CAIRO: At a press conference Tuesday, the secretary general of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) told Daily News Egypt the among the candidates running with the Democratic Alliance list are 76 women and two Copts in the Downtown constituency for both the People's Assembly and Shoura Council elections. On the low number of Copts fielded by the Democratic Alliance, Saad El-Katatny said that Copts they had invited “decided to join other parties”. Some of the women candidates, who all belong to the FJP, were positioned on the top half, while others were placed on the bottom half of the party list. "We aimed to field at least 25-30 women from the FJP at the top of the lists," he said. The Democratic Alliance fielded candidates in all constituencies, including 46 constituencies in the closed-party lists for the PA seats, as well as 83 candidates contesting the individual seats. The exact number of candidates fielded by the alliance will be announced within days. El-Katatny said there were changes made to the lists recently, and the alliance is still compiling the lists from other governorates. The Social Peace Party withdrew from the alliance during a meeting before the press conference, accusing the FJP, of dominating the lists. The statement issued by the Social Peace Party added that the FJP, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, was holding on to the group's slogan "Islam is the solution." However, El-Katatny said they have replaced their slogan with a new one: "For the good of Egypt." This was done to accommodate the political programs of all member parties, which now total nine including the FJP, Al-Karama, the Revolutionary Ghad and the Labor Party. "We still maintain that ‘Islam is the solution,' is in line with Article 2 of the Egyptian constitution and the Brotherhood group will still hold on to it," he said. El-Katatny defended the FJP against accusations from the Social Peace Party and others who have withdrawn from the alliance. "All the parties' candidates wanted to be fielded on top of the list, including only professionals and men without presenting any farmers and workers or women," he said. The second half of the lists presented mostly by the alliance included only the Freedom and Justice Party, although that diminished their chances of winning the elections. The first third of the lists includes only around 45 percent from the FJP. "We had to add our candidates in the second half of the lists to complete the legal forms," he said. At least one woman must be included on each list presented by the parties and half must be farmers and workers, according to the recent ammendments to the PA and Shoura Council laws. Responding to speculation that the Islamists might hold a majority in parliament, as is the case in Tunisia, El-Katatny said, "Islamic movements and all factions will not exceed 50 percent of parliament." Concerns have also been raised regarding the wide particpation of members affiliated with the dissolved National Democratic Party in the upcoming parliamentary elections slated for Nov. 28, amid the absence of a political exclusion law. However, El-Katatny speculated that a small percentage of the memebrs affiliated with the NDP would join, adding that the people will ostracize ex-NDP members and prevent them from entering parliament. "Only small numbers of NDP members who have family allegiances in [isolated] villages with no prominent political activity will be able to win seats," he said.
