13 Brotherhood dissenters unlikely according to head of Islamist Labor Party
It is unfair, unfair, unfair, chanted members of Egypt’s opposition and Muslim Brotherhood MPs in front of the parliament building in Kasr El-Aini Street Wednesday.
Magdy Ahmed Hussein, head of the Islamist Labor Party, said results indicating that National Democratic Party’s Ahmed Fathy Sorour had won the elections for parliament president and speaker were a farce.
Sorour won with 319 votes against Brotherhood candidate Mohammed El-Katatni’s 79.
This incident holds serious consequences . now no one is ashamed of forgery, Hussein told The Daily Star Egypt. ITALICS
Hussein indicated that similar incidents have happened in past elections because the results do not get checked in public, they do it in a private committee, Hussein said.
The 319 vote tally seems to indicate that 13 members of the 92 independent MPs believed to be affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood voted for Sorour against their own candidate.
There is no possible way that 13 members of the Muslim Brotherhood voted for Sorour. I can take it if one or two but not 13, Hussein added.
If true, the 13 “dissenters could pose a risk for the Brotherhood, he said, explaining that the group’s MPs could now question each other’s loyalties.
In recent weeks, the Muslim Brotherhood has complained that it is the target of a massive campaign to restrict and remove its members from national union and university elections.
Ain Shams, Cairo and Helwan University witnessed demonstrations and violence as Muslim Brotherhood students protested against the removal of their nominees from the official candidacy registers.
We do not have a real political system . we are currently witnessing the highest stages of dictatorships under the name of political reform, Hussein said.
