CKUT Voices from Egypt - Interview with Ola Shahba re: the Revolution Continues Alliance by Lillian Boctor

As the second stage of the Egyptian Parliament’s Peoples Assembly elections are set to take place on December 14 and 15th, el Thawra Mostamera, or the Revolution Continues Alliance, representing the demands and vision of the Egyptian revolutionary movement, is campaigning and reaching out to the Egyptian public. In the first stage of the People’s Assembly elections the Alliance suspended their campaigning more than a week before the vote, to be present in Tahrir Square as the military and security forces were attacking protesters calling for the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to step down. Despite the fact that they stopped campaigning the week before elections, their lack of financial resource and the newness of most of the parties in the Alliance, they succeeded in obtaining 335, 947 votes and ranked sixth place in nine governorates. The Revolution Continues Alliance is made up of the Popular Socialist Alliance Party, the Egyptian Socialist Party, the Egyptian Current Party, the Egypt Freedom Party, the Equality and Development Party, the Revolution Youth Coalition, and the Egyptian Alliance Party. Ola Shahba is one of the founders of the Popular Socialist Alliance Party and of the Revolution Continues Alliance. I spoke with her by phone from Cairo on 5 December 2011 about the Revolution Continues Alliance performance in the first phase of the People Assembly elections, the next steps for the Alliance, the debates happening in Tahrir and her experience in Tahrir Square and Mohamed Mahmoud Street during the military and security police’s violent attacks on protesters. This interview was first broadcast on 6 December 2011 on Montreal radio CKUT 90.3, on the Tuesday Morning After, as part of the ongoing Voices from Egypt series.