CAIRO: An Administrative Court in Mansoura ruled in favor of Muslim Brotherhood candidates Saturday night, allowing them to run in the municipal elections of Kafr Saad and Al-Zarka districts in Damietta.
According to a statement the group sent to Daily News Egypt, the court said elections cannot start in these districts because the nomination papers of the Brotherhood candidates were unlawfully rejected.
The Mansoura court based its ruling on a previous one which asserts the Brotherhood candidates’ right to nominate themselves in the elections. The two candidates had filed the first lawsuit after their nomination papers were rejected.
“The candidates’ rights have been restored after it was stolen from them by the executive and government authorities, said Sayed Anany, the MB lawyer in Damietta.
Verdicts in two similar cases were expected Monday afternoon in other electoral districts in Damietta. If the verdict turns out also in favor of the group’s candidates, Anany said that “the local council elections will be stopped in all parts of Damietta city.
In Ismailia, MB candidates won a court case allowing them to nominate themselves in the upcoming elections. The Primary Giza Court also ruled in favor of five MB members in a similar case.
The verdicts, however, weren’t the end of what the group called its “legal battle.
The group reported in its daily newsletter that five of its candidates were arrested on their way to the State Council Court in Mansoura to file their nomination papers.In Fayoum, one Brotherhood lawyer said the head of the committee that activates court orders wasn’t available to give the candidates their nomination forms, which the court had declared they were entitled to.
