Uncertain future for Egypt's Salafists following Senate election defeat - Al-Monitor: The Middle Eastʼs leading independent news source since 2012

Amr Emam

Amr Emam

Sep 25, 2020

Members of the Egyptian Salafi party Al-Nour hold a public conference in support of ex-army chief and presidential candidate Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (seen in the portrait) in Egypt's northern port city of Alexandria on May 20, 2014. While Al-Nour kept itself politically relevant for a while by backing Sisi against its former Islamist allies the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafi party's candidates were shut out in the 2020 Senate elections. — AHMED ARAB/AFP via Getty Images

CAIRO — The failure of Egypt's largest Salafi party to win any seats in the recent Senate elections raises questions about the prospects of the party as well as the future of political Islam in the country.

Al-Nour, founded following the 2011 uprising against autocratic President Hosni Mubarak, fielded 12 candidates who ran as independents in nine out of Egypt's 27 provinces.

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