CAIRO - Egypt's second biggest opposition bloc said on Thursday it would refuse to take up the two seats it won in a parliamentary election it said was faked, in addition to refusing to take part in a second round. The liberal Wafd party and Egypt's biggest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, said on Wednesday they were quitting the parliament race before run-offs scheduled for Dec. 5. The two parties, which lost heavily in Sunday's vote, have said the poll was discredited by vote manipulation, thuggery and other tricks. The United States, Egypt's ally and a major aid donor, criticised the poll's conduct. Independent Egyptian monitors cited widespread abuse. Officials said voting was fair. But analysts said the blatant manner of abuses cited by monitors and others had prompted a rare show of political decisiveness by Wafd, a decades-old party that has often dithered between the government and opposition camps. "This time, it was more hideous and on a larger scale than in any other election ... (The ruling party) has given the opposition the biggest present it can hope for," said opposition campaigner Hassan Nafaa, saying he hoped it would drive the opposition towards a more unified call for political change. Anti-government street protests rarely gather more than a few hundred people in Egypt, where security is swift to quash dissent. Despite efforts to draw opposition groups into coalitions, campaigns have usually disintegrated amid bickering. Analysts said the government wanted to crush its Islamist and other critics before a 2011 presidential vote. Rules governing that vote make it almost impossible for a realistic challenge to the ruling party's nomination. But analysts said the state wants to avoid public shows of dissent. "The presidential election is probably the key marker at the moment and this is an effort to sideline the Brotherhood in preparation for that election and that may well be because of the huge uncertainty about what Mubarak will do," said David Hartwell, IHS Jane's North Africa and Middle East analyst. Wafd, which controlled 12 seats in the last parliament, won just two in the first round vote on Nov. 28 and had been set to contest nine seats in run-offs before it withdrew. "We are not participating in the run-off and the two candidates that have won will have to leave the party and become independent if they wish to continue in the parliament," Wafik El-Ghetany, who heads Wafd's election operation, told Reuters. The group has said the vote was "scandalous". Reflecting divisions in the Wafd party, a group of about 40 members gathered to oppose the boycott outside the party office where Wafd leaders were explaining their reason for quitting. "No to boycotting the vote. We will continue," they chanted. The Brotherhood previously had 88 seats in parliament, equivalent to a fifth, but won none in Sunday's first round. It had 26 candidates in run-offs but will not contest them. The Islamist group runs candidates as independents because of a constitutional ban on the formation of religious parties. The ruling party has dismissed criticism of the poll and said the Brotherhood had lost the confidence of voters. "This is the reality of elections," Safwat Sherif, the party's secretary-general, told a news conference late on Wednesday. The new parliament will have 518 seats, with 508 elected and 10 more appointed by the president. The outgoing assembly had 454 seats. Extra seats reserved for women were added this time.
