the Egyptian political spectrum

This chart draws from the work of Jacopo Carbonari found on arabist.net, amended and updated through Jadaliyya’s parties and movements page, Carnegie Endowment’s page on Egypt’s political parties, the Electionnaire put together by Media in Cooperation and Translation in partnership with the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, and Radio Netherlands Worldwide’s Vote Compass.

The different sizes of the squares intend to give a rough idea of the importance of single parties, taking into account their weight within the coalitions as well as their media exposure. The principal media sources consulted were the English online versions of newspapers Al Ahram, Al Masry Al Yaoum, Bikya Masr, Youm7 and The Daily News Egypt.

Most parties have been created after the fall of Mubarak’s regime, and are still working on carving out their role and precise position on the political spectrum. Also, this graph intends to visually prioritise coalitions, thereby placing parties that are in one same coalition reasonably close to each other. For these reasons, the left/right axis should be read in terms of a series of broad areas rather than a precisely graduated spectrum. Wasat, for example, is not necessarily more leftist than Reform and Renaissance, just as the Democratic Front is not necessarily more right-wing than the Free Egyptians Party. According to Carbonari, parties in purple have strong links to Mubarak’s dissolved National Democratic Party.