Egypt’s Islamist Nour Party is looking for Coptic candidates to run on its ticket in the upcoming local elections. It’s not an easy feat, given the high-profile religious controversy surrounding the subject and the party’s huge losses in last year’s parliamentary elections.
Word of Coptic candidates running on the Nour Party list in the parliamentary races did not go unnoticed. In fact, it met with cutting criticism from liberal parties and religious authorities, most prominently Pope Tawadros II, leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. In an October interview on the TV show “Hona al-Asema,” he said, “One cannot espouse two ideologies, and those who do are not honest with themselves. The Coptic candidates on the lists of religious parties lack credibility and are honest neither to Muslims nor to Christians.”