CAIRO (Updated) - With political life in Egypt taking a new turn, the Muslim Brotherhood, a well-organised movement which was banned for many years by the former regime, announced the formation of a new party and pledged to contest nearly half of the seats in the next parliamentary elections. After a two-day meeting of the group's Guidance Bureau to discuss the establishment of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, the group's officials told a press conference Saturday they had endorsed the party's manifesto. Mahmoud Hussein, the group's secretary-general, said that the Freedom and Justice Party, to be headed by the group's spokesman Mohamed Morsi, would be "independent of the Brotherhood but will co-ordinate with it". The Brotherhood's candidates ran as independents in previous elections to circumvent a ban on the group in place since 1954. They were subject to a police crackdown, because of this. "The party is entitled to contest only between 45 and 50 per cent of seats in the forthcoming election in September," Hussein said during the conference, which followed meetings of the Brotherhood's Shura Council. The meeting was their first in public in 16 years, as State Security used to crack down on their members for being affiliated to a banned group. Hussein said that the group would not field a candidate for the presidential elections, something they have said before. "The group will not run a candidate for the presidency; nor it will support any of their members who run in the presidential vote," he stressed. The Brotherhood won a fifth of the seats in the parliamentary elections in 2005, but no seats at all in the following parliamentary elections last November, which were widely seen as rigged in favour of the formerly ruling National Democratic Party. The Brotherhood have sought to allay suspicions fears about an Islamist parliamentary majority, saying that they will be willing to co-operate with secular groups in forthcoming elections, while pledging not to field a presidential candidate next November, as mentioned above. Morsi, the party's head, said during the conference that this public meeting of the Brotherhood's Shura Council reflects Egypt's new era of freedom, pledging it will not be a ‘theocratic' party. "It is not an Islamist party in the old understanding, as it is not theocratic," added Morsi, whose deputy will be Essam el-Erian, while Saad el-Katatni has been appointed secretary-general of the party. El-Katatni, a former lawmaker, told The Egyptian Gazette that the group has decided to contest 50 per cent of the parliamentary seats because they respect the principle, ‘Participation not domination'. "However, there could be a unified list of candidates, in co-ordination with other political parties," added el-Katatni, suggesting the group could form alliances with some other parties to win a majority in Parliament. However, he gave no explanation to why the group have now decided to contest 50 per cent of the seats, when they previously said they'd only contest 35 per cent. "The group's Shura Council have decided on 50 per cent," el-Katatni said. Egypt's Constitution bans parties based on religion, class or regionalism.
