A leading figure with the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party projected the party winning 55 percent of seats in the House of Representatives during the next elections in April.
Ibrahim Abu Auf of the Freedom and Justice Party told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the party could win “perhaps even more seats, if the party forms coalitions with other political forces.”
Abu Auf's statements echo those of other party officials, underlining the party's confidence of achieving a majority in the next Parliament.
The FJP emerged as the strongest political party in the country after the 25 January revolution overthrew longtime President Hosni Mubarak and his National Democratic Party. Founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, the FJP won around 42 percent of the seats in the lower house of Parliament, the now-dissolved, People's Assembly, in the first elections after the revolution.
However, some commentators say that the party will face a stiff challenge in the next elections from both secular and ultra conservative Salafi parties.
The main secular coalition force, the National Salvation Front, said that they will run for elections with a unified electoral coalition. And on the Salafi side, former Nour Party head Emad Abdel Ghafour's new Al-Watan Party has forged an alliance with popular preacher and former presidential candidate Hazem Saleh Abu Ismail.
However, Abu Auf said that such changes in the political landscape ahead of parliamentary elections are not a source of concern for the FJP.
"We have three times more candidates than needed,” he said, adding that voters will not be swayed by other parties attempts to tarnish the image of the Brotherhood.
