This Sunday, Egypt’s Interim President Adly Monsour confirmed that the upcoming elections will decide Egypt’s next president.
According to Associated Press, the head of the conservative Islamist Salafi party, Younes Makhyoun, said that the presidential elections will occur before the parliamentary elections because of the people’s need.
“We must now think of the future,” Makhyoun said. “The declared goal is that the people now need a president more than a parliament to have the leadership necessary to achieve stability.”
One of the candidates to run is Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who led the coup that ousted President Mohammed Morsi in July. Reuters said that members of Sissi’s rival, the liberal Muslim Brotherhood, have been removed from politics. Police say that this brotherhood had committed acts of terrorism against the state.
Reuters credits this early election to acts of violence that erupted this year. This Friday, the Cairo Security Directorate was bombed by a possible suicide bomber. Recently, 11 people were killed between Morsi supporters and security forces, erupting in Cairo and several other cities.
Even in December, violence erupted when the Sinai-based Islamist militant group, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, bombed a Nile Delta police compound, killing 16 and wounding about 140.
Reuters said that ever since a 2011 coup that ousted President Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian people have been fighting for democracy.
“We don’t need a president to do everything alone,” said Makhyoun. “We want to establish the principle of a country of institutions, and not a president that works on his own.”
Photo Courtesy of WikiMedia Commons
Above: photo shows protesters holding a sign of the ousted President Morsi.