CAIRO: Egypt's leftist al-Tagammu` Party announced on Tuesday their official withdrawal from the parliamentary sessions to elect members of the Constituent Assembly tasked to draft Egypt's new constitution, and also announced that the party would boycott any activities related directly or indirectly to the Assembly. The party announced in a statement its rejection of the decision to form the “Constituent Assembly,” and said that the party will “not take part in the process of naming the Constituent Assembly's members next Saturday, both in the nomination, or in the voting process, to elect its members.” The party added that it will boycott the joint parliamentary session of both the People's Assembly and the Shura Council, slated to be held on March 24. The party considered the decision of the majority of the parliament, the Muslim Brotherhood`s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and the ultra-conservative Salafist al-Nour Party, to form the Assembly on the basis of the 50/50 option – allocating 50 percent of spots for MPs of both the People`s Assembly and the Shura Council and 50 percent for public figures and representatives of civil society organizations – “as a flagrant defiance of public opinion and proper democratic logic and constitutional jurisprudence.” The Party questioned how the legislative authority, “which is one of the three main powers of the state, would elect the Constituent Assembly, which will draft the constitution within the next 6 months and would define the jurisdiction of each authority, authorities and relationships to each other to achieve a balance between them.” The party explained that the dominance and monopoly of a single political current such as Islamists in the formation of the Constituent Assembly is a “violation of the conception of consensus amongst all segments of the society, in all of its political, social, class, regional, and generational aspects,” and added that consensus is a “basic condition for the drafting of a democratic constitution, in order to make it able to achieve and ensure stability and continuity.” It also noted that constitutions cannot be drafted by either the majority or the minority of a parliament, “as a majority is changeable, and could turn into the opposition in the future, especially in democratic societies, which witness peaceful transfer of power through the ballot box.” The party called on all political parties and movements defending democracy, justice and the modern civil state to “work together in order to contest the legitimacy of the Constituent Assembly to be formed by the FJP and Nour parties, through all the methods and means of democracy.” BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/6mL4P Tags: Constitution, Egypt, featured, Islamists, Left, Parliament Section: Egypt, Latest News
