Muslim Brotherhood, Wafd Party Quit “Rigged” Election

How come the Muslim Brotherhood, who won 20 percent of seats at the last election in 2005 may fail to secure a single one in last Sunday's ballot??
Unless the secular opposition and Muslim Brotherhood reach some commom grounds, there is no hope in change.
However, I think, the particpation of Muslim Brotherhood and Wafd party, exposed the Fake domocracy of Mubarak regime. Both did well in boycotting the second round.

Muslim Brotherhood, Wafd Party Quit “Rigged” Election
 

01/12/2010 The Egyptian opposition’s Muslim Brotherhood and Wafd party both announced on Wednesday withdrawal from Egypt's election after a crushing first-round defeat by the president's ruling party in a poll marred by alleged fraud and violence.

The move left barely any opposition contesting the second round of the parliamentary poll and dealt another blow to the credibility of the vote after Egypt came in for heavy criticism from its US ally and human rights groups.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which won 20 percent of seats at the last election in 2005 but failed to secure a single one in last Sunday's ballot, said it will boycott a run-off on December 5. An official announcement was expected later in the day.

The liberal Wafd party, which won only two of 508 contested seats, said it was also pulling out of the election altogether, along with its two successful candidates. "We will withdraw from all the election. The two who won seats in the first round will also withdraw," the secular party's secretary general, Munir Fakhir Abdel Nur, told AFP.

The Egyptian ruling party won nearly all seats in the controversial first round of Parliamentary vote. Official figures showed President Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) won 209 of 221 seats, while the Muslim Brotherhood, the only serious organized opposition, was crushed by failing to win a single seat outright.

The Brotherhood, which ignored a call in September to boycott the poll by Egypt's former UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei, a key opposition figure, denounced the election as "rigged and invalid."

Wafd's Abdel Nur said before his announcement: "It makes no sense that one party controls 96 percent of parliament. It would be better to save the money that is allocated to parliament and ask the NDP's political committee to take over the role."

Human rights groups say the first round of voting was marred by widespread violence and fraud, and the White House expressed disappointment at the way the poll was conducted. But Egypt's electoral commission dismissed the charges. "While the commission regrets that certain irregularities took place, it is satisfied with the fact that these irregularities did not impact on the transparency of the first round of the election," commission spokesman Sameh el-Kashef said.

On Wednesday, Egypt sharply rejected US criticism of the way the election was conducted, calling it "unacceptable interference" in the country's domestic affairs. The US comments "contained clear misconceptions and claims," foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said.

The White House described as "worrying" numerous reported irregularities, the lack of international monitoring and "restrictions on the basic freedoms of association, speech and press in the run-up to the elections."

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