Secretary General of the Constitution Party Emad Abu Ghazi said that statements made by party founder Mohamed ElBaradei on Monday on former National Democratic Party members have been distorted and taken out of context.
Abu Ghazi argued that the Constitution Party's position on how the now-dissolved NDP spoiled political life in Egypt for many years is consistent and clear.
ElBaradei has been quoted as calling for national reconciliation with former NDP members during a conference in Aswan on Monday.
“Three million former NDP members cannot all be wronged through exclusion [from political life],” ElBaradei said in an earlier statement.
The Constitution Party was granted license by the Egyptian authorities in mid-September. ElBaradei, former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Nobel Prize winner, was one of the party's main founders. Several political parties have announced merging with the party.
The NDP was disbanded in 2011 by court order. The NDP was led by ousted President Hosni Mubarak for about thirty years before a popular uprising in January 2011 that toppled him.
Abu Ghazi said in a press release Tuesday that the Constitution Party would never ally with NDP leaders or with its former MPs.
But at the same time, Abu Ghazi said, “We must search for a suitable and fair form of reconciliation with national parties.” He pointed to countries such as South Africa that have gone through experiences of democratic transformation and reconciliation.
It is not in the national interest to exclude millions who joined the NDP, during different stages, who were not involved in corrupting political life, Abu Ghazi added.
“We have to work on involving them in the political process and to hold our out hands to them as being Egyptians who may have strayed under an oppressive regime that was been ruling the country for decades,” he said.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
