The Nour Party is struggling to shore up its Islamist support after taking part in the post-3 July roadmap and supporting the presidential campaign of Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. It has earned the reputation of being a party that will say yes to whomever is in power, happily abandoning its principles, citing the need for stability while at same time arguing it is safeguarding a place for political Islam in the political process. As it prepares for parliamentary elections, the party finds itself in an unenviable position. In a desperate search for allies, it has expressed its willingness to work with Coptic politicians, even though Salafist ideologues ban their followers from offering congratulations to Christians on feast days. It has reached out to former members of the dissolved National Democratic Party (NDP), only to be rebuffed. It has expressed its intention to nominate a female candidate, though exposure of a woman's face is so sinful the party substituted a rose for the face of its female candidates in the 2012 parliamentary elections. It has put out feelers to liberal parties, only to find its overtures snubbed. Any hopes the Nour Party had of reaping rewards for its post 3 July compliance are fast fading. Following a meeting of the Nour Party's central committee last week, Nour Vice-President El-Sayyid Khalifa said a final decision on electoral alliances would be deferred until the long-anticipated law redrawing electoral boundaries is issued. A Nour Party official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Al-Ahram Weekly the meeting discussed fielding candidates in constituencies reserved for independents. Party officials, he added, were well aware of the party's dwindling support. Amr Moussa gave a cold shoulder to the Nour Party even as he struggled to build a broad-based electoral alliance to contest the parliamentary elections. “The Nour Party has its own way of thinking and its own followers. We are seeking to build an alliance of political forces that think alike,” he said. “Alliances based on discrimination, that do not put the welfare of Egypt above partisan interests, will die in their cradle and fail,” said Nour Party Secretary-General Galal El-Marra in response to Moussa. “The public is fed up with attitudes and positions that do not promote the welfare of the nation. Egyptians are an aware people. They realise the dangers of the current phase.” The Nour Party, El-Marra continued, had always refused the rhetoric of polarisation and exclusion. It would continue to try and unite the Egyptian people. “This phase demands that we unify our energies, without discrimination, to usher in a phase of construction and development and build a nation that will rank among the countries of the first world, a nation that offers its people stability and security, that fights poverty and unemployment, and makes progress in all scientific, economic and social fields.” El-Marra added that all political forces must be represented in the next parliament “in order to realise the hopes of the Egyptian people and work together to end the polarisation gripping the country”. It is an unlikely scenario. The Nour Party is acutely aware it will face challenges from political forces seeking to have the party banned. It could be judged unconstitutional on the grounds it is a religious party. Magdi Morshid, vice-chairman of the Congress Party, has already accused the Nour Party of being inherently exclusionist. “As a religious party it is founded on a purely exclusionist idea,” said Morshid. Nasserist Party official Tawhid El-Benhawi went a step further. Noting that “the new constitution prohibits parties founded on a religious basis”, he suggested the Nour Party needed to reconfigure itself before entering into a coalition with any other political grouping. “The Nour Party's current rhetoric,” claimed El-Benhawi, “does not unite the Egyptian people. Rather, it divides the citizens of this nation.” Lumped together with the Muslim Brotherhood by some of its opponents, facing the possibility of dissolution under the new constitution and with a dwindling support base, the future of the Nour Party is anything but certain.
