Israel media has reported that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood plans a mass protest over what it says what the groups forced exclusion from the parliament by the Egyptian government. According to a report in the Jerusalem Post:
Egyptian opposition group Muslim Brotherhood says it will take its political struggle to the streets after claiming that Egypt’s recent elections were “rigged” to make sure the movement was excluded from parliament, according to a Reuters report. The Islamist movement’s leader, Mohamed Badie said the Brotherhood would use “peaceful means of dissent” against the parliament, which he said di not reflect the will of Egypt’s voters. “Absent from parliament…the opposition will take to the streets,” Badie said in a Reuters interview. He said the Brotherhood would join with other opposition groups in protests that would be “legal, constitutional and en masse”. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) won 420 of the 508 contested seats in the elections on November 28 and December 5.
Previous posts have discussed the recent Egyptian parliamentary elections in which the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood won only one seat, following a campaign directed against them by the ruling government as well as the group’s announcement that it would be working with the National Assembly for Change (NAC) led by Mohamed El-Baradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and now opposition politician.
The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood can be considered to be the “mother” organization of what is referred to in these pages as the Global Muslim Brotherhood which developed as Muslim Brothers fleeing Egypt settled in Europe and the United States, as well as other places, throughout the years. The global network has since eclipsed the Egyptian organization as evidenced by global Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi’s decision to turn down the leadership of the Egyptian organization when it was offered to him in 2004.