- Egypt's 498 elected lawmakers are sworn in
- The first post-Mubarak parliament is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and other religious groups
Cairo, Jan.23.─ Men in pressed suits and polished shoes, some carrying holy books and sporting beards, rushed past concrete barricades and hurried beneath a silver dome to begin setting laws for a nation that for generations had oppressed and imprisoned many of those now rising to power.
Egypt's new parliament held its inaugural session Monday, and a sense of wonder was mixed with the gravity of a country still under military rule and beset by economic turmoil. Dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, once banned from running for office, the chamber echoed with the raucous voices of a burgeoning political era that is replacing the specter of Hosni Mubarak's corrupt secular government.
"I invite the distinguished assembly to stand and read the fatiha [Muslim prayer] in memory of the martyrs of the Jan. 25 revolution," said Mahmoud Saqa, 81, of the liberal Wafd Party who, as the oldest member of the chamber, led the opening session. "The blood of the martyrs is what brought this day."
Parliament's 498 elected members were individually sworn in, a ceremony that lasted hours, with some lawmakers dozing off and others ad-libbing. A few squabbled, a number read the Koran. One from the ultraconservative Salafist party Al Nour said he would never "contradict sharia," or Islamic law. A liberal member said, "We will continue the revolution" ...
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