El-Baradei: Egypt is no longer a democracy and needs political rapprochement

Former Vice President of Egypt Mohamed El-Baradei, previously the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and an initial supporter of the July 2013 military coup, has admitted that he cannot call Egypt a democratic state, Alamat Online reported on Friday.

El-Baradei also reportedly said, in a lecture titled “A New Global Security System Towards a World Free From Nuclear Weapons” at the John F. Kennedy Institute of Politics at Harvard University, that “Democracy is not like a cough or instant coffee; we cannot become a democratic state overnight.”

He also suggested: “What is most important for us in Egypt is learning from our mistakes and looking to the future,” adding that all Egypt needs is transitional justice and a complete rapprochement amongst all the country’s political parties.

Although Egypt has drafted a new constitution since the coup, the parliamentary elections proposed in the military’s “roadmap to democracy” have yet to take place.