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Sat, Feb 19, 2011 | Kayhan | AP

Homepage of Al-Wasat Party Web Site (alwasatparty.com)

Egypt Licenses First Moderate Islamic Party

An Egyptian court has licensed a moderate Islamic party Saturday after its application for legal status was turned down four times by the former Egyptian government led by Hosni Mubarak.

Abu al-Ila Madi, the founder of Al-Wasat Al-Jadid (the New Center) said that the Supreme Administrative Court has licensed the party Saturday after approving its latest appeal. Its attempts to register as an official party were rejected four times, in January 1996, May 1998, May 2004 and most recently in 2009. On all occasions the government turned them down.

Madi said Saturday the ruling was “a positive fruit of the Jan. 25 revolution of the freedom generation.” Three weeks of protests in the heart of Cairo (Tahrir Square) and across the country forced the country’s long serving president, Hosni Mubarak, to step down after ruling the country for 30 years.

The party was founded in 1996 by young activists who split off from the Islamist conservative Muslim Brotherhood and sought to create a political movement promoting a more tolerant version of Islam and Shariah with liberal and democratic tendencies.

Madi has said during an interview in 2004 that “we are an idea that is democratic, national, and Islamic. We fuse those three elements … We have developed a lot in this respect, and we now have a very clear position: equality of rights between Muslims and non-Muslims, equality between men and women, embracing democracy.”

Madi said his party would immediately get to work organizing its membership and opening branches to freely participate in Egypt’s political life. He recently said in een interview he gave to Reuters that “parliamentary elections need time so that there is a chance for all parties to reform themselves, to rebuild.”

Seeking to prove Al-Wasat Al-Jadid’s more moderate position, Madi said two Coptic Christians and three women were among the party’s 24 top members. The Party’s platform is based on the principles of Islamic Shariah, but embraces a more modern view of Islam and its role in society. In contrast with the Muslim Brotherhood Madi’s Al-Wasat Party would support a Coptic Christian or a woman as president where as the Muslim Brotherhood has not yet formulated a cogent ideology when it comes to democracy or the role of women and Copts. Until now the Muslim Brotherhood has rejected the idea of a Coptic Christian or woman as next president of Egypt.

“We will cooperate with all political powers, secular or democratic, to develop the democratic process,” Madi said.