CAIRO: The Free Egyptians Party, the largest party in the Egyptian Bloc electoral alliance, released a statement on Tuesday evening condemning claims that it relied on religious feelings and the support of the Coptic church in its electoral campaign. The party, which was founded by Coptic businessman Naguib Sawiris, said that such claims were an attempt to incite sectarian feeling and represented a continuation of the methods of the Mubarak regime. It pointed out that the majority of its candidates were Muslims and that many of the other parties, including those with an Islamic political outlook, also had Christian candidates on their lists. The party said that attempts to use sectarian claims against it were an insult to the Egyptian people, who were not going to cast their votes on such a superficial basis. It suggested that these accusations were a response to indications on the first day of the elections that the party was gaining considerable popular support. Separately, the Egyptian Bloc condemned what it said were numerous violations of electoral procedures, the most common being the issue of ballot papers without the official stamp and the refusal of the supervising judges at some polling stations to sign the unstamped papers. This would render the votes cast on such ballots invalid. The Bloc listed 17 voting stations in Cairo where this had been observed, saying that they were examples of the problem which had also taken place elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Freedom and Justice Party, in a press release at midday on Wednesday, welcomed the early indications that their lists and candidates were leading in the elections. The FJP claimed to be leading in Fayyoum, Cairo, the Red Sea and Assiut governorates and to be competing for first place with the Salafi Nur party in Alexandria and Kafr al-Sheikh. The party also said that the poor showing of candidates linked to the former ruling National Democratic Party showed that “the Egyptian people had exercised their right to ban (ex-NDP members) from politics.” The FJP also noted what it said were numerous procedural violations in the counting of votes and their transfer from polling stations to count centres. These included disorganization in the counting centres, the refusal of some count staff to proceed with the count until they were paid, and the counting of votes before the supervising judges were present. BM
