Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood mulls quitting run-off vote - Summary

Tue, 30 Nov 2010

Cairo - Egypt's main opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, said Tuesday it is considering withdrawing from the upcoming run-off parliamentary elections after alleging the first round was rife with fraud.

"We are considering our position at the moment and will announce what we plan to do on Wednesday," Brotherhood spokesman Gamel Nassar told the German Press Agency dpa.

In the last election, in 2005, the group had 88 seats, making them the largest opposition bloc in parliament.

But they noted that they did not win a single seat in weekend elections and that just 27 seats are still up for grabs in next Sunday's run-off vote if they participate in it.

The Brotherhood also said that 1,300 of its members and several candidates had been arrested in the weeks leading up to the elections.

They partly credited their 2005 win to the presence of independent judges at polling stations. This year, the presence of judges was drastically curtailed by tighter restrictions on independent monitors.

For its part, the White House criticized the elections on Tuesday, saying that "the United States is disappointed with the conduct during and leading up to Egypt's November 28 legislative elections."

Meanwhile, the official tally from the elections, including names of the newly elected parliamentarians, that had been scheduled to be announced Tuesday night in Cairo was not released.

The High Elections Committee (HEC), which oversees the vote, instead touted the "integrity of the elections".

The HEC said that just under 2 per cent, or roughly 1,053, polling boxes, were tampered with and thus disqualified. They also said that 35 per cent of registered voters, around 14 million people, cast ballots.

Rights groups and opposition figures alleged fraud was rampant during Sunday's vote and rejected the official turnout rate, saying less than half that figure voted.

Although election results were not announced, President Hosny Mubarak's National Democratic Party was expected to retain its overwhelming majority in the People's Assembly, where there are 518 seats, ten of which are appointed by Mubarak himself.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/355963,run-off-vote-summary.html.