Presidential hopeful Hamdeen Sabahi (Photo: Reuters)
Leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahi said on a television programme on Thursday night that he will not stand in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Speaking to host Mahmoud Saad on private satellite channel Al-Nahar, the former presidential candidate also criticised some of the groups intending to contest the elections, including parties founded by former presidential candidates Amr Moussa and Ahmed Shafiq, as representing the era before the 25 January revolution in 2011.
Sabahi was the only candidate to run against Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in May's presidential election, during which El-Sisi won around 97 percent of the vote. Sabahi had come third in the multi-candidate presidential race of 2012, securing around 21 percent of votes in the first round, behind eventual winner Mohamed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq.
Sabahi also talked about the Democratic Current, a new political front he is involved in establishing, as well as an electoral coalition he said the front is seeking, mentioning talks on a possible shared party list with the liberal Free Egyptian Party, co-founded by business tycoon Naguib Sawiris, and the liberal Wafd Party.
"I will support anyone who supports the line of 25 January and 30 June (Morsi's ouster)," he told Saad.
Sabahi also voiced his support for El-Sisi as the choice of Egyptians for president but rejected the presidential election results, arguing that the vote was tampered with. He claimed before – and repeated with Saad – that he garnered several times more votes in May than the 750,000 that election officials said he had won.
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