The Anti-Coup Alliance reiterated its call to boycott upcoming presidential elections in a Saturday statement, accusing interim government officials of "corruption" and "terrorism". The alliance, which is backed by the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups calling for the return of ousted president Mohamed Morsi to the presidency, said its support on the street "was considered an early vote to boycott the farce," in reference to the presidential elections scheduled to take place on 26 and 27 May. The Anti-Coup Alliance accused those in power of conspiring with foreign powers, saying "we will not accept a substitute for freedom and will not accept to be ruled by an agent and serial killer that takes his orders from superior representatives that sit in embassies of shame, running from one Arab country to another to destroy it," said the statement, in reference to heavy favourite in the elections former Minister of Defence Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, who led the ouster of Morsi last summer. The statement also said that those responsible would not benefit from "empowerment from abroad" and would fail the same way former dictators Hosni Mubarak, former president of Tunisia Ben Ali, Shah of Iran Mohamed Reza, and Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi did. The pro-Morsi group also called for continued protests. Similarly last week the Anti-Coup Alliance accused Sisi of collaborating with "his masters in the White House, Tel Aviv, and the European Union". The Anti-Coup Alliance also boycotted the constitutional referendum in January and has repeated its view that the current interim government and polls that it calls for are "illegitimate". "The position of the president of the republic is not vacant," said the group in a statement last month. "The president of Egypt until now is Dr Mohamed Morsi, who came by free popular will and fair constitutional procedures supervised and announced by state institutions," added the alliance. Security forces have continued to crackdown on pro-Morsi protests. Last Friday 22 protesters were arrested amid minor clashes, according to the Ministry of Interior. Both Al-Sisi and his opponent Nasserist politician Hamdeen Sabahy have vowed that the Muslim Brotherhood would cease to exist in Egypt during their tenures. On Friday the Brotherhood said that it was "seeking to correct the upended situation and the return of the people as the owner of the state and its institutions" and called on the armed forces to withdraw from the political arena.
