It is said that Egypt currently has more than 90 parties. All are expected to compete in the upcoming parliamentary elections, whose date and constituencies are still officially unpronounced. Most of these parties are unknown to Egyptians in name, let alone in policy. As a result, there is a need to dismiss common arguments for the prevalence of three political ideologies in Egypt: the Islamist right, the liberal centre and the socialist left. If these ideologies are destined to direct Egyptian politics in a tri-partite/three-coalition formula, the fact remains that they have not yet taken root in Egyptian politics. Talking to a sample of parties representing these ideologies, one realises that the Egyptian multi-party system has in reality an underlying division strongly influenced by the 30 June demonstrations against the Muslim Brotherhood government and its ouster in July last year. Today, Egypt's political parties are divided between Islamism and a political vacuum. The latter, often called the Al-Quwa Al-Madaniyya (civic powers), has come to fill the empty place of the banned National Democratic Party (NDP) of ousted former president Hosni Mubarak. Inasmuch as the multiparty system furthers partisan disputes in an already strongly polarised society, Islamism versus a political vacuum threatens the establishment of a desperately needed government/opposition balance that could stabilise Egyptian politics and avert a return to NDP-style single-party domination within a nominal multi-party system. THE ISLAMISTS: With the Brotherhood out of the picture following the ban in 2013, the main defender of today's Islamist political ideology is the Al-Nour Party. The construction of this resembles that of an indirect party, i.e., a party having an organisational sub-structure feeding its membership's ideological needs. In Al-Nour's case, the supporting organisation is the Al-Dawa Al-Salafiya (Salafi Call) established in the 1970s. Followers of the call populate Al-Nour's branches and cannot be missed. Most of them are men. They often have long beards and prayer-bumps on their foreheads, and they characteristically abstain from smoking and drinking. In principle, Al-Nour is not restricted to the Salafists, but is instead open to Egyptians of every creed. This is probably to avert any violation of article 74 of the constitution, which prohibits the establishment of parties on a religious basis. The Salafi Call complements Al-Nour's envisioned duty of protecting Islam. As the Salafis reiterate, “the call influences the individual, the individual influences the society, and the society influences the state.” While the Salafis attempt to achieve the first two stages, Al-Nour is invested with accomplishing the last. The realisation of this motto is politically friendly for it enables the party to cultivate individual relations with its electoral constituency. All relations start with the mosque. The bulk of Salafist socio-political activities revolve around this building where Muslims have been fostering social and political communion for over 1,400 years. Al-Nour partisans and Salafi Call mosque preachers are often one and the same people. Their sermons, which traditionally permit discussion of secular as well as religious concerns, reinforce spiritual ties among Al-Nour members, Salafi Call supporters and the wider community. Following afternoon prayers in the Al-Urayfi Mosque in the Al-Nozha Al-Jadida district of Cairo, Al-Nour and Call member Ahmed Riyad initiates followers in three religious basics: tawhid (the oneness of God), ittiba (emulating the Prophet Mohamed in creed and deed) and tazkiya (purification of the soul by the regular performance of Islamic rituals). These basics are perceived as essential for religious guidance and the gain of heaven in the hereafter. Al-Nour also utilises these principles to emphasise the spiritual, pacifist and hence political nature of affirming Islamic belief in the face of jihadi arguments for “defending Islam.” The latter contend that protecting Islam is unachievable unless Muslims take up arms against their “enemies,” the apostates (Muslim opponents) and the infidels (non-Muslim adversaries). The spread of the jihadi syndrome in countries like Syria, Iraq and Libya since 2011 has forced Al-Nour to prioritise security over its regular platform of insisting on the Islamic identity articles of the Egyptian constitution (articles 2 and 7 which recognise the supremacy of Islam as the religion of the state and Al-Azhar as its official interpreter). In ordinary times, Al-Nour would have been advocating legislation against apostasy from Islam and violating Islamic law on matters such as selling alcohol, licensing night clubs and exacting bank interest. However, internal upheavals following the 25 January Revolution and the revolution in June last year have entirely changed the political agenda. “Realising political stability is a top priority for us in the upcoming parliamentary term,” said Mohamed Shukri, head of Al-Nour's Ramsis branch in downtown Cairo. Shukri's statement explains Al-Nour's concession to the ouster of the Brotherhood from power in 2013 and its support of the ensuing transitional process that eventually brought the incumbent president Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi to power. The statement may also mean that the party will resort to low-profile tactics and avoid any Islamist takeover of the parliament in the manner witnessed in the 2012 elections. Facilitating this policy is Al-Nour's provincial existence. In contrast to other