Manpower Minister Kamal Abu Eita has declared his resignation from Karama Party in protest against what he described as “state of confusion in managing the parliamentary elections issue as well as the disruption since the end of presidential election and presence of members of the disbanded National Democratic Party within the Egypt’s Awakening list which the party joined.”
Speaking to Al-Masry Al-Youm, Abu Eita said, “the party has no more been run by one person when it comes to elections. Every person now has an opinion. I tried to fix the situations through different ways, but I couldn’t due to absence of the real desire of reform.”
The minister, who is a former MP, confirmed he will not run for elections either the single-winner or list-based seats.
He also slammed the Democratic Civil Union’s list (Egypt’s Awakening) due to presence of NDP members in it indicating Ahmed Abdel Zaher, head of the temporary administrative committee of Egyptian Trade Union Federation and former NDP member
“All electoral lists seek including NDP candidates. Personally, I will fight Mostafa Abdel Galil’s list (Egypt’s Awakening) until it falls in elections. If the democratic current ran for elections for single-winner seats, it wouldn’t get any seats, thus it joined Abdel Galil’s alliance.”
“Political scene is fragmented. Any alliance is worse than the other. If the situation continued like this, we will have the same scene of 2010 parliament,” he added.
Meanwhile, Mohamed Bassiouny, secretary general of the party, said they were surprised by the resignation by media, adding he did not submit a written resignation so far in order to consider its reasons and decided whether to accept or refuse it.
Bassiouny told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the party is part of the Democratic Civil Union which includes five political parties as well as independent figures. It also joined the Egypt’s Awakening alliance. Including or excluding candidates is up to voting by members of the alliance. He denied that Abdel Zaher is member of the list.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
