PRO-MORSI URGES BOYCOTT EGYPT'S ELECTION

Cairo, 27 Jumadil Akhir 1435/27 April 2014 (MINA) – The main support bloc of ousted president Mohamed Morsi has urged Egyptians to boycott the upcoming presidential elections, due next month, describing the vote as a “farce.”

“We would boycott the big, absurd show and we call on all Egyptians, inside the country and abroad, to boycott [it],” the National Alliance for the Defense of Legitimacy said in a statement on Sunday.

“We would not participate in a farce to pave the way for a full-fledged crime,” added the bloc, made up mainly of Islamist forces which denounce Morsi’s ouster by the army last July as a military coup, Anadolu Agency quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

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The presidential elections, due on May 26-27, will mark the second phase of an army-imposed transitional roadmap that should be completed later this year with the holding of parliamentary polls.

Former defense minister Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, who led the army’s ouster of democratically elected Morsi after one year in power, is contesting the polls against former presidential contender Hamdeen Sabahi.

The pro-Morsi bloc reiterated its refusal to recognize any president elected through the upcoming polls.

“The president’s post is not vacant. The incumbent president is Mohamed Morsi, who came to office through free public will and fair constitutional procedures,” it said.

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“Morsi’s term has not expired and what happened was a military coup,” the bloc added.

Morsi currently faces four different trials on charges of incitement to murder, espionage, jailbreak and offending the judiciary.

Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, insists that the charges are politically motivated. (T/P09/P04).

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)