafted, the party would secure a majority in the next parliamentary elections.
“Everyone is afraid of us even though the party is still in the crib, and together we will secure a majority in the next elections,” he said.
He also addressed party members in a Friday press conference. Those in attendance chanted, “the ship needs a captain and ElBaradei is that captain” only for him to say that it is the youth who are “the leaders of the revolution.”
He invited civil parties and groups to form a united coalition for the elections. He called for a national reconciliation process. He said the disbanded former ruling National Democratic Party had three million members, and it was impossible for all of them to be corrupt.
ElBaradei also criticised Islamists who campaign for Shari’a law implementation and attack those who oppose them using religious arguments.
“We are more Islamic than the clowns of religion who call people infidels and secularists as they please and act as if they have moral authority over us,” he told a crowd of Al-Dostour members and supporters.
He added that his party has a real program and was not “going to give out oil and sugar.”
The former International Atomic Energy Agency director expressed his dismay for what he called “the useless debate” going on inside the Constituent Assembly tasked with drafting the country’s new constitution.
“We have said from the start that Islam is the principle source of legislation, but we want to use our brains and not just blindly follow others. The debate inside the Constitutional Assembly is useless and it should be discussing real crises like providing diesel fuel and butane,” he said.
“The interests of the people is the true law of God and not the useless argument of liberalism, secularism, Islam and infidels. Instead of discussing blocking pornographic websites we should try to develop slum areas. Our agenda should be that of the revolution: bread, freedom and social justice,” added ElBaradei.
He called for the formation of a new Constituent Assembly, calling the current one “unrepresentative.”
ElBaradei addressed the recent events in Sinai, saying that the solution to the problems of Sinai can never be a military or security ones and that the only true option was development of the area.
He added that the problems and discrimination facing Coptic Christians and Nubian Egyptians are being sidelined from public discourse.
“What is taking place in Cairo in no way relates to what is on the mind of the average citizen,” said ElBaradei.
ElBaradei also visited the home of Mohamed Mohsen, who was killed in the Abbaseya protests last year, spending time with his family. He promised to help improve the conditions of a local school named after Mohsen.
