Leading Egyptian opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei met Sunday with members of the Tamarod (Rebel) campaign — a recent petition campaign aimed at forcing President Morsi to hold early presidential elections — campaign spokesman Mahmoud Badr told Al-Ahram Arabic news website.
"[ElBaradei] expressed his strong admiration for the campaign and its peaceful approach to change," Badr said. "He also stressed that the campaign is an integral part of the national opposition that rejects the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood."
Badr also announced that the campaign, launched in late April, will hold a news conference Wednesday to disclose the number of signatures it had gathered thus far. The date specified by the campaign to announce the final number of signatures is 30 June.
ElBaradei, former head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, led the National Association of Change in 2010, an opposition umbrella group against ousted president Hosni Mubarak, and managed to collect over one million signatures from Egyptian citizens demanding political reform in the country.
President Morsi, who hails from the Muslim Brotherhood, won Egypt's first post-Mubarak presidential elections in June 2012 in a narrow win against Mubarak's last prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq.
Morsi has been facing increasing criticism from liberal and leftist opposition movements as well as youth protest groups as political deadlock continues in the country.
