Cairo, May 01: Egypt’s former opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, is forming a new political party to participate in the upcoming Parliamentary elections.
The group’s Consultative Council has announced the formation of Freedom and Justice Party.
The party will operate independently from the Brotherhood, but in coordination with the group, and it will contest up to half of the parliamentary seats in the September elections.
According to a statement released by the council, the new party will be headed by Mohammed al-Mursi, a member of the Brotherhood’s politburo.
The council has stressed that the group’s new party will not be theocratic.
The council expects women and people of different faiths to join the Freedom and Justice party.
The Egyptian constitution forbids parties based on religion, class or regionalism.
Independent Muslim Brotherhood candidates won nearly one-fifth of the People’s Assembly seats in the 2005 general elections.
The developments come two months after a popular revolution ousted former dictator Hosni Mubarak.
Under the US-backed Mubarak regime, Egypt consistently served Israeli interests and objectives by helping to impose a crippling blockade on the impoverished Gaza strip after the democratically elected Hamas government took control of the territory in 2007.
The crippling blockade on the territory has triggered a humanitarian crisis.
The Muslim Brotherhood has recently demanded that the country’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces take immediate measures in breaking the siege of Gaza.
Egypt’s political parties say the Gaza blockade serves American and Israeli objectives in the region and threatens regional stability and independence.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil al-Arabi has recently said Cairo was preparing to permanently open the Rafah border crossing in a move that would allow people and goods to enter and exit the Gaza Strip.
An Israeli attack on Gaza in 2009 killed over 1,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians, including countless women and children.
——–Agencies