In a press conference held on Sunday at the headquarters of the Building and Development Party in 6 October City outside Cairo, the political wing of the Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya, the founders of the ‘Impartiality’ (tagarod) campaign announced that the initiative had managed to collect 2 million signatures supporting President Mohamed Morsi.
The campaign was launched by Islamist powers in the country as a counter-movement to the anti-Morsi ‘Rebel’ (tamarod) signature drive which is collecting signatures in support of its petition demanding early elections.
"The Rebel campaign to withdraw confidence from President Morsi, headed by the opposition, wants to bring down the legitimacy of President Morsi through signatures from frustrated citizens…[and is supported by] the remnants of the former National Democratic Party (NDP)," said Ahmed Hosni, the coordinator of the campaign, at the press conference.
Hosni added that the Impartiality campaign was intended not only to support President Morsi but also to support the cause of “legitimacy” against those who wish to push the country into endless dilemmas.
"The campaign has managed already to collect nearly 2 million signatures after its launch, and our goal is to collect 15 million signatures in the upcoming two weeks to overcome the 7 million signatures against Morsi collected by the Rebel campaign," said Hosni adding that the his campaign is skeptical about the authenticity of the signatures collected by the rival initiative.
The founder of the campaign, Assem Abdel Maged, a member of Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya and the Building and Development Party, launched the campaign in the Upper Egyptian city of Qena on 12 May.
Last week, the Rebel campaign announced that it had managed to collect 7,540,535 signatures in support of its goal to withdraw confidence from President Morsi by 30 June.
