The influential Muslim Brotherhood has declined to endorse any candidate in next month's presidential elections, but it made clear Sunday that supporters should not vote for President Hosni Mubarak. In a long awaited statement on the Sept. 7 polls, Egypt's largest Islamic group urged people to vote in the elections, the first in which Egyptians have a choice of candidates. "All the brothers should know that we could not support an oppressor or cooperate with a corrupt person or with a tyrant," said the statement, which was signed by the group's leader, Mohammed Mahdi Akef. Akef told The Associated Press on Saturday that the Brotherhood was opposed to Mubarak.A leading Brotherhood member, Ali Abdel Fattah, said Sunday's statement meant the group was urging its supporters to vote for any candidate except Mubarak. "President Hosni Mubarak has been in office for 24 years and yet he didn't cancel the emergency legislation or implement any kind of true reform," Fattah told the AP. "We refuse to let the status quo continue."
| "Vote for someone weak and ineffectual! Vote for someone we can terrorize!" Fattah proclaimed. |