Constitution Party: No talks with NDP leaders in Egypt

Mohamed ElBaradei's party has said that it will not talk to leaders of the discredited NDP, but believes that members who were not involved in corruption should not be excluded Emad Abu Ghazi, the general secretary of the Constitution Party, issued a statement on Tuesday denying any alliance between the party and the leading figures or former members of parliament of the former National Democratic Party (NDP), the now defunct party of former president Hosni Mubarak. Ghazi's statement came amid a controversy following statements by prominent liberal and Constitution Party founder Mohamed ElBaradei, who stated during a recent public meeting in Aswan that not all NDP members are corrupt.   "The statements of Dr. ElBaradei regarding the former NDP members are being misinterpreted," Abu Ghazi said in his statement.   "Despite our position in the Constitution Party regarding the leadership of the National Democratic Party, which corrupted political life in Egypt, we are trying at the same time to find the right approach for national reconciliation, like all countries that have passed through a transitional period," said Abu Ghazi, adding that it was not in the best interests of the nation to exclude the millions of those who had joined the NDP and had not been involved in corrupting political life. "We have to work on making them engage in political life, as Egyptians who got lost in the period of dictatorship," explained Abu Ghazi, who was briefly minister of culture during the early days of the revolution.   ElBaradei, former head of IAEA, has been harshly criticised by political activists and journalists for his statements in Aswan. Journalist Wael Qandil, the editor-in-chief of Al-Shorouk daily newspaper, criticised ElBaradei and his party in his daily column on Tuesday, attacking him for "his alliance with the icons of the corrupted NDP."   The Constitution Party has denied reports that its deputy president Ahmed Borai was to hold meetings with former members of the NDP on Tuesday.  From Ahramonline