Cairo: Alarmed over the potential creation of a theocracy or a military dictatorship in Egypt, liberals and leftists have launched an umbrella grouping charting a third way.
“This grouping is the last chance to unify advocates of a secular state to prepare for and run in the next municipal, parliamentary and presidential elections on single slates, which will appeal to the public,” George Ishaq, a Coptic liberal activist, said at a ceremony marking the launch of what the founders called the “Third Current”.
The grouping was created following the victory of Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammad Mursi as Egypt’s first elected civilian president.
Mursi, a conservative Islamist, has pledged to be a “president for all Egyptians” and to build a civil, democratic and modern state.
However, liberals are apprehensive that the powerful Muslim Brotherhood will eventually turn the predominantly Muslim country into a theocracy.
“The ‘Third Current’ was established mainly to stand against a religious or military state in Egypt,” said Abdul Gafar Shukri, the head of the Socialist Popular Party. He added that members of the nascent grouping are seeking to build street credibility and join hands to “stop bids to change the identity” of Egypt.
The military, who took over following Hosni Mubarak’s ouster last year, has said it transferred power to the elected president.
Mursi said in his inaugural speech on Saturday that the army would return to its “essential mission” of protecting the national borders and that he has become responsible for all Egyptians, including the military.
Still, a temporary constitution issued by the army commanders in mid-June has granted the military sweeping powers including exclusive oversight of the army’s affairs and the right to veto articles in a permanent constitution being drafted.
Egypt’s former presidents were from the army.
“What the Third Current aims at is to define the way for genuine democracy to overcome the decades-old dispute between theologians and the military,” said ex-liberal lawmaker, Amr Hamzawi, a co-founder of the grouping. “Our real battle now is to secure a sound, inclusive constitution and a full power transfer from the military.”
Losing leftist presidential contenders Hamdeen Sabahi and Khalid Ali have voiced support for the Third Current.
“What is the real shape of the civil state about which Islamists are talking about?” said Nour Farhat, a noted legal expert, and a co-founder of the Third Current. “The civil state we want is that of equal rights and duties. It is the state of public freedoms and non-discrimination. This should be based on unequivocal texts of the constitution and law, not religious interpretations or personal whims,” he added.
The rise of political Islamism in post-Mubarak Egypt has worried the country’s liberals and Christian minority.
