Habib: Egyptian Regime Blocks MB Attempts to Field Women in Municipal Elections

Tuesday, March 11,2008 15:49

by Mohamed Ismail IkhwanWeb

Egyptian regime thwarts all attempts to field female candidates in the Municipal elections scheduled to be held next month, said MB deputy chairman Muhamad Habib.

The obstacles that the Muslim Brotherhood potential candidates face while submitting nomination papers aren’t restricted to men. Women also face such hurdles from the Egyptian regime that releases hollow promises of a bigger space for women political action while in practice it denies both men and women the chance to stand elections ", Habib said in statements to Ikhwanweb. He added that the Muslim Brotherhood was planning to allow a wider female participation in these elections but the regime’s inflexibility did not allow this .

Habib pointed out that the group did not set a quota for the women’s election participation under its banner. It only left this issue to local administrative offices governoratewide to define this according to capacity.

It is worth mentioning that the Muslim Brotherhood in Alexandria is the only MB office that announced plans for fielding more than ten women in the coming Municipal elections. This was announced in a press conference held by the MB in Alexandria last week. However, Osama Gado, the head of the MB administrative, told Ikhwanweb that no one of the potential female candidates, whom they announced, has managed to submit nomination papers so far, mainly due to the violations committed by government bodies against all potential candidates from both sexes. Some MB potential female candidates received even subpoenas to meet security leaders to threaten them so as to force them to abandon their nomination plans.