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| Africa North |
| Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood to boycott local elections |
| 2008-04-08 |
| (AKI) - Egypt's Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, has threatened to boycott Tuesday's local elections to protest against a crackdown on its members, many of them election candidates. The election is the first to take place under the constitutional amendments passed in Egypt in March 2007. The brotherhood, considered the world's largest Islamist group, has claimed only 20 candidates will be allowed to run for 52,000 seats in cities, towns, and villages in elections across the country. But Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party is understood to be fielding candidates in every one of the available seats. The brotherhood, considered the most powerful opposition group in Egypt, has been banned in Egypt since 1954 but its members have won parliamentary seats as independents in recent elections. The government postponed local elections for two years in 2006, when the brotherhood unexpectedly won 88 seats in the 454-member parliament the previous year. Since February 2008, the Egyptian government has arrested more than 800 of the group's members, many of them election candidates. On Sunday Egyptian textile workers clashed with police after security forces intervened to stop a strike by taking control of a major Nile Delta textiles plant. Workers threw stones and set fire to shops as police fired tear gas to disperse protesters. Elsewhere in Egypt, protests against economic conditions have largely failed in the face of a heavy police presence. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 A sure fire winning strategy. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-04-08 19:42 |