Veterans Form New Party

General Mohamed Okasha, a celebrated war veteran who helped Egypt reclaim Sinai from Israel then, years later, participated in the Tahrir protests to remove Mubarak, has co-founded a new political party called the Egyptian Will, alongside other retired military officers.  

“The idea of establishing a political party started with five retired military officers, now we are 200 former military men who fought alongside each other for long years. And weeks later, we became a minority among hundreds of civilians who joined the party as officials or members," said general Okasha in a press conference in Cairo.

They are calling, due to the dire situation, for military intervention to remove Morsi but unlike other pro-military protestors they agree that once the military has forced Morsi to step down, power should be immediately passed to civilians by giving presidential powers to the head of the Higher Constitutional Court, then to form a civil presidential committee, reactivate the 1971 constitution and put everyone involved in killings of innocent civilians on fair and transparent trials.

Okasha then goes onto say that the focus of his political party will not be military members but the youth who will make up the majority of the party’s base. “In any case, we, the older generation, are just here to launch the party. In a couple of years, we will retire and hand the entire operation to the party’s youth, the main driving force of this whole project.”

They seem to be well organised and have already started grass roots campaigns in some of Egypt’s poorest areas such as Assuit where they offered medicine and finance to a number of unequipped, unused hospitals across the governorate.