Amr Moussa criticises Egypt's constitution panel

Amr Moussa The Constituent Assembly in charge of drafting Egypt’s first post-revolution constitution lacks proper representation of the Egyptian people, Egyptian presidential hopeful and former Arab League chief Amr Moussa said on Wednesday.
“I am not against having MPs in the Constituent Assembly, but their percentage should not have exceeded 20-25 per cent,” Moussa told the Al Arabiya news agency in an interview.
Moussa argued that it is illogical that 50 per cent of the assembly comes from the parliament while the remaining half were to be chosen from other Egyptians.
“This will inevitably lead to an imbalance and many echelons of society will end up being excluded.”
The exclusion, Moussa underscored, is specifically applied to women, Copts and professors of constitutional law.
The insistence by Islamists to get the largest possible number of membership in the assembly and their control over the nomination process led to the withdrawal of several political factions and MPs.  
The Constituent Assembly is comprised of 37 MPs, 16 from the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) - the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood -and nine from the ultra-conservative al-Nour Party, which represents Egypt's Salafists.
Three MPs come from the liberal-oriented Wafd Party, one from the Construction and Development Party - the political wing of the previously-militant al-Gamaa al-Islamiya - and two from the non-Islamist Reformation and Development Party and the Egyptian Social Democratic Party.
Liberal MPs rejected Islamist hegemony on the assembly and withdrew during the voting session after accusing Islamists of using the committee for writing the constitution to serve their own interests.
After voting on Saturday night, the 100-member panel was made of up more than 60 percent Islamists, and included five women and six Coptic Christians.
On Wednesday's sessions, the members of the panel sought to reassure the public, insisting that the constitution would be for all Egyptians.
Members of the disputed panel drafting Egypt's new constitution elected an Islamist as its head on Wednesday, intensifying a stand-off with secularists over the country's post-revolution charter.
Saad al-Katatni, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and the current speaker of the Islamist-dominated parliament was chosen as the head of the constituent assembly, during its first session.
Only 74 of the 100-member panel attended the first session, with 71 voting for Katatni, the official MENA news agency reported.
The constituent assembly's legitimacy was further called into question after Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court announced it was withdrawing its representative from the panel earlier on Wednesday.
The crisis comes at a critical time in Egypt's transition, with the first presidential elections since a popular uprising ousted veteran leader Hosni Mubarak less than two months away.
Writing the constitution requires "wisdom and political responsibility, away from partisan gains," Katatni told the constituent assembly in its first session.
Others said the withdrawals would not affect the order of business, since legislators had drawn up a list of back-up members.
It was not clear what percentage of withdrawals would invalidate the panel.
Several lawsuits were filed by legal experts challenging the validity constituent assembly, with one argument being that a constitution cannot be drafted by those whose role it will define.
Protests on Tuesday and Wednesday have called for the dissolution of the panel, demanding it be made up entirely of non-parliamentarians.
The recent debate over the panel "has cast a heavy cloud of doubt and confusion over its members, and cast a dark shadow of (legal) challenges to (its) formation and procedure," the Supreme Constitutional Court's spokesman, Judge Maher Sami, told reporterMeanwhile, the Supreme Administrative Court set April 10 for issuing a verdict in the lawsuit filed by several political factions and public figures against the formation of the Constituent Assembly on a 50-50 basis.
According to the lawsuit, the new constitution will determine the powers of the legislative authority, represented by the parliament, and its relationship with the judiciary and executive authorities.
A large number of members of parliament will strip the constitution of balance and objectivity, the petitioners said.
Moussa was the first potential presidential candidate to submit his papers, including the required 30,000 signatures, and become an official candidate for the post.
The Muslim Brotherhood and the ultra-conservative al-Nour party together went on to dominate both houses of parliament in recent parliamentary elections, sparking fears among secularists and the Coptic minority of restrictions on freedoms.