A coalition of tribal chiefs and Copts in Qena has announced it will back Ahmed Shafiq in the runoff election slated for mid-June and called on tribal and village chiefs to mobilize voters against Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsy.
The coalition held a meeting Wednesday attended by leaders of the now-disbanded National Democratic Party in Qena and Luxor, most notably Abdel Rehim al-Ghoul, Ahmed al-Gabalawy, Major General Khaled Khalafallah, Mubarak Abu Haggag, Abul Hassan al-Gazar, Hamada al-Emary, Faisal Abdel Rahman, and Freedom Party MPs Hesham al-Sheainy and Hussein Fayez Abul Wafa. Chiefs from the Hawara and Ashraf tribes also attended the meeting.
Gabalawy called the Muslim Brothers “murderers” and said “betrayal is part of their nature,” alleging that they "have achieved nothing through their parliamentary majority." He claimed the Brotherhood seeks the presidency to take revenge on the police, not to improve the state.
"I am the biggest feloul in Qena," Gabalawy added. Feloul is commonly used to refer to remnants of the Mubarak regime.
He said the coalition meeting was not only to back Shafiq, but all of Egypt. He said Shafiq is the right person to save Egypt because he has the qualities the country needs in a leader.
Former MP Hamdy Abu Qorai said he trusts Shafiq to lead Egypt out of its deadlock.
“The Brotherhood just talks, but never acts,” he said, adding that the Brotherhood forgot its original message for a unified Muslim community and began to seek power.
Ghoul called on those who voted for Amr Moussa in the first-round presidential vote to choose Shafiq in the runoff for “the sake of schools, universities, essential services and infrastructure."
He assured voters that the former minister “has no intention to get revenge and he intends to reform and build the new Egypt."
Ghoul also called on revolutionary coalitions and Hamdeen Sabbahi, who finished third in the first round of the race, to support Shafiq.
Sheainy described Shafiq as "the life saver for Egypt and its people," noting that Qena's tribes are unifying for the first time to support the candidate.
"[Shafiq's] success would not [only] be for Shafiq, it is for the history of Upper Egyptian families and tribes," he said.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