parties, its stronghold is the northern coastal city of Alexandria rather than the cosmopolitan capital of Cairo. The Mediterranean city hosts the party's headquarters on the famous Al-Horeya Boulevard and provides an audience for its renowned preacher and theorist Yasser Borhami. In the nearby Al-Beheira governorate northwest of Cairo, the town of Abu Humus is the electoral fortress of Al-Nour's leader Younis Makhyoun. The party's moderate presence in the capital distances it from controversies over its political choices. As a result of Al-Nour's concession to the Brotherhood ouster, fellow-Islamists have dubbed members of the party “traitors” and “civic” opponents despite their doubtful loyalty towards the current government. Others have called Al-Nour the “zoor” (perjury) party. Thus far, Al-Nour seems to have been doing well, though no one can tell whether its solidity is for real. Moukhtar Nouh, a lawyer and defecting Brotherhood member, once observed on the CBC Extra television programme Sani Al-Qarar (the decision-maker) that the Islamists could enjoy a sweeping victory in early first-round elections and then hardly secure 10 per cent of the vote in the next. The reasons for this may be that the Islamists ground their platform on romanticised institutions like charity and Islamic polity. Insofar as they are in the opposition, their platform appeals to a disgruntled public. However, once in power the impracticality of their arguments surfaces, mirroring the shallowness of their Islam-and-modernity reform discourse. This is especially the case as some Islamist reforms operate in the negative, with all reforms being acceptable provided they do not contradict Islamic legal stipulations. The Al-Nour Party concretises this principle by refusing to classify itself within economic taxonomies. According to Shukri, “we do not adopt any modern economic trend. We follow Islam on economic matters. Whatever agrees with Islam is acceptable to us.” The Al-Nour Party is neither liberal nor socialist is the message conveyed in Shukri's statement. But this principle may lead to a loss of votes because of the lack of a definite economic agenda. THE CIVIC GROUP: At the other end of the political spectrum stands the so-called “civic powers”. These are groups that classify their political beliefs on economic grounds. They are either democratic liberals or socialists, and they are driven by various interest groups that use many different notions to describe the same thing. The most important of these is the term “civic” which is used in the negative to describe what they are not and not what they are. The term distinguishes them from the Islamists, the secularists and the military, but it does not specify any independent definition. The sudden arrival of these parties in Egyptian politics may be the cause of this identity confusion. In their endeavour to fill the political vacuum left by the 2011 ouster of the NDP, the civic parties rushed into theorising their existence in reaction to the popular censure of Islamism, secularism and militarism rather than out of any pure or independent conviction. CIVIC VERSUS ISLAMIST: In a booklet on political terminology published by the Wafd Party (liberal centre), a “civil state” is a political entity that “separates religion from the state”. Although this may sound like a declaration of secularism, the Wafdists employ it in the sense of “civic versus Islamist”. The intention is to stress the constitutional sovereignty of the people, represented by an elected legislature, as opposed to a possible Islamic state forged on the Iranian model. The latter includes a committee of clergymen in accordance with the constitutional provision of wilayat al-faqih (leadership of the clergy). The clergy are tasked with practicing the judicial review of laws and regulations to ensure their compliance or non-contradiction with Islamic law principles and stipulations. As a Wafdist might argue, under this system the clergy would soon become the true rulers of the country. Hence, the submission of the legislative powers to the clergy is unacceptable, for it simply defies the sovereignty of the people. The Al-Misri Al-Dimoqrati Al-Ijtimai (Egyptian Socialist Democratic Party or ESDP) concurs with the Wafd on the civic/Islamist distinction. Farid Zahran, a leader of the ESDP, emphasises the unelected nature of the clergymen's rule. For Zahran, the crux of a religious versus a civic state is the electoral factor legitimising the legislature. In a religious state, clergymen are invested with legislative power based on their knowledge of God's law. A civic state confers legislative power on parliamentarians based on their victory in general elections. A democratic element is thus attached to the ballot box. CIVIC VERSUS SECULARIST: This idea rejects the separation of religion from politics. The recognition of the majority's religion enhances constitutional realism, and the equal treatment of all religions offends the religious sensibility of the public as a whole. The state, argue the anti-secularists, cannot adopt the same distance from all beliefs, including atheism. As a result, the religion of the majority must prevail, alongside a limited recognition of the minority's beliefs. All republican constitutions in Egypt have subscribed to this civic choice. “Islam is the religion of the state” is their main staple, expressed as early as the second article in the constitution. Anti-secularism is perceived as thawabit al-dawlah, or the foundation of the state. All civic parties submit to this distinction, some