Egypt businessman Aqmal Qortam strongly attacked parliament on Thursday for stripping MP and high-profile TV anchor Tawfik Okasha of his parliamentary membership on Wednesday.

Qortam, an MP and chairman of the Conservatives Party, told Ahram Online on Thursday that he abstained from voting in favour of dropping Okasha's membership on Wednesday.

"It is of highly regrettable to me that the parliament's decision was based on personal and political reasons rather than on objective grounds.

"Yes, I agree, Okasha made the bad decision of discussing Egyptian national security issues with Israel's ambassador in Egypt for no plausible reasons," Qortam said.

"But when MPs move to punish a colleague for bad conduct, we should be very careful and follow the sound constitutional procedures- and this is what parliament did not do," Qortam continued.

"Unfortunately," argued Qortam, "the decision taken by parliament against Okasha was dictated by personal and political interests rather than by the constitution and internal bylaws we took an oath to respect."

Qortam, alongside other representatives, also accused the MPs of working on outside orders to strip Okasha of membership in any way possible and that the parliament is dominated by a "herd mentality."

"They came ready to make the dangerous decision of canceling Okasha's membership in great haste without even listening to his defence," said Qortam, adding that "this was the style of former president Hosni Mubarak's parliaments- and we are back again to the same style.

Qortam said he and another 24 MPs, who rejected the vote against Okasha or abstained from the vote altogether, believed that parliament should have listened to Okasha first. If he was found guilty, the MPs argued, he could have been banned from attending some parliamentary sessions instead of dropping his parliamentary membership altogether.

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