Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, during a conference of the Islamist Nation Alliance, called on the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafi Nour Party to join the alliance so that the Egypt’s Islamist is unified.
Abu Ismail has recently founded the Raya Party, which translates into flag, through which he hopes to attract the support that developed around his candidacy for the presidential elections before he was disqualified from the race because his mother had American citizenship.
In the conference, Abu Ismail focused his criticisms on the United States and how it is seeking to dictate Egypt's economic path.
“The current economic policies follow the United States of America. We will form popular pressure for to change those policies against their will,” Abu Ismail said.
“I do not agree with the existing policies, because they are affected by and subject to outsider pressures: world powers, and insider pressures: fronts and demonstrations,” he went on to say.
He promised honesty and clarity in the upcoming period, saying the alliance cannot expect the nation’s support unless they make it clear that the alliance is made up of people of honesty, sincerity and integrity.
Referring to the case of the bearded police personnel, Abu Ismail said, “they have acquired a court ruling, and the head of the state and ministers are bearded, so be reassured. These people will be with you tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. We are not in the margins.”
In March 2012, then interior minister demoted 17 police officers for growing their beards in violation of ministry rules. The officers alleged dozens of other policemen had been suspended for the same reason and the group filed a lawsuit challenging the decision.
The Nation Alliance includes seven parties, Raya, New Labor Party, Islah, the Islamic Party, Tagheer, Fadila, and Shaab parties.
The conference saw participation by a number of symbols and leaders of Islamist forces. They rejected the calls for the army to participate again in political life, saying this would be a “coup against legitimacy.” Several of them also criticized the secular opposition
“Those who call for the return of the armed forces [to political life] do that because they have no credibility on the street, head of the Fadila Party Mahmoud Fathi said. “They would demolish the only institution through a military coup, which would meet with a people’s coup against them. Demanding the fall of the Islamists is no easy thing,” he added.
Adel Afifi, a senior member of the Salafi Asala Party accused the National Salvation Front of “giving political cover to criminals by casting them as revolutionaries.” He also accused the media of being “the media of the Antichrist.”
Hesham Kamal, the secretary of the Salaf People's Party, claimed that there are “conspiracies against the Islamist project.” He called the masses to besiege the national security building, which “leads the conspiracies in the country.”
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
