The Muslim Brotherhood has selected 15 of its members who are currently MPs to stand in the upcoming Shura Council elections, said Essam el-Erian, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Guidance Bureau. The group is still discussing whether it will participate in the elections in other constituencies, said el-Erian. El-Erian said to Al-Masry Al-Youm that the group has decided it will be up to each member of the Brotherhood whether to run for candidacy or not, as the group deals with the election issue with a decentralized policy. This includes decisions made by current MPs as to whether to run in the Shura elections. El-Erian explained the group's decision on running MPs in elections: "The Brotherhood have chosen MPs because of their parliamentary immunity, so they can move freely with no security reasons to ban them. This is in addition to their perfect performance during the last period, and will also provide opportunities to others to run for candidacy in parliamentary elections if those already in parliament are elected to the Shura Council." Mohamed el-Beltagy, secretary general of the Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary bloc, said the members were chosen due to their role in parliament and their experience, rather than because of their parliamentary immunity. "If it was about immunity, we would have chosen all the candidates from the current MPs, especially because they are distributed across the country," added el-Beltagy. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
