- Title: EGYPT: Muslim opposition accuse authorities in Egypt of election fraud.
- Date: 12th June 2007
- Summary: (W3) TANTA, EGYPT (JUNE 11, 2007) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF SCHOOL USED AS POLLING STATION TROOP CARRYING TRUCKS NEAR POLLING STATION MAN CASTING BALLOT INSIDE OF POLLING STATION MAN CASTING BALLOT LABEL ON BALLOT BOX, READS: "Number of Polling Station Branch {168}"
- Embargoed: 27th June 2007 09:28
- Keywords:
- Location: Egypt
- Country: Egypt
- Topics: Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA2DNIFGOY1GGI28XRTM4D2EGBK
- Aspect Ratio: 4:3
- Story Text: Supporters of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood accuse authorities of fraud as Egyptians in the Nile Delta vote in elections for the upper house of Parliament. Police prevented Egyptians from voting on Monday (June 11) in some areas where the opposition Muslim Brotherhood is strong, in the first elections under an amended constitution which makes politics harder for the Islamists.
Brotherhood candidates in the upper house elections complained that government agents beat them up inside polling stations and committed a range of electoral abuses including stuffing ballot boxes before voting started.
In Ausim, northwest of Cairo, riot police sealed off at least two polling stations and used the same method to reduce the Brotherhood vote in the northern coastal town of Baltim, where women in Islamic headscarves said police had turned them away, witnesses said.
Independent monitors said that preventing access to polling stations was one of the most common electoral abuses by the government in the parliamentary elections of 2005, when the Brotherhood proved its status as the main opposition force.
The current elections are for 88 of the 176 elected seats in the upper house, which has wider powers under the constitutional amendments approved in March. The NDP has already won 11 of those seats because its candidates did not face any opposition.
In the Tanta district, Desouki Kuleib, the local candidate aligned with the Brotherhood, which is Egypt's strongest opposition force, said some ballot boxes at one school had hundreds of ballot papers when only a handful of people had voted. He also said the group's supporters had been barred from voting.
"This polling station is near another polling station, but in the other no fraud has happened but in this one there is fraud. There are no voters in reality, and they are preventing them from entering," he said.
The elections, for the less powerful upper house or Shoura Council, are a test case for constitutional and legislative changes which ban religious slogans and symbols -- seen as an attempt to drive the Islamists out of mainstream politics.
In many areas only a trickle of people bothered to vote, eyewitnesses said, but the Brotherhood's decision to challenge the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) in 19 of the 88 seats at stake made them more competitive than in previous years.
An election monitor for the Brotherhood, Shohdi Ibrahim, said that the police had expelled him from his designated polling station and beat him in the process.
"Honestly, I feel that there is no hope, there is no hope in this country ever, as long as Mubarak and the National Democratic Party are here there is no hope," he said.
The Brotherhood said police had detained at least 160 of its organizers and election agents since voting started.
In contrast to the Brotherhood's accusations, a Interior Ministry spokesman told a news conference that voting was proceeding calmly and satisfactorily.
In an unrelated dispute, one man was killed in an exchange of gunfire between supporters of the NDP and of an independent candidate in the Nile Delta, police sources said. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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