After pulling out of Egypt's presidential race, Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed El-Baradei and his supporters have decided to form a new political party to defend the goals of the 25 January Revolution, reports Khaled Dawoud Hours before the 2pm deadline on Sunday to register as a candidate in Egypt's first presidential election after the forced removal of former president Hosni Mubarak in the 25 January Revolution last year, rumours were rife that the former director- general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed El-Baradei would change his mind and join the heated race. The rumours became even more widespread after the sudden change of heart by the former director of Egypt's powerful General Intelligence Service, Major- General Omar Suleiman, who decided late last week to stand in the presidential elections, as well as the announcement by the Muslim Brotherhood that it would be presenting its own candidate in the shape of leading Brotherhood figure Khairat El-Shater. However, El-Baradei, whose supporters credit him with sparking the 25 January Revolution and offering the first serious alternative to Mubarak even when the latter was still in office, announced on Monday that he had other plans. A statement issued by El-Baradei's office said that he would soon be forming a new political party, giving it no other name but the "Revolution Party". The statement said that the new party "would aim at bringing Egyptians together and forming the core of a coalition that would include all nationalist forces, such that all Egyptian citizens can recognise themselves in it." El-Baradei had been among the top contenders for the presidency until he announced in mid-January that he was pulling out of the race. Even after his decision to withdraw, his supporters continued to collect signatures backing his candidacy, managing to go beyond the threshold of the 30,000 signatures required by law for an individual to stand as a presidential candidate. Presidential hopefuls can run if they win the support of 30 members of parliament, or are competing on behalf of a political party that has at least one member of parliament. Among the factors fuelling rumours that El-Baradei might change his mind and respond to appeals from his supporters to stand in the elections was the fact that he appeared in public late last month holding up some of the nearly 50,000 official proxies his supporters said they had collected to back his candidacy. However, El-Baradei rejected the appeals and said he would not run for the presidency in the absence of agreement on Egypt's new constitution, charging that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which has been running the country since Mubarak's removal, was not serious in its desire to build democracy. El-Baradei said it made no sense to run for the presidency when there was as yet no new constitution that clearly determined the mandate and powers of the next president. There are few details available on the new Revolution Party El-Baradei now intends to form, aside from the fact that its 100 founding members are all known for their staunch opposition to Mubarak and criticism of the SCAF. They include former leader of Kifaya, or "Enough", Movement, George Ishak, prominent novelist Alaa al-Aswani, economics professor Galal Amin, journalists Ibrahim Eissa and Wael Qandil, law professor Hossameddin Eissa, member of the National Association for Change Ahmed Derag, film director Khaled Youssef, and youth activists who played a key role in the popular revolt against Mubarak 15 months ago, such as Shadi El-Ghazali Harb, Amr Salah, Ahmed Eid and Khaled Teleima. Although the brief statement said that the new party would include "all nationalist forces", Islamist figures were absent from the list of the 100 founding members. Secularist parties in Egypt have been critical of the Muslim Brotherhood for allegedly seeking to take power across the board in Egypt and unilaterally to draft the country's new constitution. The Brotherhood had originally announced that it had no plans to nominate a candidate for the presidency, and had even gone so far as to fire one of its most- popular members, Abdel-Moneim Abul- Fotouh, for insisting on running. As a result, the group's later decision to nominate El-Shater, first deputy of the Brotherhood's Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie, deepened worries among liberal and leftist parties in Egypt, driving them to try to unite their ranks to maintain the secularist nature of the state. Amr Salah, a member of the Revolutionary Youth Coalition and one of the early supporters of El-Baradei, said that the new party aimed at drafting a long-term plan to build true democracy in Egypt and to meet the demands of the 25 January Revolution. "We feel that the current presidential race is not going to get us anywhere, and that soon we might see new elections," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. "That's why we felt we needed to form a party that unites all the forces that believed and participated in the 25 January Revolution, so that we can have strong candidates in any upcoming parliamentary or presidential elections." Mohamed Waked, a member of the National Front for Justice and Democracy that includes mainly leftist parties, said that "frankly speaking, there wasn't a single candidate among the list of 23 who officially applied to run for the presidency who really represented the goals of the 25 January Revolution." That is why "we need to concentrate more on forming a powerful trend in society that supports the revolution in order to be able to confront the candidates of the former regime, or any other group that seeks to monopolise power," Waked added, referring to the Muslim Brotherhood. Waked's National Front for Justice and Democracy had earlier gone as far as to call for a boycott of the presidential elections, which are scheduled for 23 and 24 May. In a news conference held on Monday, the Front, together with representatives of a few other more radical organisations, said that it would start a campaign to clarify why people should not take part in the vote, which they dubbed a "charade administered by the SCAF in order to keep its power and to abort the 25 January Revolution". Some supporters of El-Baradei had earlier sought to convince him to form a coalition with presidential candidates seen as being the closest to the 25 January Revolution, namely former Muslim Brotherhood figure Abdel-Moneim Abul- Fotouh and Nasserist leader Hamdeen Sabahi, the three then forming a so-called "presidential council". However, El-Baradei's office issued a statement on Sunday denying any such plans, which were seen as an attempt to align his supporters behind either Abul- Fotouh or Sabahi. Many observers believe that given the increasing dissatisfaction among wide sectors of the population towards the Muslim Brotherhood after its record of changing stands, as well as the expected fierce campaign against the nomination of former director of General Intelligence Omar Suleiman, things may play in favour of presidential hopeful and former Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa. However, with many sudden changes now taking place, as has been the case over the last week, it remains difficult to predict in which direction the presidential election will go, or whether El-Baradei's new party will make a difference in the already extremely complicated political scene.