by persuasion, some by force of popular feeling, and others for fear of their lives. None of the civic parties are willing to defend the rights of Egyptian Bahaais or atheists, who are forced to endorse one of the three constitutionally recognised religions (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) in their personal status law. On this issue, the position of the Al-Masriyeen Al-Ahrar (the Free Egyptians Party, or FE) liberal party, co-founded by Egyptian magnate Naguib Sawiris, is particularly interesting. Party members stress the brotherhood of Muslims and Christians in Egypt, but are unwilling to broaden religious equality to shelter all beliefs. Mohamed Khidr, head of the FE's Masr Al-Jadida branch, admits the presence of constitutional grievances for neglected minorities. Nevertheless, he argues, “the religious rights of minority groups are of minor importance in the current economic crisis. The constitution has been written and ratified. The important thing now is to address poverty in Egypt.” CIVIC VERSUS MILITARY: This advocates the separation of the military from politics. Public posts, historically reserved to retired military personnel, ought to be open to competition among civilians. A civilian meritocracy in Egyptian politics could also eventually put a civilian in the post of defence minister. The army's role, argues Karim Mahmoud of the Masr Al-Qawiya (Strong Egypt, or SE Party), “is to protect Egypt's borders and defend constitutional legitimacy, not to make political decisions.” The army, says Mahmoud, violated this role by undertaking the July coup d'état, a reference to the army's involvement in toppling the Brotherhood in July 2013. This anti-militarism distinction is peculiar to the modern history of Egypt. Since the declaration of the Egyptian Republic in 1953, five presidents with military backgrounds have ruled the country. Until today, only the civilian rule of the Brotherhood has interrupted this military sequence. However, the Brotherhood's failure revealed a schism between actual and official power in Egyptian politics. Actual power appears to be in the hands of the military, while official power is left to elected civilians. It is only when a president with a military background becomes head of state that we see the two powers united. For SE, sound politics are contingent on a similar union, albeit under a civilian leadership. The way to achieve this, however, is not clear to the party's audience. Protests and political reform appear to be two possible ways, but neither has yet been adopted. On the one hand, the SE has been hesitant about whether to participate in parliamentary elections. On the other, it has forged strong ties with revolutionary movements such as the 6 April Movement. This agrees with the SE on the need to neutralise the army in Egyptian politics and is set on continuing its protests until it arrives at its target. Legislators versus agitators: To revolt or to reform is the biggest question facing not just the SE but other parties as well. Answering it would decide on the type of parliamentarians that each party is set on presenting in the upcoming elections. Will they be revolutionary agitators, crying out for more political rights, or reformist legislators, bargaining for economic interests? The revolutionists envision their main role to be changing the protest law of 2013. They view this law's requirement of a three-day official notification and recognition of the police's right to ban any protest based on security concerns to be a violation of political rights. The leftist-leaning Al-Dostour Party, founded by former Egyptian vice-president and head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed Al-Baradei, takes this view. Hagar Salah, a party organiser, goes as far as to refuse any protest law analogous to that in western democracies. She believes that the Egyptian situation is distinctive in its political complexity and legal requirements. An Egyptian protest law, she argues, ought to be unrestrictive regarding demonstrations and should secure police protection for their participants. Sharing the Al-Dostour view is the Al-Karama (Dignity) Party, a leftist Nasserite party founded by former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi. Al-Karama's legislative priority is to amend the protest law, but its reasons differ from those of Al-Dostour. While the latter is driven by anti-militarist motives, Al-Karama is anxious about the return of the corrupt capitalists who ruled Egypt after the death of former president Gamal Abdel-Nasser and worked systematically to destroy his socialist project. The fact that Nasser himself was a military officer probably mitigates their anti-militarism far less than that of Al-Dostour. If the party ever clashes with the military it will be on economic grounds rather than on civic principles. Class struggle may be detected in this revolutionary streak among the civic parties. Professional elites, self-portrayed as politically marginalised, govern some of them. They believe that the country ought to be ruled by technocrats of their calibre — upper-middle class elites who have international expertise by virtue of their service in western institutions and/or western educations. Their resumes denote fat pay cheques (often in dollars), excellent working conditions, good health care and job perks. Domestically, they are able to use family connections to evade military service for males and to get top-notch government positions, such as ministerial consultants, diplomats or correspondents in western