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Steer clear of Brotherhood-SCAF power struggle, party warns Socialist Popular Alliance Party advises political powers to avoid being drawn into ongoing 'tug of war' between Muslim Brotherhood, ruling military council
The Socialist Popular Alliance Party (SPAP) issued a statement on Thursday warning political forces against getting involved in the brewing crisis between the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) over the formation of a constituent assembly tasked with drafting a new constitution. The statement asserted that both the Brotherhood and the SCAF had "deviated from the goals of Egypt's January 25 Revolution." The ongoing struggle between the two forces – which had enjoyed a year-long honeymoon following the ouster of longstanding president Hosni Mubarak – could "end up costing Egypt a unique opportunity to build a new democratic society," the statement warned. The SPAP went on to accuse the SCAF of "leading the counter-revolution and committing crimes against protestors in an effort to break the will of the revolutionaries" and added that the Brotherhood had played "a key role in distorting the revolution, thwarting its goals, and destroying all the revolutionary and democratic forces that stood in the way of its assumption of power." The statement further accused the Brotherhood of seizing power by "cutting a deal with the SCAF" in the wake of last year's revolution. It added that the Islamist group was using Egypt's recently-formed constituent assembly – tasked with drafting a new constitution – "as a tool to consolidate its power and frustrate revolutionary objectives." The current constitutional crisis erupted earlier this week when several liberal and leftist members withdrew from the constituent assembly to protest the constitution-writing body's large proportion of Islamist figures. On Wednesday, SPAP presidential contender Abul-Ezz El-Hariri, an elected MP and long-time political activist, weighed in on the issue, describing the current crisis as a “tug of war” between the Brotherhood and the ruling military council. He said that there had been a “clear deal from the start” between Islamist parties and the SCAF to allow the latter to relinquish power without being held accountable for its crimes against protestors and its failure to retrieve public monies pilfered by the former regime. The SPAP – founded immediately after Mubarak's ouster – was the first Egyptian leftist party to be legally recognised following last year's uprising. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/38044.aspx
