CAIRO, 2 July 2005 — The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition group, has joined forces with Socialists and liberals to press for political freedoms in Egypt. The opposition National Alliance for Reform and Change agreed at its first meeting late on Thursday to hold a protest in support of an independent judiciary in mid-July, deputy Brotherhood leader Mohamed Habib told Reuters.
The liberal Wafd and Ghad parties, Socialists, independent members of Parliament, intellectuals and members of the Kefaya (enough) protest movement all attended the meeting called by the banned but tolerated Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.
“We must strive for the establishment of a real democratic system which recognizes political diversity,” Habib told the meeting. “All active forces must be rallied ... in addition to political and intellectual figures.”
The leftist Tagammu Party and Arab nationalist Nasserite Party did not attend. Egypt will hold its first multi-candidate presidential election this year. But opposition groups say restrictions on who can stand mean the vote will be no better than the old system of referendums on a single candidate.
President Hosni Mubarak, 77, is expected to seek a fifth six-year term in the September vote. The opposition says Mubarak’s government, which has faced US calls to allow more political freedoms, is not serious about opening up politics to real competition. Small street protests by Kefaya and leftist groups have directed unprecedented criticism at Mubarak this year.
The authorities have mainly allowed the demonstrations to go ahead. But in May they detained hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood activists in countrywide protests for reform. The Brotherhood advocates a state based on Islamic law, but says its priorities are democracy, pluralism and economic development.