capitals. These elites are often at loggerheads with the middle and the lower-middle class of the Egyptian security forces and administration. The latter receive a state education and spend all their lives in government service. Anyone who knows Egypt well can immediately picture the working conditions of their early careers. If the latter do not take refuge in corruption, they are mostly underpaid, undertrained and assigned to filthy or decrepit work places. Those who join the army or the police risk their lives on a daily basis. They also risk being assigned anywhere in the country to perform their assignments, including the underdeveloped countryside and desert areas. At the end of their careers, these civil servants expect to be handsomely rewarded for their “sacrifices”. Most of the rewards come in the form of political posts, such as ministers, governors, heads of districts and cultural institutions and state-favoured entrepreneurs. Egyptian governments since those of the first republic have realised such expectations, the rationale being that these civil servants are the prerequisite for any successful administration and have a good knowledge of the intricate Egyptian bureaucracy. They are the “trusted ones”, those whose rise to political and financial prominence will not jeopardise successive authoritarian regimes. Another powerful trend among Egyptian political parties is the reformists. Most of these belong to the liberal centre and strive to bring about political and economic change through a cooperative parliament. Cooperation here means support for the security forces and incumbent president against possible foes: the Muslim Brotherhood, parties opposing military rule or intervention in politics, terrorist groups, political corruption and a tattered economy. Indeed, parties like the liberal centrists Al-Mutamar (Congress Party) and the Wafd have retired police and/or army cadres among their top cadres. Some may view these tactics as beneficial, but others are suspicious. Police and army assignments across the country have given the members of these parties a solid knowledge of the Egyptian countryside and facilitated an extensive network of connections, especially with the local bureaucracy and security forces. Through these, the parties are able to connect better with rural voters and provide them with services. Additionally, good ties with the security forces can accelerate voluntary reforms within their institutions. On the other hand, anti-militarists cite the presence of such party members as confirming suspicions of a return of the former Mubarak regime as part of a counter-revolutionary plot against the January Revolution. Intensifying this suspicion has been the pro-government media's approval of the alliances forged by such parties. Last month, Ahmed Moussa, a talk-show host on the Sada Al-Balad TV channel, cheerfully brought tidings of the Al-Jabha Al-Masriyya (Egyptian Front) Alliance in his programme Ala masuliyyiti (My Responsibility). Moussa declared that the alliance was the winning card in the upcoming elections. It is no surprise that the alliance comprises the Al-Mutamar Party along with remnants of the Mubarak regime. Liberalism versus socialism: Economic analysts frequently warn that the origins of the January Revolution were more economic than political. Sensing truth in this analysis, the civic parties distinguish themselves along economic lines. Most are either socialist left, socialist centre or liberal centre. In all these classifications the parties stress social justice and their revulsion against “aggressive capitalism.” But the distinction in an historical context amounts to precious little. A quick review of the turbulent economic trends of the last 60 years or so in Egyptian politics may reveal a truer alternative definition: capitalism without corruption and socialism without nationalism. Aggressive capitalism, in the way civic partisans explain it, nears Adam Smith's laissez-faire market-based capitalism but with an Egyptian flavour, i.e., governmental corruption. During Mubarak's rule, says Tamer Hindawi, a leader of the leftist Al-Karama Party, “the sale of the public-sector enterprises targeted successful factories instead of the intended failures, which the government claimed to liquidate to rescue the state budget from their financial burdens. The Egyptian Steam Boilers Company is one example. The company was privatised despite its success and its strategic importance,” for example. As many defenders of the public sector argue, the earlier sale of state-owned enterprises involved corruption scandals. The most famous of all was that of Omar Effendi, a chain of department stores. This is said to have been worth LE3 billion ($419.5 million) but was sold in 2005 for LE450 million ($62.9 million) in a single-bid tender. The liberal parties are cautious not to repeat Mubarak's reckless privatisation ventures. The amount of censure that Mubarak received for these schemes was probably the direct cause of his ouster. One of the big hurdles, however, is that liberal parties even as old as the Wafd (established in 1919, dissolved in 1952, and reestablished in 1983) have had difficulty concretising their liberalism. Tangible economic projects are hard to extract from the liberals. Some simply choose to follow the lead of Al-Sisi's government. Mohamed Khidr of the FE Party, for example, sums up the party's ventures as being the same as those of the current government: the new Suez Canal, the northwest coastal development and road construction across the