Political forces have differed on whether to participate in the 28 November parliamentary elections, for which potential candidates have a week – starting from Wednesday – to put forward their applications.
The Democratic Coalition, which consists of more than 40 political parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, a number of Salafi parties and 15 liberal parties, said it would not submit its applications before Sunday, as its candidacy lists have not yet been completed.
Twenty-five other parties in the coalition threatened to withdraw from the elections, accusing the Brotherhood of trying to impose its list on the rest of the candidates.
Nabil Zaki, a leading figure of the Tagammu Party, said his party would include members of the Revolution Youth Union on its list.
However, the union said it would not field candidates in the elections, in protest against the military council not changing the law to prevent remnants of the defunct National Democratic Party from competing for single-winner seats.
The elections law released by the ruling military council on 25 September allocates two thirds of parliamentary seats to list-based candidacies, and one third to the single-winner system, as opposed to the previous equal allocation to the two systems, an arrangement which drew criticism from political forces.
Translated from the Arabic Edition
