Islamists dismiss call to boycott Egypt poll

EGYPT’S MUSLIM Brotherhood, the country’s largest opposition party, has announced it will field candidates in the November parlia-mentary election.

Supreme guide Muhammad Badie said the movement will contest 30 per cent of the 508 seats in the people’s assembly. Formally banned because of its religious foundation, the Brotherhood will support independents under the slogan, “Islam is the Solution.” In the 2005 election Brotherhood-affiliates won 88 seats but it is predicted that the number could fall to 15 in the coming assembly.

The leadership’s decision to participate was taken shortly after 20 former and current members of the movement issued a public appeal for the party to abstain. Loyalists criticised them for expressing dissent within a movement that values unity.

The Brotherhood’s decision is a severe blow to Nobel prize winner Muhammad Elbaradei who has called for a boycott of the poll on the ground that it will be rigged in favour of President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic party (NDP). Mr ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had allied himself to the Brotherhood which supported his calls for electoral reform and joined his campaign to collect signatures for a petition demanding constitutional amendments. He has said that a boycott of the parliamentary election and the presidential vote next autumn would deprive the regime of internal and international legitimacy and could lead to its democratic overthrow.

Mr ElBaradei’s call has had a mixed response from opposition parties. The veteran Wafd will field 145 candidates. The leftist Tagammu will contest a small number of seats. Al-Ghad, the party of former presidential challenger Ayman Nour, and the Democratic Front will boycott. Opposition parties had demanded but failed to obtain guarantees that the election would be free and fair. However, refusing to participate means the opposition would have no seats in a parliament certain to be dominated by the NDP.

In response to the Brotherhood’s announcement, Mr Elbaradei said, “We know elections will be a sham. The question we should ask ourselves is whether to boycott this farce or be a part of it.” However, Issam al-Erian, a senior Brotherhood official, said, “Participation is the best way to expose the corruption of the regime.”

Meanwhile, Egyptian security forces attacked students at Zagazig University protesting against the exclusion of opposition parties from student elections.