File photo shows chairman of Egypt’s Salafist al-Nour Party Younes Makhioun (C) at the party headquarters in Cairo.
Egypt’s Salafist al-Nour Party has voiced support for the country's new constitution, saying it will vote ‘yes’ in the upcoming referendum on the new charter.
"The Nour Party will take part in this referendum and will take part with 'yes', out of our concern for bringing about stability and so that we spare the country more anarchy," Younes Makhioun, the party’s chairman, stated in a news conference on Thursday.
The Salafist party, which came second to the Muslim Brotherhood in parliamentary elections in 2011, had one representative in the 50-member constituent assembly that completed the draft constitution on Sunday.
"The constitution is considered a first step on the road to stability that all Egyptians aspire to, and to preventing sliding into a spiral of anarchy," Makhioun said.
The party’s support for the army-led roadmap following the ouster of former president, Mohamed Morsi, in July has set it apart from other Islamic groups who condemned the military coup that removed Egypt's first democratically elected president.
The new constitution helps the Egyptian military tighten its grip on power. It allows for the trial of civilians in military courts and contains a provision that could lead to an outright ban on Islamic parties.
The Brotherhood has rejected the draft charter together with the rest of the army-led transition plan, calling it a product of a military coup.
The head of Egypt’s constitutional panel, Amr Moussa, handed the text of the new constitution to the interim president, Adly Mahmoud Mansour, who was appointed by the army after Morsi’s removal from office.
Mansour now has 30 days to call for a constitution referendum, which will be followed by the parliamentary and presidential elections next year.
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