country. These three ventures, Khidr says, “are enough to fill the economic agenda for the next 25 years.” The party is already hailing its contribution to the canal project, as Orascom Construction Industries, controlled by the Sawiris family (55 per cent ownership) and cofounder of the FE Party, is building three of the canal's six underwater tunnels in the Ismailia governorate. Social justice is also embedded in Egyptian history. It appeals to Nasser's socialism, but without his nationalisation policy. Even the leftist Al-Karama Party, which hangs Nasser's poster on the walls of its Dokki branch in Cairo, is not willing to risk a new round of enforced state proprietorship. The repercussions of nationalising the Suez Canal in 1956 are still fresh in the memory: the 1956 Tri-Partite Aggression (British, French and Israeli bombing of the Suez Canal region) and the contractual resort to notorious international arbitration in place of the national justice system. Resuscitating the existing 3,500 Egyptian cooperatives is Al-Karama's method to empower the poor in the face of tough competition from global companies. Nevertheless, the party will have to undergo a challenging political and administrative clean-up. The cooperatives, highlighted Al-Ahram's 2013 report on Strategic Economic Trends, are infested with corruption of all sorts. A group of business profiteers, mostly ex-police, military and judicial personnel, run them in their own interests, the report said. Land supposedly dedicated to the service of the cooperatives has been portioned off and sold to the management's personal benefit. Parties versus government: The political parties have not ceased to criticise the incumbent government. Every hurdle on their path to the parliament has been translated into a complaint against governmental policies and intentions. These complaints are perhaps a means to disarm their critics and pre-empt any anticipated failure in the upcoming elections. The electoral law has received the lion's share of partisan criticism. Of the 600 parliamentary seats, the law allocates 120 to party lists and 480 to individual candidates. Both sections are subject to a second ballot and absolute majority win. For the lists section, the parties were hoping for a larger number of seats and proportional representation. This could have guaranteed them seats without having to go through the pain of forming alliances. Every list would have gained seats proportional to the percentage of its electoral win, for example. The electoral law, however, dedicates the lists seats to the majority-winning group, i.e., above 50 per cent of the votes cast. If no list secures that majority, then a second ballot between the winners gives the seats to the highest percentage winner. This time it is plurality that wins and not majority. The way the law is written makes the elections a tough call for all the parties. In the lists section, the law is designed to create bitter partisan mergers, or at least multi-party alliances. Harsh compromises must be made to forge these friendships, one for the first ballot and another for the second. Given the current polarisation in Egyptian politics, alliances threaten the raison d'etre of the parties. The civic parties, for example, are divided by crosscutting cleavages. This means that while Party X may share its liberalism with Party Y, it departs from Party Y on militarism, but shares its views with Party Z. If Party X were to compromise on militarism to coalesce with Party Y, it would lose Party Z's support alongside its anti-military electors. Two or three bargains of this type would make Party X faceless and lead it to lose its support. It would thus be ready to dissolve into a larger group. Odd alliances are already emerging; the liberal Wafd and the socialist ESDP have united on anti-Islamism under the Egyptian Wafd Alliance, for example. Meanwhile the liberal SE have not united with the liberal Al-Mutamar because of disagreements on militarism, although its headquarters are one block away in the Garden City district of downtown Cairo. Once the groups are in parliament, there are doubts about the longevity of these dissimilar alliances. The individual seats are too many to be neglected. In their assignment, the electoral law seems to depend on voters' personal knowledge of the candidates, as opposed to identification with political currents in the lists section of the polls. While there is no way that an elector could know the 45 people stated on every list, it is quite possible that he or she could weigh between individuals, especially in the second ballot. Nevertheless, the parties have been grumbling about the huge percentage of the individual seats compared to that of the lists. A common complaint is that it will take a huge amount of money and delivery of services to be personally known to electors. As many parties allege, only the remnants of the Mubarak regime and the Brotherhood are currently eligible for such electoral missions. Both of these groups face rumours of amassing clout and money through corrupt means and of intending their employment in the parliamentary elections to make a come-back onto the political scene. If this occurs, both groups, the parties warn, will avenge themselves on society. Besides, it will be hard to maintain partisan leverage over an individually elected parliamentarian, even if his or her party helped him or her to win the elections. A direct connection between the candidate and the electorate naturally weakens the party's presence as an electoral mediator. If the candidate