CAIRO: The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) successfully managed to register 19 candidates for the upcoming elections at the Shoura Council (SC), the Upper House of Parliament. This is the first time in ten years that the Brotherhood has nominated candidates for the SC elections, according to Sobhy Saleh, a member of the People s Assembly (PA) affiliated with the MB. Saleh told The Daily Star Egypt that the Brotherhood's decision to field candidates in the coming SC elections came as a result of the recent changes in the Egyptian political system, when the constitutional amendments gave the SC some legislative powers. According to the recently changed Article 195 of the constitution, a consensus is required from both the PA and SC on any change in the law related to the constitution. SC member of the legislative committee Shawki El Sayed, who represents the National Democratic Party (NDP), told The Daily Star Egypt that the increase in the number of members affiliated with opposition groups will lead to more democracy. He indicated his acceptance of representatives from the MB, considered the main opposition force. El Sayed, however, does not have clear expectations about how many of the 19 MB candidates will win a council seat. He said the result depends on the candidates personalities and how the elections are managed. Fayek Fahim, political analyst and professor of mass communication at Misr International University (MIU) told The Daily Star Egypt that the MB's ability to occupy parliamentary seats was proved during the 2005 PA elections where the group won 88 out of 454 seats. And had the group not been suspended from running in the third phase by the security forces, they would have gained more seats, Fahim said. Fahim expects that the MB to win a good number of seats if things go normally and the candidates are not restricted or prevented by security forces. Despite the publication of the candidate list, the crackdown against the Brotherhood In Daqahliya, state security forces detained Mohamed Abdel Rahman Salem, a student at the Faculty of Engineering at Mansoura University, on May 23. Mohamed's arrest came one day after police raided the family home to detain his father, MB political analyst Abdel Rahman Salem. According to the Brotherhood, Mohamed physically fought with police when they raided the home to arrest his father after police began to beat and intimidate his mother and siblings. Mohamed claims he was handcuffed and hung from the ceiling while in police custody, and that police beat and tortured him for 13 hours. He says he was made to shout insults at himself and scream obscenities about his family until he lost consciousness. When he awoke, he claims, he was lying in the street in Mansoura without his money or wallet. Abdel Rahman Salem, the man's father, remains in the custody of state security. And in the Sharqiya city of Zagazig, police severely beat and detained MB SC candidate Nagi Saqr and 12 members of his entourage during a campaign stop. Included in the round-up were Hassan Othman, a Brotherhood leader recently released from prison and Tamer Said, the private driver of MB Executive Bureau member Mohamed Morsi. "Detaining Dr. Nagi is part of the ongoing repressive policy exercised by the regime against the Muslim Brotherhood and the opposition in general, said Farid Ismail, MP for Sharqiya, in a statement provided by the Brotherhood. "Arresting a candidate has become an ordinary act under the repressive Egyptian regime that wants to impose its grip on all state services, he added. Late last month, on Sunday April 29, two members of the People's Assembly, Sabry Amer and Ragab Abu Zeid, were taken into custody in the city of Menoufiya. The two had been meeting with other Brotherhood members to discuss the coming SC elections. They were detained along with nine other Brotherhood members, although according to the constitution PA members cannot be detained or investigated unless their parliamentary immunity has been removed, or unless they have been caught committing a crime. Nabil Abdel Fattah, a political analyst from Al Ahram Center for Strategic and Political Studies, describes the detention of the MB parliamentarians as illegal. According to Abdel Fattah, the arrests are meant as an indirect and harsh message from the government to tell the 88 parliament members affiliated with the group "that parliamentary immunity will not protect them. The message is also meant, as Abdel Fattah indicated, to make the Brotherhood reconsider their criticism of the government that they openly and excessively express during PA sessions. He believes that the government is using its position in the region as an ally of the US and their policies in Iraq and Palestine to invoke all legal ways and permit all suitable means to block the opposition or any other undesired political groups.
