Leader of the ultra-conservative Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya Aboud El-Zomor says that choosing a new Egyptian president after Mohamed Morsi's ouster is necessary to prevent a slide into total chaos.
In an article published on Monday on Al-Mesryoon news website, Zomor, whose group is a member of the main pro-Morsi Islamist coalition the National Alliance To Support Legitimacy (NASL), argued that if a leader is captured or barred from practising his authorities then someone must be delegated to do his job until he returns.
If attempts to save the president have failed, El-Zomor writes, then a new leader must be chosen out of duty to avoid a scenario of chaos.
The Islamist leader further criticised calls for boycotting the upcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled to commence on 17 July, saying a boycott would negatively affect the organisational performance of "the alliance [NASL] in general and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular".
"It would give a chance for the unwanted to reach parliament and legislate for five whole years," he added in his article, which ran under the title "The imprisoned can't lead and the injured can't decide".
The Brotherhood and the NASL have boycotted all electoral polls after Morsi's ouster, a constitutional referendum in January and the May presidential election, as part of their defiant stance against post-Morsi authorities, who they insist staged a coup that sabotaged democracy.
El-Zomor advised the Brotherhood to "restructure the situation and to give up being on the forefront", adding that the group's leaderships was either "imprisoned or hurt" and were thus incapable of making the right decisions. He further accused the group of avoiding a true self-assessment and instead blaming others for its failure.
El-Zomor also suggested that the state should compensate - or pay blood money - to those who have been killed in recent violence by assailants still at large, especially when the victims are "slain citizens, army and the police".
For its part, Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya stressed that El-Zomor’s article reflects only his personal reviews and not the group's or its political wing, the Building and Development Party.
El-Zomor, a former military intelligence colonel, was convicted in 1984 for his role in the assassination of Egypt's former president Anwar Sadat and belonging to the radical Islamic jihad group which he founded.
He was released in 2011 following the 25 January 2011 revolution.
