MP Essam Sultan of the Wasat party, who has been working as a mediator to resolve the deadlock over the constituent assembly, on Tuesday said the Brotherhood’s nomination of Khairat al-Shater for the presidency was one of the reasons why the negotiations to resolve the crisis failed.
“We were about to reach a solution, but his nomination brought us back to square one,” he said. “Everybody felt the Brotherhood wants to dominate the political scene.”
Negotiations to resolve the crisis took place on Sunday and Monday between members quitting the assembly and representatives of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party.
Mohamed al-Beltagy represented the FJP in negotiating with the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, the Free Egyptians Party, and the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, along with independent MPs.
Beltagy suggested to replace ten Islamist members with liberals, but the rest insisted on restructuring the whole assembly based on specific criteria that ensure a true representation of the whole society.
A number of assembly members representing liberals, in addition to representatives of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Al-Azhar and the Coptic Church had withdrawn from the 100-member assembly. The Islamist-majority Parliament formed the assembly, which is dominated by Islamists.
The withdrawing members expressed their opposition to the makeup of the assembly, which they said did not take into account all segments of Egyptian society.
Translated from Al-Masry Al-Youm
