Article
Supporters of democracy within and outside the continent should track these four patterns in the coming year.
Saskia Brechenmacher, Frances Z. Brown
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Source: Getty
Other
Wasat Party
A backgrounder on the Wasat Party.
Published on Sep 16, 2010
This resource was published on 09/16/2010 and is not updated to reflect changing circumstances.
Al-Wasat, as its name indicates, is a moderate Islamist party, originally a spin-off from the Muslim Brotherhood that was finally allowed to register in 2011 after fifteen years of unsuccessful efforts. It was first a member of the Democratic Alliance, but left on October 2, 2011. The party was in talks to join the Third Way Alliance and the Islamist Alliance but decided to compete in the 2011-2012 parliamentary elections on an unaffiliated independent list.
Major Party Figures
Abu al-‘Ila Madi: Founder and president
Essam Sultan: Leading party member
Salah ‘Abd al-Karim: Leading party member and member of the party’s political bureau
Background
Al-Wasat was founded in 1996 when several young but well-respected members of the Muslim Brotherhood broke away from the organization to form a political party. Abu al-‘Ila Madi took charge of the newly formed party and was assisted by fellow Brotherhood defectors Salah ‘Abd al-Karim and Essam Sultan. The party’s religious ideology is drawn from the Wasatiyya (Centrist) school of thought, a liberal interpretive tradition in Islamic thinking that is firmly anchored in Islamic law but seeks to interpret its principles in a manner consistent with the values of a liberal democratic system.
The party immediately ran into trouble with both the government and the Muslim Brotherhood. The founders were accused by the Mubarak regime of setting up a front for the banned Muslim Brotherhood, while the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood promptly expelled all members who joined the new organization. Al-Wasat applied for legal party status in 1996, 1998, 2004, and 2009, but their applications were denied for a variety of reasons until the 2011 uprising. Despite its lack of legal status during that period, al-Wasat sought to cooperate with other parties and organizations in efforts to bring about political reform.
Platform
Political Issues
- Guaranteeing equal citizenship rights to all Egyptians, regardless of religion, sex, race, status, or wealth
- Abolishing all emergency laws and special courts, and limiting the scope of such laws to actual catastrophes
- Imposing term limits on the presidency and reducing the powers of the executive branch
- Supporting free elections and allowing a peaceful transfer of power
- Ensuring the right to form political parties, associations, and all civil society institutions
- Promoting transparency and accountability in government
Socioeconomic Issues
- Alleviating hardship for the lower and middle classes
- Controlling inflation
- Achieving higher, balanced growth rates in all sectors of the economy to satisfy the basic needs of the population
- Supporting investment in the private sector
- Encouraging communities to fight poverty through local development projects and zakat (alms) institutions
- Reaffirming the social and moral characteristics of Arab-Islamic civilization
- Introducing comprehensive educational reforms and combating illiteracy
- Providing universal health insurance to all Egyptians and improving the quality of public hospitals
Foreign Policy Issues
- Prioritizing relationships with Sudan and Nile Basin countries
- Supporting efforts to resolve the Palestinian question
- Encouraging cooperation between Arab countries in military, political, economic, and cultural affairs
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
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