National Front Party gains official license, prepares to cooperate with other national parties for control in 2025 elections

The National Front Party, a new political group launched at the end of last year by a group of businessmen, politicians and public figures with close ties to state figures, gained official party status this week. 

Mada Masr spoke with a number of figures in the party, which is to join an existing coterie of state-aligned parties already holding sway in the houses of Parliament, to understand their ambitions for the elections due later this year.

The party’s agenda and ambitions for the political sphere were apparently still under discussion.

Fayez Abu Harb, who currently holds a seat in the Senate and was a founding member of the National Front Party, told Mada Masr that the party’s leadership will convene soon to outline its agenda. 

Former Qalyubia MP Thoraya al-Sheikh, who told Mada Masr that she joined the party as a member and plans to run in this year’s election under its banner, backed the party’s formation by signing one of the necessary endorsement forms. But she noted that she is yet to be informed of the party’s activities, meetings or the event planned to mark its official declaration.

The deputy president of Nation’s Future Party, meanwhile, framed the National Front Party’s ambitions as aligning with those of existing nationally aligned groups.

Mohamed Badrawy described the National Front’s declaration as the beginning of a new political phase in which the party is to join forces with other national political parties currently dominating parliament, including the Nation’s Future and Homeland Defenders parties.

Badrawy, who is also an MP, told Mada Masr that the party’s registration will help define the features of the upcoming electoral landscape. 

There is enough room in the electoral scene to accommodate the National Front Party alongside those existing players, said Badrawy.

He anticipated that the number of seats going to the Nation’s Future and Homeland Defenders parties in both parliamentary chambers is not likely to shrink. 

However, he said, their percentage of the total might change as both chambers are due to expand this year.

The total number of seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate is set to increase by at least 20 percent this year, he explained, a step implemented to take population growth into account when designating public representation in Parliament.

“If we’re speaking logically, every party has its relative weight,” he added. “If Nation’s Future previously held around 60 percent of the seats, that figure could remain the same in absolute numbers, but not as a percentage.” 

In the last elections, the Nation’s Future Party secured a sizable majority, winning 316 out of 568 seats in the House of Representatives.

The elections are run under a mixed electoral system which splits the seats equally between candidates who run for individual seats and lists of candidates. 

For the seats which are filled via the list system, candidates from different parties can join forces to run as part of a closed list that includes the number of seats, with the electorate casting their vote for the entire list.

Could the National Front Party gain a major share in the list system — akin to the Egypt Support Coalition, in which multiple pro-state parties, including the Nation’s Future Party, joined forces to build a group that would hold sway in the 2016 parliament? 

Badrawy told Mada Masr that a similar situation could be possible in 2025.

The idea of the National Front Party was first introduced in early December when the Egyptian Tribes and Families Union, led by fugitive turned-businessman Ibrahim al-Argany, held a meeting toward the end of last year. During the gathering, the formation of a pro-state political entity was announced in preparation for upcoming parliamentary and local elections.

The founding committee includes eight former ministers as well as current and former MPs. The involvement of Argany, who was described as a party funder rather than an active member, prompted criticism among public commentators. 

Yet it is former Housing Minister Assem al-Gazzar, who sits on the board of one of the companies earned by Argany, who has taken on the role of the party founders’ deputy and the most public-facing role in the National Front’s inaugural weeks. 

Gazzar told journalists earlier this year that the new party had gathered tens of thousands of public endorsements, far exceeding the threshold required to be granted official party status. 

The Political Parties Affairs Committee approved the party’s application on Monday, following its submission by Gazzar. 

The National Front Party was thereby granted legal status that will allow it to begin political activities starting Tuesday, according to a statement published by the committee’s secretary general, Ahmed Refaat.

In addition to Gazzar, who is also the general secretary of the Egyptian Tribes and Families Union, the editor-in-chief of the privately owned Al-Shorouk newspaper became a member of the party’s founding committee, according to an announcement the party made in the new year. 

Figures such as head of the State Intelligence Services Diaa Rashwan, former chair of the House of Representatives Ali Abdel Aal, the Grand Mufti Shawki Allam and former Agriculture Minister Al-Sayed al-Qusayr all joined the party’s inaugural meetings.