Egypt Islamists continue sweep
2005-11-21 12:20
Cairo - Egypt's Islamists claimed further gains on Monday in the latest round of parliamentary polls, maintaining their record-breaking first phase momentum despite widespread voter intimidation and violence.
Muslim Brotherhood spokesperson Issam al-Aryan said his movement had won at least 13 seats in the second phase of elections, without runoffs needed, bringing their seat tally to 47 half-way through the elections and trebling their 2000 score.
While President Hosni Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) was at no risk of losing power, it looked set to face a real parliamentary opposition for the first time.
Official results were expected later on Monday.
Sunday's polling was marred by widespread violence, which claimed the first victim of the elections, the driver of a candidate whom independent monitoring groups said was beaten to death by NDP thugs.
Ruling party up to old tactics?
The usually peaceful Mediterranean city of Alexandria was the scene of pitched battles between supporters of rival candidates, as clans fought with sticks, knives and guns.
"Who can hit the hardest?" was the headline of Egypt's leading independent daily Al-Masri Al-Yom, which carried front page pictures of men and teenagers wielding swords and even a candidate holding a handgun.
"The success recorded by the Muslim Brothers during the first phase sparked fear in the regime, which cannot bear the presence of opposition in parliament," the Islamist movement's number two Mohammed Habib said.
"The NDP could see it was going to lose and resorted to violence and thugs against the Muslim Brotherhood. All this was aimed at preventing people from voting," he added.
Observers had predicted that the ruling party would resort to its old tactics to prevent the officially banned Islamist movement from making further political inroads.
Monitors and opposition candidates reported the intervention of security forces and NDP thugs to block access to polling stations. Mohammed Habib said close to 500 Brotherhood supporters were detained at the weekend.
But the interior ministry said the performance of the security services "was characterised by neutrality" and put the blame for the violence squarely on the Brotherhood's shoulders.