Kefaya Quits Anti-Gamal Coalition

The Kefaya Movement for Change has announced it will pull out of the campaign against the inheritance of power. The coalition was announced with much fanfare last month as a broad spectrum of opposition parties and movements joined forces to stop Gamal Mubarak from inheriting his father’s presidency (see our previous post). But disagreements have risen between Kefaya and Ayman Nour‘s Al-Ghad party over the role the U.S. should play. According to Kefaya coordinator Abdel-Halim Qandil, “How we can [sic] confront a regime that has ties with America, with an opposition that has ties with America?”

Meanwhile, the recently-established movement “Egyptians for Fair and Free Elections” has called for international monitoring of Egypt’s upcoming parliamentary elections in 2010 and presidential election in 2011. According to the movement’s general coordinator, Mahmoud Al Khoderie, “we need to convince the government that international monitoring on elections is not considered outside intervention.”  The group’s leaders insist that an international mission is necessary to minimize “the Egyptian government’s persistent rigging of elections.”