Homeland Party (Libya)

Not to be confused with Union for Homeland.

For other uses, see Al-Watan Party.

The Homeland Party^[2] or Libyan National Party^[3] (also styled Alwattan Party, Arabic: حزب الوطن Ħizb al-Waṭan or Ħizb el-Waṭan) is a conservative Islamist political party in Libya, founded in November 2011,^[4] after the Libyan Civil War and the overthrow of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. It is endorsed and led by Ali al-Sallabi, an influential Salafist cleric. Members include Abdelhakim Belhadj, Mahmoud Hamza, Ali Zeidan and Mansour Saif Al-Nasar.^[1][5] At the time of its establishment, it had the provisional name of National Gathering for Freedom, Justice and Development.^{[citation needed]}

Homeland Party حزب الوطن Ħizb al-Waṭan
Founder	Ali al-Sallabi
Founded	November 2011
Ideology	Islamism Islamic democracy Conservatism[1]
International affiliation	Muslim Brotherhood
Website
http://wattan.ly/, https://www.facebook.com/alwattan.ly/
Politics of Libya Political parties Elections

Al-Sallabi has strong ties to both Yusuf al-Qaradawi, spiritual leader of the international Muslim Brotherhood, and Abdelhakim Belhadj, former "emir" of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. The party calls for "moderate" Islamic democracy, but demands to base a new Libyan constitution on Sharia law.^[6]

The Arabic word waṭan can be translated as "nation"^[1] or "homeland".^[7] The party claims to have offices in 27 Libyan cities.^[1] The party won no seats in the Libyan General National Congress election of 2012.

See also

• List of Islamic political parties
• Justice and Development Party, a rival Islamist Libyan party.

External links

• Official website Archived 2021-03-08 at the Wayback Machine (Arabic)
• Official Alwattan Party website (auto-translated to English).