The first electoral alliance to contest Egypt's upcoming parliamentary elections was formed on Sunday by several political groups, state-run news agency MENA reported.

 

Named the Egyptian Front Coalition, the alliance includes leftist and liberal parties from the era of ousted president Hosni Mubarak – like the Tagamoa Party and the Ghad Party – as well as the Egyptian National Movement Party founded by Mubarak's last prime minister and former 2012 presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq.

 

The coalition also includes the Egypt My Country Front led by prominent former MP Mostafa Bakry as well as other lesser known emerging parties such as the People's Republican Party.

 

The coalition announced in a statement that it will advocate a programme which will oblige its MPs to safeguard social justice and lessen the gap between rural and urban Egypt, eliminate bureaucracy and corruption in all its forms and guarantee transparency and governmental oversight and the rejection of cronyism, reported MENA.

 

Other stated goals include: public freedoms, decentralising Egypt's government to "ease and improve services," ending homelessness, achieving advances in industry, agriculture and technology and solving the problems of handicapped Egyptians and breadwinning mothers, MENA said.

 

Egypt's new parliament – to be named the House of Representatives – will be composed of 567 deputies. Some 75 percent of seats (420) will be elected via the individual candidacy system, with a mere 20 percent (120 seats) reserved for party-based candidates. The remaining five percent (27 seats) will be appointed by the president.

 

The Supreme Electoral Commission has not yet announced the exact date of the parliamentary vote, but political analysts expect it to be held at the end of October.