Muslim Brotherhood Statement on Local Election Boycott

Before taking the decision of running for the local elections, the violent campaign of arresting members of the Muslim Brotherhood across Egypt began with accusing us of preparing for local elections, as if it is a crime. The regime threatened us with harsh verdicts against our dear brothers behind bars who are used as hostages by the regime and are tried by a military tribunal to force us to withdraw from elections.

However, our decision to run for elections was motivated by our sense of national duty. We believe it is our duty to save the nation"s ship from sinking after being corrupted by the rulers. So we practiced our constitutional right to save people from poverty, unemployment, and lost dignity.

More than 1000 MB members were detained ahead of these elections, let alone the assaults on their houses, stealing their personal belongings by police, and closing down their businesses.

Abnormal measures were used to block the path of potential candidates from registering. This includes obstacles on issuing the criminal record form, the doubling of monetary insurance, using the thugs to intimidate MB candidates, seizing their documents, kidnapping and arresting MBs. These practices indicate that we are not dealing with an ordinary political party, but with individuals who have no moral scruples to prevent them from violating the law and exploiting state institutions instead of carrying out their duties.

The judiciary was our last resort to obtain our stolen rights to run for elections. Egypt’s judiciary did us justice and passed thousands of verdicts in favor of our candidates who were banned from running for elections.

The authorities" refusal to execute the verdicts is a blatant violation of  the constitution that necessitates implementation of law and execution of court verdicts (Article 64 and 72 of the constitution)

Again, we resorted to the judiciary to annul the elections and their procedures after the government refused to implement court decisions. We had 1000 court decisions to annul elections.

When we called for respecting judicial decisions, the Ministry of Interior rounded up some 400 MB leading figures.

It is now clear that the party of corruption and tyranny is frightened of any fair competition. The result of this vote will either be the appointment of a majority of seats in favor of the ruling party, or a farcical competition between members of the same party.

But we will never surrender. We will always be ready for sacrifices so that the people will identify those who seek genuine reform and those whose end is corruption, who serves our people and who steals them, who respects the constitution and who doesn’t, who adheres to democracy and who terrorizes people and denies them fair elections.

Consequently, we"d like to stress the following:

First: We will work on the political and legal levels until we completely annul the local elections.

Second: We call on Egyptians to boycott these elections as a sign of respect to the court rulings which in effect annulled them.

 Third: We will always resist tyranny and corruption, and will abide by our reformist and peaceful agenda, and will seek it through legal and peaceful means to attain our nation"s desired welfare and development.

Last: We would like to thank our brothers who were able to stand all sacrifices and for the sake of God and our nation, and all those who assisted them to do their duty.  

 MB Chairman, Mahdy Akef

 Cairo, April 7 2008