MB Chooses to Boycott Second Round of Polls

Muslim Brotherhood chairman, Dr. Mohammed Badie, has officially announced the group’s decision to boycott the runoff elections scheduled for next Sunday. The group has decided to withdraw all its 27 candidates who were expected to contest in the run-off including candidates for the women’s quota.
 
In a televised statement Badie asserted that the decision to withdraw came after the majority of 72% of the group’s  Shura Council, voted in favour of boycotting  the runoff protesting incidents which took place in the first round of the election. He stressed that although the group did not secure any seats outright, they succeeded in achieving its objective of exposing the government to the world for what it really is; an illegitimate and corrupt tyrannical regime.

According to Badie, a legitimate ruling government should be elected by the people and not be forced on them by manipulating the people’s will through illegitimate measures of corruption and tyranny that were witnessed during Sunday’s polls. The ballot stuffing, bullying, vote buying and other violations used in the first round prompted the MB to boycott in protest to a regime which is set on continuing its efforts to monopolize the nation’s parliamentary assembly and to isolate the people from the regime, thereby threatening the principle of citizenship.

Badie emphasized that boycotting the elections was by no means strange in the group’s principle of participation in elections; however, circumstances surrounding the elections forced the group to make this decision. The chairman asserted, however, that the group would follow all legal and appropriate channels to hold each and every person who is guilty of manipulating accountable. It will continue in its quest of calling for the formation of a legitimate assembly chosen by the people and worthy of representing them.

Badie ascertained that in principle the group is set on participating in each and every election ranging from student council, club, syndicate, union, or council election. Furthermore, the group faces much hardship in each election because of its insistence on struggling against rigging and fraud. He indicated that this was also the case in the parliamentary polls on Sunday where a group representing the MB vied for seats in an attempt to promote the process of reform that is necessary for all and faced many assaults and much harassment simply for practicing its most basic constitutional rights.

Badie concluded his statement stressing that the illegitimate measures and tactics used against the MB by the regime whether arbitrary arrests, storming houses and private institutions or violence against its supporters will not succeed in luring the group to violence since peace and tolerance has always, and always will be the way of the Muslim Brotherhood and the way Islam taught its followers. He indicated that the farcical elections of November 28, where the world witnessed the regime’s violations through its media proving that a picture speaks a thousand words, has prompted the group to boycott the elections despite having 27 valid nominees to field in round two.