Recent calls by current and former Muslim Brotherhood (MB) leaders to boycott next month's parliamentary elections have triggered varying reactions from within the group's authoritative Guidance Bureau and its consultative Shura Council. “The Shura Council majority has already decided that the MB would participate in elections,” said council member Gamal Heshmat, adding that the Guidance Bureau had been informed of the decision. “Candidates' names will be announced next Monday at the latest," he added. The announcement of MB candidates' names was deliberately postponed until immediately before the vote, explained Heshmat, in hopes of preempting their arrest by security services. MB Deputy General Guide Rashad Bayoumi, for his part, declined to comment on the issue, while group member Ibrahim al-Zaafarani expressed overt support for the boycott proposal. “Refusing to take part in elections would serve our interests,” the latter said. Group member Jehan al-Halafawy, by contrast, opined that an electoral boycott would "only serve the interests of national security.” Former MB Shura Council member Abdel Sattar al-Meligy, meanwhile, questioned the Guidance Bureau's legitimacy. “The call to boycott elections is directed at the wise men of the group, not to its illegitimate Guidance Bureau,” he said. In 2005 parliamentary elections, the MB captured roughly one fifth of the seats in the People's Assembly despite numerous reports of electoral fraud by the ruling National Democratic Party of President Hosni Mubarak. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
