Constitution allows Moussa’s proposal on merging parties: expert

CAIRO – 9 April 2018: The Egyptian constitution does not ban merging political parties of similar programs, constitutional expert Salah Fawzy said Sunday April 8, after former presidential candidate Moussa Mostafa Moussa proposed the idea.

However, Fawzy told Egypt Today that the laws regulating parties, the Parliament and its statute should be comprehensively reviewed. He added that the law did not tackle merging parties but did not ban it. Regulatory issues should be considered in such process, he continued.

He especially noted article 110 of the constitution, which explains how a member of Parliament may be stripped of his legislative seat if he lost confidence of the Parliament or if two thirds of its members rejected him as a lawmaker.

Moussa announced on Saturday that his Al-Ghad party is seeking to create a multi-party alliance under the name of “Entity of Egypt” to push a candidate for the 2022 presidential election.

“The purpose of merging all political parties is to expand the circle of political work… and to create real governmental leaders to run for the 2022 presidential election,” Moussa told Egypt Today.

The 66-year-old engineer said Al-Ghad party will contact Al-Wafd, Free Egyptians, and other parties to create the alliance, adding that all religious parties will be excluded. Moussa also noted that the new alliance will be run by a council of all parties’ heads.

Multi-party candidacy for the presidential election was first applied in Egypt in 2005, when former President Hosni Mubarak conducted amendments to the constitution. In 2005, Mubarak won the election when he amassed more than 88 percent against former Al-Ghad chairperson Ayman Nour and former chairperson of Al-Wafd party Numaan Gomaa.

In a press conference on April 2, Moussa said he will run for Egypt’s 2022 presidential election after he confessed that defeating President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi in the election was impossible. Any rival facing Sisi in the presidential race would have obtained a small percentage of the vote, he said.

In the 2018 presidential election, Moussa received 656,534 votes, making up only 2.9 percent of the valid ballots, while President Sisi obtained 97.08 percent of valid votes – more than 21.8 million votes.

According to law, Sisi would not have the possibility to run for a third term, unless a proposed amendment is put before a popular referendum.