التاريخ : الأحد 13 يوليو 2008 . القسم :

Sunday’s Vote Reveals Regime’s Stagnant Mentality, says MB Alex Chairman

Muslim Brotherhood chairman in Alexandria Osama Nasr said Sunday"s vote is "shameful", but that it will not deter the Muslim Brotherhood from practicing their democratic right.

 

Nasr, who is one of the five newly elected members of the Muslim Brotherhood Executive Bureau, told Ikhwanweb that he expected the regime at least to make a democratic showing in Sunday"s complementary parliamentary elections, since it is almost impossible for the Egyptian regime to allow for completely free and fair elections.

 

"They should at least have given people the opportunity to enter election offices and cast their votes. At the end of the day there is no longer complete judicial supervision like in 2005, which means that vote rigging is almost certain. Nevertheless, they denied the people the minimum right of self expression," Nasr told           Ikhwanweb.

 

Nasr said he wished he would see an improvement in the mentality governing elections, especially that they are complementary elections on few parliament seats.

 

"The regime had a chance to improve its tarnished image, but it could not prove any change in its police mindset to the world."

 

Nasr added that MB lawyers are currently considering legal procedures against the violations that took place in today"s vote. A challenge will be filed shortly against the legitimacy of elections, he said.

 

"But we hope that the rulings of fair Judiciary will be respected, and that injustice will be exposed," he added.

 

Sunday"s complementary elections in the cities of Alexandria and Kafr El Sheikh have been marred by the dominance of police harassments of voters and MB supporters.

 

In Alexandria, Ikhwanweb reporter said there were massive irregularities and manipulation of the vote. Voters and NDP candidate aides practiced vote rigging under the supervision of security officers in charge of monitoring the process. Moreover, there has been attempts to arrest voters who try to approach electoral offices to cast their votes, he said.

 

Security officials were deployed in main roads and small streets to block voters from reaching their electoral destinations, while many complained absence of their names from electorate lists. In one of the offices, all women were barred from entering.

 

Mahmoud Awad MB candidate in Alex told Ikhwanweb he has been forcefully denied access to one of the election offices to observe the progress in the vote, while security officials prevented his daughter from voting by seizing her electoral card.