Egypt's opposition coalition call for fundamental political reforms

Egyptian ppposition parties that do not include the Ikhwan al-Muslimin (Muslim Brothers) and five legal organizations yesterday announced that they will organize a people's gathering in front of Abideen palace on October 22 to hand over the government a patition calling for making fundamental political reforms including direct elections of the president and "ending the emergency law" the country currently lives under.

The assistant secretary general of the coalition ( leftist ) party Hussein Abdul Razzaq said that his party in addition to the parties of al-Wafd, the Naserite, and the banned Communist party, and the Egyptian Organization For Human Rights, the Hisham Mubarak Center For Human Rights, Nadim Center, and others will take part in the coalition. He added that the aim of the coalition is to show support for the "call for political and constitutional reform which was issues by heads of parties in May this year and to hand over a copy of it and a patition to the president."

Abdul Razzaq stressed that it is the first time in which an initiative of this kind is taking place, because of the emergency law which ban such a gathering without a prior license.

The call of heads of parties call for "amending the constitution and limiting presidency to two terms, and changing the way a president is chosen. This means having elections rather than a referendum, canceling the parties committee and ending the emergency lay and changing the trade unions law." On May 28th President Hosni Mubarak gave directives calling for renovating laws pertinent to the political parties and trade unions.