CAIRO, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- Members of the Egyptian opposition want to form a parallel government to rival the Parliament controlled by the ruling elite, a leader said.
The ruling National Democratic Party took the lion's share of the more than 500 seats on the Egyptian Parliament during last month's election.
The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition movement, ignored calls for a boycott of the election but pulled out after none of its independent candidates made it past the first round of voting.
The Muslim Brotherhood, which is barred from politics, secured nearly 20 percent of the parliamentary seats by fielding its candidates as independents in 2005 elections.
Akram al-Shaaer, a former member of the legislature in the Muslim Brotherhood bloc, said he and his fellow opposition leaders were pushing to end the legitimacy of the NDP-controlled Parliament.
"We seek the establishment of a genuine parliament, a representative Parliament, as opposed to the falsified Parliament that exists today," he was quoted in the Muslim Brotherhood's Ikhwanweb site as saying.
NDP leaders admitted to concerns in the election but said the voting was largely transparent and free.
Washington, a key ally of Cairo, expressed its disappointment in the political climate in Egypt.
