CAIRO: The Muslim Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc formed a special committee aimed at combating vote rigging in the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled to take place in 2010, Hamdy Hassan, spokesperson for the group's parliamentary bloc, said. In a meeting last week, Brotherhood MPs agreed to form a special committee comprised of independent members of the community as well as public figures to monitor the parliamentary elections, Hamdy said. "The Brotherhood already contacted some public figures who are currently mulling joining the group's special committee, he added. According to Hamdy, independent MP Gamal Zahran; Mahmoud Al-Khoudery, former chairman of the Judges' Club in Alexandria; Abdullah Al-Ashel, former deputy foreign minister; George Ishaq, cofounder of Kefaya; and Saed Aboud, MP from Al-Karama party will be part of the committee. The committee will also include Brotherhood members Hussein Ibrahim, head of the group's parliamentary bloc, Saad Al-Katatney, former head of the bloc, as well as Ahmed Diab and Mohamed Al-Beltagy. On a related note, the Brotherhood condemned the second round of parliamentary elections that took place in Qanater in Qaliubiya last Saturday. Earlier this month, Minister of Interior Habib El-Adly set a date for the elections do-over in districts where results of the first round in 2005 were invalidated. The Brotherhood had announced that they will not participate in the redo of the elections. In a Brotherhood statement sent to Daily News Egypt, the group said they earned 20,000 votes in the first round of the elections in 2005, versus 12,000 votes for National Democratic Party candidates. The Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement (EACPE) filed a report also condemning the elections redo that took place in Qanater, saying it ignored a court order that ruled in favor of the first elections. EACPE further indicated that the Ministry of Interior disregarded law number 22 of the new political rights law that states that any second round of elections should be announced at least a month beforehand. The ministry had announced the elections a week earlier.
