Press Release No. 5 of Dr. Morsi Central Campaign

Press Release No. 5 of Dr. Morsi Central Campaign

This morning, large numbers of voters flocked to polling stations in governorates across Egypt. In the voting sites themselves, there is mostly a general atmosphere of calm and tranquility, despite the heated competition, an indication of positive attitudes and a rising hope of an effective change, after a wait that lasted decades.


On this occasion, we renew our tribute to the souls of the martyrs who sacrificed their pure blood to light up our path from despotism to democracy and freedom. Dr. Morsi’s campaign also salutes all Egyptians who came out yesterday and today, despite the hot weather, to perform their duty to rebuild their homeland, especially Egyptian women who went out with unprecedented enthusiasm.

The campaign urges all Egyptians who have not voted as yet to do so, to participate in the selection of the future President of Egypt.

Despite the general calm in most polling stations, there were still a series of incidents, clashes and irregularities that have been monitored in several provinces, including:

• Dubious rumors being circulated about alerts to the heads of voting sub-stations in a number of provinces not to hand over ballot sorting results to representatives of candidates.

This would be a blatant violation of the law which states that:

"Each voting sub-station must check out and sort ballots and announce the result of that station in the presence of representatives of candidates and civil society organizations as well as the media.

"The head of the sub-station hands the vote-counting results to the head of his/her main polling station, in an official statement signed by the head of the voting site. The head of the sub-station must hand a copy of the vote-count statement to each candidate agent or representative."

• Dr. Morsi’s campaign has observed an increase in rumor circulating activities aimed at influencing the voting process. Notably, some sources claimed electricity would be cut off during vote-counting in a number of provinces. However, such rumors will not work; will never deceive the Egyptian people.

• In the province of Dakahlia, the judge overseeing polling site No. 3, at the Commerce School, removed from the site a female delegate of our candidate Dr. Mohamed Morsi. She had objected to staff there urging citizens to vote for a rival candidate. When the delegate objected, the judge told her off harshly and ordered her removal from the polling station.

• In the province of Beheira, several voting places in remote areas, away from the city of Damanhur, remained closed for a while as supervising judges were late arriving there. The same story was repeated in a number of polling stations in Abul Matamir, Wadi Al-Natroun and Tahrir constituencies.

• In Alexandria, there have been reports of violations and irregularities by a certain political party in favor of a specific candidate. Supporters of the party distributed election propaganda materials and used loudspeakers in a crude manner, prompting people to lodge complaints against their violations.

• In Alexandria, also, military police arrested a number of supporters of Dr. Morsi’s campaign who happened to be local teachers, as they passed in one of the streets adjacent to a polling area in Semouha district.

Those were arrested, searched in a humiliating manner and taken to an unknown destination. Those included: Ahmed Naseer, Member of the Teachers Association of East Alexandria, and Mohamed Al-Badri.

Significantly, earlier this morning, four other people were arrested in the same way. They were: Karim Mahmoud, Ahmed Fouad, Hany Abdel-Aleem Mabrouk and Ahmed Ali Yusuf.

The Legal Committee of Dr. Morsi’s campaign has filed two complaints with the Supreme Presidential Elections Committee (SPEC) against the newspaper Al-Dostour for publishing, in its issue 1702, dated today Thursday May 24, slanderous lies and libelous and defamatory misinformation meant to deliberately influence the will of the voters.

The campaign’s legal committee also lodged a complaint against Al-Youm Al-Sabea newspaper for publishing news and statistics of the election results in violation of the electoral silence currently imposed on all parties.