Prominent presidential hopeful Mohamed ElBaradei on Tuesday renewed warnings that a "revolution of the hungry" could occur in Egypt if the country remained unstable. ElBaradei’s words came during an interview with Tunisia’s Al-Shorouk Daily.
Nine months after the 25 January revolution first began, Egypt’s old constitution is still ruling the country, noted ElBaradei, adding that the country suffers from a fabricated, unjustified polarization between civil and religious forces.
He said that Deputy Prime Minister Ali al-Selmy’s constitutional principles’ document comes at a time that Egyptian society is consumed by fear that it will not be fully represented in the new constitution.
“We didn’t adopt the right path during the transition period,” he said. There are two issues that the Egyptian people are wary of, namely the state’s civil nature and the role of religion in the political system, he added. ElBaradei expects that Selmy will amend the document to contain the emerging crisis.
“I’m not surprised that the Tunisian Nahda Party won a majority in the constituent council, and I think Islamic parties in Egypt will get a good percentage of seats in parliament,” he said.
“We have to define what type of Islam we’re talking about, the Islam of bin Laden, Sheikha Housnia… or Erdogan?”
“We’ve mismanaged so many issues that we’ve become enemies of ourselves,” he added.
