Police detained 20 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood in the Delta city of Kafr el-Sheikh Tuesday for staging a march to support an Islamist candidate in the mid-term election of the Shura Council (the Upper House of Egypt's Parliament). "Around 20 were held for holding an illegal march in Beni Bakar village, near Kafr el-Sheikh. They clashed with policemen leading to injuries in both sides," a security official said Tuesday. He added that three other members of the group were released. The Brotherhood, which is officially banned but has affiliated candidates in Parliament, said the Government had approved 12 of the 14 candidates it put forward to run for seats in the June l election of the Shura Council. How the Brotherhood fares in the Shura vote will provide clues about what to expect in a second election later this year for the People's Assembly (the Lower House of Egypt's Parliament), where the group controls a fifth of seats. "The Brotherhood's rivals from the ruling National Democratic Party and security forces will work to prevent them from winning votes," said Nabil Abdel-Fattah, an analyst at the Al-Ahram Centre for Strategic and Political Studies in Cairo. Egyptian officials insist voting is free and fair. A governmenal election panel approved a total of 490 candidates from President Hosni Mubarak's ruling party and opposition groups to run in the June 1 vote, which will renew 88 seats in the 264-member council. A total of 575 candidates were nominated as candidates, but some were rejected because, for example, they were found to have not completed obligatory military service. Analysts say turnout for the Shura vote is typically extremely low and the bigger constituencies for each Shura seat mean many Egyptians have a little idea about who is standing. The smaller constituencies of Lower House seats and greater public interest in that vote means Brotherhood candidates, often well known in the local community, have managed to secure seats. "The group knows it will not win any (Shura) seats just like in 2007 elections, but they take these elections as a warm-up for the parliament vote in which they can manage to secure seats," political analyst Diaa Rashwan told Reuters. The Brotherhood has never won any seats in the Shura Council, which reviews draft laws before sending them to the lower house for a final vote. The government said two Brotherhood candidates were rejected for failing to complete military service, which the Brotherhood denies.