entertains some independence or contemplates varying partisan views, he or she may secede from his or her party. Fortunately for the parties, the electoral law forbids any change of status after the electoral registration, however. Yet, this only applies to the elections process, and secessions within the parliament itself could be fatal to some parties. These could take the form of voting against the party line on parliamentary bills, or preparing a splinter-group alliance within the legislature. In such situations, decision-making within the parliament would be difficult due to the precarious existence of party blocs. The Islamists, on the other hand, have expressed their dissatisfaction with the law's affirmative-action stipulation. The law requires the parties to include in their lists at least one young person, a disabled person, a Christian and a woman. The Al-Nour Party has been dismayed at the addition of the last two. It regards their mention as discrimination among otherwise constitutionally equal Egyptian citizens. Al-Nour's religious conservatism could also have to be compromised to include women and Christians in its fold. Additional criticism of the government revolves around the division of the electorate. The pro-government parties still wonder how the constituencies will be divided, since their division is fundamental for their choice of candidates, especially in an alliance. For some alliances, the general rule will be to give the candidacy to the most powerful party, instead of a percentage to every party in the alliance. Thus, the constituency must be known in advance in order to evaluate the voting power of each candidate. Those parties doubting government impartially also suspect security impediments. Hagar Salaheddin of the Al-Dostour Party comments that “the government is charting opposition strongholds in order to appoint special military officials in these areas.” A surprise parliament: Ideological divisions can be politically defeating. It is important to remember that Islamism, liberalism, militarism and socialism are ideological differences among parties, but they are not necessarily so for the Egyptian masses, especially those living in the countryside and in Egypt's 1,221 shantytowns. These areas, which can produce a competitive turnout, may find urban ideologies to be an intellectual luxury. Instead, their electoral criteria will be finding solutions to their daily problems: a lack of clean water, electricity, housing, educational and health services, and job-opportunities. Some of these services ought to have been the burden of the local councils, but were thrown onto the parliament's shoulders as a result of responsibility evasion by the Egyptian bureaucracy. If the underprivileged masses were to vote ideologically, they might elect the Islamists out of religious sympathies (the confrontational option) or pro-militarily in the hope of receiving a share of governmental development money (the reformist option). The struggle between service-provision and ideology will decide this group's electoral tendencies. Likewise, partisan ideologies may defeat partisan bids for the new government. A fight over who gets what in the new government will make the appointment of a technocratic government, with non-partisan affiliation, more appetising. Article 146 of the constitution does not rule out this option. It gives the parliament two rounds of votes to approve the new government. Failure to reach approval automatically dissolves the parliament. The possibility of this scenario happening indicates the reality of the system. It is not a “presidential-parliamentary system,” as some parties like to call it, building on it the belief that the next government will be from within the parliament. Instead, the system is semi-presidential, in which the president is considered to be the head of the executive alongside a cabinet chosen in collaboration with the parliament but not necessarily from among its members. The president in this system has large powers of forming a government. Supporting this view is article 164 of the constitution, which forbids anyone holding simultaneous membership of the government and the parliament. The article requires the resignation of any parliamentarian joining the government, and this may also induce the parliament to accept an outsider government of technocrats. No one can predict what the upcoming parliament will be like. There are too many interest groups pulling the parties in opposite directions, and there are very few partisan traditions to buttress any sound reading of the anticipated new legislature. A lack of belief in party seriousness may result in a low turnout. In this case, there is likely to be a “surprise parliament” that may be dominated by religious radicals, former NDP members, businessmen, revolutionaries or fragments of all trends. Some politicians are pessimistic about party life in Egypt. They wish to delay the elections for a year to give leeway for the more solid organisation of the civic parties. Others are optimistic that similar ideologies may unite splinter groups to form larged parties. Here, the comments of Gihad Seif Al-Islam, head of Al-Mutamar's youth organisation, may be illuminating. “After the January Revolution, we [the civic parties] grouped into 28 and then 25 parties, each time failing to form a merger until five of us united to create Mutamar. It takes time and effort to form a strong political party in revolutionary Egypt.” The writer is the holder of a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles.
