Political groups have hit out at a decision by Egypt’s upper house to remove religious slogans from a list of prohibited electoral campaign practices, with one Salafi leader calling it a sign of “political bankruptcy.”
“I feel we are experiencing an era of political bankruptcy, slogans will not work anymore”, said Yousry Hammad, deputy chairman of the Salafi Watan Party, on his Facebook page late Tuesday. “Is it an attempt to attract attention and restore a popularity shaken over the past months?”
Hammad added that politicians were at fault for failing to recognize people’s needs, saying “[empty] slogans will not work anymore; people are beholding all [politicians] with suspicious eyes.”
The Shura Council’s Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee gave initial approval Sunday for the removal of a paragraph from the draft election law for the House of Representatives which forbids the use of religious slogans in campaigns. The law now only prohibits political campaigning on the basis of gender, origin or religion.
The majority of the Shura Council’s members are from the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. Under the 2011 parliamentary elections law, the Brotherhood’s slogan “Islam is the solution” was forbidden.
Other parties also joined Hammad in criticizing the Shura Council’s move.
“Interpolating religious slogans in an electoral race is unacceptable”, Strong Egypt party chairman Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh said Wednesday on his Twitter account. “Islam cannot be used as a tool to collect votes.”
Meanwhile, Adl Party chairman Mostafa al-Naggar said the amendment might render the the law unconstitutional as it comes at odds with constitutional principles and endangers national unity.
“The Shura Council has failed to issue a constitutional election law and had caused elections to be delayed. Instead of correcting its mistakes, the council keeps stunning us with more failures,” Naggar tweeted.
