The Muslim Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice Party have denied allegations that the first round of the presidential election was rigged, saying that they only witnessed few voting irregularities which will not influence the final result. Chairman of the FJP legal committee Mokhtar al-Ashry said there were no cases of fraud in the election. He did say that there were mistakes, including the presence of Central Cecurity and armed forces members on voter lists, but that these did not affect the electoral process. Ashry said allegations of rigging are “contrary to the truth.” He characterized such descriptions as “dishonorable” attempts to stop the electoral process. He went on to urge anyone with evidence of electoral fraud to file a report to the public prosecutor rather than the Presidential Elections Commission, and that any proven offender must be punished. He pointed out that Article 28 of the Constitutional Declaration “stands as a barrier against any manipulation or fraud.” Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsoud, a Brotherhood lawyer and the legal adviser to Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsy's presidential campaign, said that during the election it was discovered that a number of military and police force members had been included in the database, which is illegal. “When we asked the Presidential Elections Commission for the database, it refused to give us the database CD,” he said. “This cast a shadow that there was a deliberate attempt to hide certain data.” He told Al-Masry Al-Youm that he filed a complaint to the Presidential Elections Commission that listed the ineligible military and police voters and distributed these lists to the electoral districts. He added that regardless, the less than 30,000 ineligible voters would not impact the results considering the some 20 million Egyptians who cast their ballots. Abdel Maqsoud said that the monitored violations included “a number of violations by polling station heads, as some heads of the electoral districts were interfering in the electoral process in favor of certain candidates. But their number does not exceed a few dozen, and [this] did not affect the electoral process.” He went on to say that nothing confirms that rigging took place and that he hopes these negative aspects and errors disappear during the runoff phase. Edited translation by Al-Masry Al-Youm
