CAIRO — The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, which won a crushing victory in Egyptian legislative elections, on Monday nominated its secretary general to head the new parliament.

Saad al-Katatni, secretary general of the the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, attends a news conference at the headquarters of the party, in Cairo January 16, 2012. The brotherhood held a conference to announce their nomination for the speaker of Parliament. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El-Ghany

“We have decided to nominate Saad al-Katatni as the next speaker of the People’s Assembly (parliament’s lower house),” FJP chief Mohammed Mursi told a news conference.

A statement distributed to the press said the FJP was among six parties, including Islamist and liberal groups, that agreed the speaker’s post should go to the largest parliamentary bloc.

Estimates show the FJP won more than 46 percent of the seats in the lower house which comprises 498 elected deputies and 10 appointed by the military ruling Egypt since the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak.

The ultra-conservative Salafist Al Nur party is in second place with nearly 25 percent of seats while the liberal Wafd Party is in third place. 

The spokesman of the electoral commission, Judge Yusri Abdel Karim, said on Monday that the final results would be announced on Friday or Saturday.

The first session of the People’s Assembly is due next Monday.

Once elections for parliament’s upper house, or Shura Council, are concluded in February, the two chambers are to choose a 100-member panel to draft a new constitution.

A new president is then to be elected by June under the timetable set by the military rulers who announced that candidates can register for the presidency from April 15.

The statement handed to the press Monday was signed by FJP; Al-Nur; the liberal Egyptian Social Democratic Party; the Nasserite Al-Karama party; the liberal Reform and Development Party; and the Salafist Building and Development party.

The statement said the newly elected People’s Assembly must carry out the goals of the January-February 2011 revolution that toppled Mubarak.

The new parliament must “reflect national consensus between all its factions,” the statement added.  

-AFP