CAIRO - Newly elected MPs from the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) have slammed as a 'political joke' the creation of an 'alternative parliament' by former deputies, who failed to keep their seats in the recent polls, which were allegedly rigged. Egypt's new Parliament convened for the first time on Monday, as about 20 defeated opposition lawmakers of all political leanings announced the formation of their own rogue legislature. "This is a political joke that means these former MPs are politically bankrupt," said Hesham Moustafa Khalil, an MP representing the NDP. "These defeated parliamentarians want to make an impact on society. They were not elected by the people. This should be enough for them to stay away from the political scene," he added. The ruling party clinched control of more than four-fifths of the new Parliament, securing 420 out of 508 seats, while independents garnered 70 seats and the opposition trailed far behind with 14 seats. "I believe this parallel or alternative parliament or whatever it is called will disappear as soon as the People's Assembly start working," said Khalil, the son of the late Moustafa Khalil, who was Egypt's Prime Minister in the late 1970s under late President Anwar el-Sadat. Former MP Moustafa Bakri read a statement on the creation of the ‘People's Parliament' on Monday on the stairs of the State Council Court. This Parliament, according to Bakri, will comprise 118 members, including legislators from the opposition Muslim Brotherhood and the liberal Al-Wafd Party. "The parallel parliament is a Western invention that has failed in the West and will have no echo in Egypt," said Hazem Hammadi, another NDP deputy. A coalition of rights groups which monitored the vote has called for the dissolution of the new Parliament. President Hosni Mubarak has admitted that violations occurred in the election but said they were not serious enough to warrant annulling the new Parliament. Mohamed Heiba, a Shura Council member, said such a kind of parallel entity could lead to societal chaos. "This chaos must be strictly confronted. If the defeated MPs have different opinions, they can express them through the legal channels," Heiba stressed, while Bakri said that the parallel parliament would confront corruption and lead a legal battle against the rigging that marred the polls. Amr el-Shobaki, a political analyst with Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, described the formation of an alternative parliament as a matter of "political despair of reform". "Without questioning its usefulness, the formation of a parallel entity is a gesture that something is wrong with the original entity," el-Shobaki explained, adding that it also questioned the legitimacy of the original entity. Analysts say that the results of the polls have damaged the credibility of the NDP but allowed the party to tighten its grip on Parliament ahead of the 2011 presidential elections. About 200 demonstrators rallied outside the Supreme Court in central Cairo on Sunday to denounce the newly elected Parliament, which, they chanted, was "null and void". George Ishak, a protest organiser and a founder member of Kefaya (Enough) opposition group, said dissidents intended to legally challenge Parliament's legitimacy.
