CAIRO: Salafi, ultra-conservative Islamist parties quit the Democratic Alliance, forming a coalition of their own to compete in the upcoming elections. Leaders of the Salafi parties said that the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the Muslim Brotherhood's political arm which spearheaded the Democratic Alliance along with Al-Wafd, took over the Alliance's electoral list, leaving the rest of the parties with very little opportunity to win any seats. Elections are scheduled to start on Nov. 28. The deadline for candidacy application was extended four days to end next Saturday. "The FJP represents at least 75 percent of the Alliance's list, after claiming that it would only contest 35 percent of the PA seats," member of Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya's Shoura Council, Tarek Al-Zomor, told Daily News Egypt. "We could only field 20 candidates which were put at the bottom of the list," he added. Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya's political party, The Building and Development Party, has been officiated by a court order on Oct. 11, after appealing the Supreme Electoral Committee rejection of its application on the grounds that it is a religious party. The party will field 75-85 candidates including four women under a new alliance spearheaded by Al-Nour Party. The alliance which includes Al-Nour, Al-Asala and Building and Development parties is dubbed the “Islamist Alliance” in reference to the religious nature of its members. However, Youssry Hammad, spokesman of Al-Nour Party, refused the label, saying that three parties would submit a join list with Al-Nour, “without any labels”. Head of Al-Asala, formerly known as Al-Fadila Party, told DNE that the final joint list was still being discussed. The Democratic Alliance received a tough blow this past week with parties including Al-Wafd, Free Egypt, Al-Wasat and the Arabic Nasserist abandoning it, claiming that the FJP was taking over the joint list which will be presented in the upcoming elections, leaving the rest of the parties behind. “There are disagreements between Al-Wafd and the FJP regarding the electoral lists and distributions,” Hussein Mansour, member of Al-Wafd's higher committee, previously told DNE.
In August, the leftist Al-Tagammu quit the alliance after demanding an apology from the FJP and the Salafi parties over "violations" during a July 29 protest in Tahrir Square organized by Islamists. The number of parties in the alliance dwindled in the last week from 34 to around 25, and more are expected to follow. Al-Karama Party is still contemplating an exit, according to media reports. However, Farid Ismail, FJP leader in Sharqiya government, denied accusations against the party. "From the beginning we announced that we would field candidates [to contest] 50 percent of the PA seats and the rest of the parties in the alliance can field candidates for the remaining 50 percent," Ismail said. In May, the FJP announced that it would contest 50 percent of the PA seats, stressing that it didn't seek to win a majority in the PA. "Now each party wants to field candidates for at least 15 percent of the seats which is impossible," he added. Ismail claimed that some of the parties fielded candidates which were affiliated with the disbanded National Democratic Party (NDP) that corrupted political life for decades. Two thirds of the seats in parliament will be elected through closed party lists, while one third will follow the individual candidates system. The latest amendment to the parliament law allowed parties to field candidates in the latter system as well. FJP is also contesting the elections under the individual candidates systems, unlike other parties. According to Ismail, other parties avoided that system because they lacked popularity. Emad Gad, political analyst in Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said it was normal for the political alliances and coalitions to split before elections because they are all competing over "the prize." "All the parties want to extract the majority of seats in the PA…that's why they can't unite for the greater good of the country," Gad said. – Additional reporting by Tony Gabriel.
