CKUT Voices from Egypt - Interview with Islam Lotfy, co-chair of the Egyptian Current Party by Lillian Boctor

On 28 November 2011, Egyptians within the country and abroad will be voting in the first Parliamentary elections since the Revolution began and since Hosni Mubarak stepped down. This is the election for the People's Assembly, or the Lower House, and the Upper House elections will take place in January 2012. Political parties have developed several coalitions in an effort to consolidate their candidates and votes. Currently there are four main coalitions: the secular Egyptian Bloc, the Islamist Alliance, the Muslim Brotherhood-led Democratic Alliance and the Revolution Continues Alliance, which includes leftist, social justice and Islamic democratic parties and opposes the secular / religious paradigm. The Revolution Continues Alliance is also against the fielding of candidates from Mubarak’s now-defunct party, the National Democratic Party, by the other coalitions. The Revolution Continues Alliance includes the Popular Socialist Alliance Party, the Egyptian Current Party, the Revolutionary Youth Coalition, the Egyptian Socialist Party, the Egyptian Alliance Party and the Equality and Development Party. Half of the Revolution Continues Alliance candidates running in the parliamentary elections are youth under 40, and the coalition includes a significant number of women and Copts as candidates.

Islam Lotfy is the co-chairman of Egyptian Current party, one of the founding members of the Revolution Continues Alliance and one of the candidates for the Egyptian Parliament, representing the Egyptian Current Party and the Revolutionary Youth Coalition. He has been one of the leading youth activists in the Egyptian Revolution and was also an active member of the Muslim Brotherhood, until the group dismissed him. The Brotherhood dismissed members under the justification that they were forming new parties and were not joining the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party, the Freedom and Justice Party. Islam Lotfy believes it was because of a difference in vision. Lillian Boctor spoke with him by phone from Cairo on 14 November 2011 about the Revolution Continues Alliance, the Egyptian Current Party, the secular-religious divide and the upcoming elections. The interview was broadcast on November 15, 2011 on CKUT 90.3, on The Tuesday Morning After.