A military source denied on Tuesday that Sami Anan, deputy head of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), has been communicating with the head of the Salafi-led Nour Party, Emad Abdel Ghafour, to discuss how the new government will be formed after the parliamentary elections. Ghafour had said to private Al-Nahar TV that Anan told him in a phone call that the parliamentary majority will form the new government. The military source, who asked to remain anonymous, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that this was not true. In the first phase of Egypt's parliamentary elections the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party won the most votes, followed by the Nour Party and then the Egyptian Bloc. Last Thursday the Freedom and Justice Party dubbed as “premature” its own previous statement that it would form the new government if it won a parliamentary majority. Mamdouh Shaheen, a SCAF member, said on 26 November that the next parliament will not have the power to take a vote of no confidence against the government, oust it, or choose its members.
