Egypt’s Islamist Nour Party is looking for Coptic candidates to run on its ticket in the upcoming local elections. It’s not an easy feat, given the high-profile religious controversy surrounding the subject and the party’s huge losses in last year’s parliamentary elections.

Word of Coptic candidates running on the Nour Party list in the parliamentary races did not go unnoticed. In fact, it met with cutting criticism from liberal parties and religious authorities, most prominently Pope Tawadros II, leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. In an October interview on the TV show “Hona al-Asema,” he said, “One cannot espouse two ideologies, and those who do are not honest with themselves. The Coptic candidates on the lists of religious parties lack credibility and are honest neither to Muslims nor to Christians.”

Despite those scathing comments, the Nour Party participated in the October-to-December elections in accordance with parliamentary law, which requires political parties to include seven female candidates and three Copts in the electoral lists for 15 parliamentary seats, and nine females and 21 Copts in the lists for 45 seats.

After the party lost to the For the Love of Egypt alliance, the fate of the Coptic candidates on the Nour list was kept quiet and is still a topic of debate.