CAIRO: The Muslim Brotherhood never opposed the participation of women or Coptic candidates in elections, MB Secretary General Mahmoud Ezzat said, dispelling misconceptions about the group's stance vis-à-vis both categories. This comes after the group announced that it has included 15 Copts in the list of municipal election candidates. The decision has evoked criticism against the group, with its opponents accusing it of political maneuvers. The Brotherhood is always left defending its position regarding the treatment of Copts and women, saying it doesn't have vague political agendas in these two issues. The position of Copts and women within the group's political plans has always been criticized as vague. "The group nominated Copts and women in elections several times before, Ezzat said, citing the 1987 local council elections, where the Brotherhood nominated Gamal Asaad, a Copt, to represent the group which had formed an alliance with Al-Amal and Al-Ahrar parties at the time. The Brotherhood also nominated female candidates in the 2000 and 2005 parliamentary elections, Ezzat added. Such misconceptions are propagated by government-led campaigns aimed at defaming the group, he said. However, Ezzat said that the Brotherhood's official program states that political development will only be achieved if different ideologies, religious currents and genders are represented in the political arena. Gamal Eid, chairman of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRInfo), said that the government's contradictory attitude towards the MB is the main reason behind people's skepticism of the group's agenda. "On the one hand, the government says that the Brotherhood is an illegal group and arrests its members, while on the other hand, it allows them to run for parliamentary seats as independents, he told Daily News Egypt. This, Eid explained, makes the group's political agenda unclear to the public. Nabil Abdel Fattah, an analyst at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies previously told Daily News Egypt that the Brotherhood are to blame for the misconceptions surrounding their agenda because they are not making it available to the public. This raises doubts about their stance on certain social issues, especially regarding other religions and women.
