Nour Party Picks Up Islamist Mantle In Egyptian Transition
Having joined the coup against Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, the Salafist Nour Party seek to lead the Islamist current in Egyptian politics.
After the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the College of Commissioners’ decision to dissolve the group, and after the arrest of officials in the group’s guidance office and in its right arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, the Salafist Nour Party has emerged as the representative of Egypt’s Islamist current.
The Nour Party is now seen as a substitute for the Muslim Brotherhood in the negotiations among the existing political forces in the process of establishing new constitutional mechanisms for Egypt.
The Nour Party is the second-largest Islamist party in Egypt. It won the second most seats in parliament after the Freedom and Justice Party. Although Nour had previously rejected the military's roadmap toward a civil state, it recently said that it will participate in the 50-member committee preparing a new constitution and, unlike the Muslim Brotherhood, will form electoral alliances and participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
In an interview with Al-Monitor, Mohammad al-Saghir, a member of the higher committee of the al-Gamaa al-Islamiya’s Building and Development Party, which is part of the National Alliance for Supporting Legitimacy, said the Nour Party is being seen as the face and the sole representative of the Islamist movements in the current political scene not because it is becoming more popular while the Brotherhood is declining, but because it is the only Islamist party that agreed to join those who conducted the coup.
