Tamarod movement to turn into a political party after presidential elections

Ahram Online , Tuesday 29 Apr 2014

Tamarod movement's co-founder, Mahmoud Badr, announces Tamarod's plans to form a political party

 Mahmoud Badr and Hassan Shahin
Tamarod leaders, Mahmoud Badr and Hassan Shahin (Photo: Official Facebook Page)

The Tamarod or the "Rebel" movement co-founder, Mahmoud Badr announced on Monday that the movement was going to transition into a political party after the upcoming presidential elections.

Badr's announcement was made during the celebration of the first anniversary of founding of the youth movement which played a critical role in ousting former president Morsi this past July.

"We passed the rebellion phase and will now move into the building phase." Badr said during the big celebration which was attended by several prominent public figures including former head of Egypt's constitutional drafting committee, Amr Moussa. 

Badr also added that during the next phase, youth should work to get into parliament to fulfill the aims of Egyptians and assist the next president of Egypt. The parliamentary elections are to be held after the upcoming presidential elections which will take place this 26 and 27 May.

The activist, who is currently a member of former army chief Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi's presidential campaign saluted the candidate in his words to the audience, describing him as "the leader of 30 June coalition".

"The Egyptian people support and endorse El-Sisi in his presidential bid and this is why the Tamarod movement supports his presidency," he said. Badr added that the movement would support El-Sisi as long as he was listening to Egyptians and fulfilling their demands.

Badr and his fellow members of Tamarod also joined one another in pro-Sisi chants such as "El-Sisi will rule Egypt," "Long live Egypt and tomorrow El-Sisi will be in the presidential palace," "Tomorrow the people will rule Egypt".

Several leading members of Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi's presidential campaign were attending the anniversary celebration like Hazem Abdel Azim, the head of the youth committee which Badr is a member of and Karam Mahmoud, the coordinator of Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi's campaign.

However, Badr and his supporters are not representative of the entirety of Tamarod. While many Tamarod movement members are supporting the former minister of defence's presidential bid, there is another sect within the movement that includes cofounders Mohamed Abdel Aziz and Hassan Shahin who declared their support for Hamdeen Sabahi; effectively splitting the group in two. 

The Tamarod movement was founded last April 2013 by a group of pro-revolutionary youth mostly from the Nasserist Popular current aiming to oust President Morsi and to have early presidential elections through collecting signatures from the public.

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