New party (First new political party in 15 yrs) shows deep political change in new Egypt

[kpete]

Source: Reuters

By Sarah Mikhail and Tom Perry

CAIRO | Sat Feb 19, 2011 11:34am EST

CAIRO (Reuters) - A court on Saturday approved a new political party that had sought a license for 15 years, making it the first to be recognized since Hosni Mubarak's overthrow and illustrating the political earthquake shaking the new Egypt.

In a move to placate reformists and strikers and distance itself from the Mubarak regime, the interim government will change up to four ministers in a limited cabinet reshuffle, an Egyptian official was quoted by state media as saying.

The Wasat Party (Center Party) had tried to gain an official license four times since 1996, but each time its application was rejected by a political parties committee chaired by a leading member of the ruling party, a procedure that stifled opposition.

"The court ruled that the party was established and legitimate as of today," Egypt's news agency said of Wasat, set up by a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood and which wants to fuse a respect for Islamic society with democracy.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/19/us-egypt-idUSTRE70O3UW20110219

[villager]

1. Maybe such winds of democracy will blow here, and *we'll* get a new party...

n/t

[Adsos Letter]

2. "...wants to fuse a respect for Islamic society with democracy."

I wonder what that would look like. Whatever they want it to, I suppose; I guess we'll find out.

[14thColony]

3. The doctrinal underpinnings already exist in Islam

Remember that the whole reason the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam split in the 8th century was because one faction (later to be called the Sunni) wanted the selection of new caliphs to be through election, a tradition based on the ancient Arabian custom for selection of tribal leaders. So a form of proto-democracy is encoded deep in Sunni Islam's DNA, so to speak. One would think it wouldn't be too terribly hard to capitalize on this tradition to bring a native form of democracy to a primarily Sunni population.

[peacetalksforall]

4. It sounds great!

[2banon]

5. good to read..

it'll be interesting to see how this all this unfolds, the whole world is watching...

the ripples of democracy are beginning to expand and multiply....