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EmailNon-Islamist members in the Constituent Assembly have announced the suspension of their membership and threatened to completely resign if their demands are not met.
The decision came after a meeting where they debated whether to suspend their membership or withdraw completely, with Amr Moussa, Gaber Nassar and El-Sayed El-Badawi being in favour of withdrawal.
The makeshift alliance eventually decided on temporarily suspending their membership and assigned Wafd Party Chairman El-Badawi to inform President Mohamed Morsy of the situation and present him with their demands in a meeting scheduled for Wednesday.
Some members are also demanding Morsy form a new Constituent Assembly with more balanced membership. The current assembly has a 60 per cent Islamist majority. Constitutional articles need to be approved by a 67 per cent majority but failing that a second round of voting with a 57 per cent majority is enough.
The non-Islamists are demanding the cancellation of the results of the previous two meetings where the assembly finalised the first section of the proposed constitution, the removal and replacement of members who have been absent for more than the allowed number of meetings, and having the meetings run in a more democratic fashion.
They also demanded the deadline for a final draft be extended for three months to allow for more discussion and debate.
Former Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa and political science professor Soaad Kamel met with assembly Chairman Hossam El-Gheriany and presented him with the demands after the meeting.
They informed El-Gheriany they would completely withdraw if their demands were not met by Sunday.
Kamel decided to withdraw completely regardless, not wishing to wait until Sunday.
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