(AFP Photo)
By Nourhan Dakroury
An anonymous statement surfaced on social media Monday night demanding modifications to the framework of the current political transition, stirring up controversy.
The statement, titled To Continue the Revolution: Now and Not Tomorrow, called for the constitution to be written after the presidential elections and stressed the importance of including all political factions in the political life.
It called for presidential elections within three months and parliamentary elections within six months. A constitution would be written afterward, it said, to ensure that it would be “consensual and democratic.”
Gamal Eid, a lawyer at the Arabic Network for Human Rights and Information (ANHRI) and a signer of the statement, said that the statement was written by a group of “revolutionaries”.
Eid described the statement as “an initiative that had to be made now.”
“In the next couple of days there will be a seminar held to discuss the statement,” said Eid, adding that suggestions made in the statement “are not final.”
Al-Dostour Party member Mahmoud Nassef, however, said that anonymous nature of the statement raised doubts.
“There has to be a certain authority [group] to takes responsibility for the statement,” he said. “The statement as an initiative is not a problem, but it needs to be more intact with reality.”
Nassef, who described the statement as a “lifeline for the Muslim Brotherhood,” said that the statement focused too much on the inclusion of the Brotherhood in the political life in Egypt.
“The faction [the Brotherhood] whom the statement is calling for negotiations with didn’t want to negotiate from the start,” he explained.
Eid said that he himself had some reservations on some of the points made in the statement, but he did not want to discuss them before the seminar was held.
Nassef criticised the statement, explaining that the fact that the statement is calling for the formation of a constitution after the presidential elections creates a fracture among those opposing ousted president Mohamed Morsi.
He said that writing the constitution before any elections had been agreed upon when the road map was set in order to insure that the president’s and parliament’s authorities are clearly outlined.
