Extremist militants were behind the assassination of a Salafist Nour Party parliamentary candidate in North Sinai last Saturday, the interior ministry said in a statement on Monday.
Mostafa Abdel-Rahman, a pharmacist, was the only Nour Party candidate running in North Sinai. He was also the general secretary of the party in the governorate.
Security sources said that two unknown assailants riding a motorcycle opened fire on Abdel-Rahman as he was leaving his house in the North Sinai city of El-Arish.
The interior ministry said that the goal behind the killing of Abdel-Rahman was to negatively impact the country's electoral process, especially in North Sinai governorate.
Abdel-Rahman was against 'takfiri beliefs', rallying extremists against him, the statement read.
Police added that they are currently intensifying their efforts to identify and capture the culprits.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for Abdel-Rahman's assassination.
A decade-long militant insurgency in North Sinai has spiked in the past two years, with hundreds of army and police personnel killed.
Islamist militant group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis has claimed responsibility for most of the attacks in the peninsula.
The ISIS-affiliated group based in North Sinai has also claimed responsibility for multiple beheadings of several members of North Sinai tribes.
In February 2015, the Sinai-based militant group released a video online showing the beheading of eight men from North Sinai tribes, allegedly for collaborating with Egyptian armed forces and the Israeli Mossad.
The Salafist Nour Party is the only Islamist party that supported the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.
They were also supporters of the "roadmap" that was implemented following Morsi's ouster and entails three stages: a constitutional referendum, presidential polls, and parliamentary elections.
The Nour Party, the political arm of the Salafist Call, are supporters of Egypt's current President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, and are the only Islamist group participating in the ongoing parliamentary elections.
