Al-Sayed al-Badawi, head of the Wafd opposition party, said on a popular talk show on Monday that he would not run in upcoming parliamentary or presidential elections, stressing that his primary objective was to return the party "to its former glory." He also reaffirmed the Wafd Party's ability to compete with the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) of President Hosni Mubarak, denying rumors that a deal had been struck with the NDP in return for seats in parliament. “We decided to field a large number of candidates in the parliamentary elections,” he said, noting that this had been the wish of the majority of Wafd members--56.7 percent--at the party's last general assembly. “Personally, I'm against boycotting elections,” he added. “Even though the government has failed to provide the guarantees we requested for free and fair elections.” Al-Badawi went on to note that his party had recently established a special unit to supervise elections. “This unit is funded by certain businessmen within the party,” he explained. “We will participate in elections in order to publicly expose the vote-rigging that will take place,” he said, calling on the citizenry, civil society and electoral candidates themselves to ensure fair elections. “If the presidential elections are fair, we can win, since we are a hugely popular party,” said al-Badawi, contending that his party faced competition from both the NDP and "certain opposition movements," but not from official opposition parties. “Our main competitors are the NDP and the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said. “The ruling party will not relinquish its seats in parliament, which means that all other parties will vie for 120 seats out of the 455-seat assembly,” he nioted, adding that his party had recently conducted research aimed at assessing its popularity on the Egyptian street. Al-Badawi went on to assert that he had kept all the promises included in his electoral program within the first three months of his term as party chief. “And the general assembly has approved all the proposals that I submitted to it," he said. “This is what political parties in the free world do,” he concluded. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
