The government on Wednesday approved the creation of a political party headed by a young ambitious lawyer, in only the third time that a new party was authorised in Egypt in almost three decades.
The political parties committee gave the green light to Al-Ghad (Tomorrow), a liberal party led by wealthy 40-year-old lawyer Ayman al-Nur that says it models itself on the British Labour party.
The move was trumpeted by the party's founders as a significant boost for democracy and pluralism in Egypt, but commentators said the authorisation of Al-Ghad was only a cosmetic move aimed at pleasing Washington.
"This approval is a positive step towards the achievement of the opposition's demands to give the people the right to choose their party, their representatives and their leader," Nur said.
The two other parties previously approved by the government's political parties committee, set up in 1977, were Wifaq al-Watani (National Accord) and Democratic Generation, which won their permits in 2000 and 2001.
They have since had no impact on the political scene.
The Al-Ghad leader is a former deputy for the opposition Al-Wafd party, which sacked him for "refusing to respect the party's political commitments" and leading a dissident faction.
He remained in parliament as an independent MP and three of the new party's other founding members are also independent lawmakers.
The political parties committee was founded after the single-party system which prevailed in the late president Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt was dismantled in 1976.
It rejected three previous requests from Nur for the creation of new movement, but the lawyer - formerly a journalist - put up a dogged challenge when his application was first turned down.
He used a legal loophole authorising limited political activities during a four-month period while an application is pending to file successive requests, altering the name of the party each time.
"I also hope that the Al-Karama and Al-Wasat will obtain an official authorisation because they are real force on the ground," Nur said.
The Nasserist party Al-Karama was rejected on the grounds it "advocated a radical ideology" while Al-Wasat was denied a licence due to links with the banned Muslim Brotherhood, a movement which represents the most serious opposition to the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).
Nur blends liberal economic policies with advocacy of the rights of the working classes.
But opposition members have accused the regime of seeking to carry out "cosmetic" reforms and ignoring key issues such as a constitutional amendment to prevent Mubarak running for a fifth term and calls for an end to the 23-year-old emergency law.
"Al-Ghad is seen as close to the regime. We hope this measure will be extended to Al-Karama and Al-Wasat," said political analyst Mohammed al-Sayed Said .
"I hope the regime will understand the time has come to allow new political parties to emerge and attempts to prevent their creation should stop," said the analyst from the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
"By creating Al-Ghad, the ruling class is trying to send a message, especially to Washington, that it is pressing ahead with reforms when in fact there are no reforms to speak of," said Nabil Abdul Fattah of the same institute.
Al-Ghad becomes Egypt's 18th party.
Three parties were set up by presidential decree in the 1970s: the ruling NDP, the Marxist party Tagammu and liberal-rightist Al-Ahrar. The other 12 were rejected by the parties committee but won licences through legal action.
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