Former presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq said that former vice-president Mohamed ElBaradei was "on a mission to divide Egypt" on Wednesday night. In a phone call with Studio El Balad talk show on Sada El Balad (The Country's Echo) TV channel, he said that ElBaradei's current visit to Russia is personal, but may "serve other goals that he did not wish to disclose." Shafiq said that he does not know if he would nominate himself for the presidency, and that such a decision would depend on "conditions and changes happening rapidly in Egypt." He accused Judge Tarek El Beshry's committee (responsible for constitutional amendments of March 2011) of helping the Muslim Brotherhood to "reign over Egypt," urging that the same course should not be taken during the current transitional phase. Shafiq said he hoped that the parliamentary elections would be held after at least one year, to guarantee a "reasonable" result, and to "get rid of the Brotherhood's influence on the poor and ignorant". Shafiq, a former aviation minister who was appointed prime minister by former president Hosni Mubarak on 28 January 2011, said that the current constitutional amendments might result in a " new constitution". He thanked Arab nations, especially Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, for their recent support to Egypt. Shafiq, who left the country following former president Morsi's victory in 2012 presidential elections by a slim margin, refused to disclose the timing of his return to Egypt. "If the Brotherhood incited chaos and killings during my reign if I were president, I would make them return to prisons," he said.
