Internal elections within the Constitution Party are underway on Friday, as three candidates compete to take the place of prominent figure Mohamed ElBaradei as president of the party.

The three candidates are former parliamentary candidate and founding party member Gamila Ismail, leftist founding party member Hala Shukrallah, and doctor and founding member Hossam Abdel-Ghafar.

ElBaradei resigned as party head when he was appointed vice president following the ouster of Mohamed Morsi on 3 July. He resigned as vice president after the dispersal of the pro-Morsi Rabaa Al-Adawiya protest camp which left hundreds dead.

ElBaradei posted on Twitter on Friday, encouraging the youth and calling on them to stay united against "ignorance, extremism and oppression.”

Party member Sayed Kassem has been acting as interim head since July.

The party has seen public divisions and mass resignations since its founding head resigned.

A major dispute was over the appointment, rather than election, of the party's current senior leaders.

The party attracted support of a number of young revolutionaries when it was founded by ElBaradei in 2011 after the revolution.

ElBaradei refused to run for the 2012 presidential elections, insisting that a constitution needs to be in place first to define the role of the coming president.