Acting chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party Essam al-Erian said Saturday that the party would field candidates for all Parliament seats in the next elections.
In a phone call with Mehwar satellite channel, Erian said that the FJP has the right to compete for all seats. He said the party leaders are also considering coordinating with other political parties for the elections.
Erian demanded a mixed electoral system to be adopted for the next elections, combining both lists of candidates and individual candidates.
Erian told media presenter Amr al-Leithy that independent runners would be the FJP’s strongest competitors. He said that Egypt does not yet have a strong opposition to the Brotherhood’s party.
An FJP-led coalition won nearly 47 percent of seats in Egypt’s lower house, the People’s Assembly, in the first parliamentary polls after the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.
But a ruling by the Supreme Constitutional Court in June dissolved the assembly over the unconstitutionality of its electoral law, which allowed party members to run as independents for individual seats.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
