Muslim Brotherhood calls for early polls in Egypt

CAIRO

Egypt’s embattled Muslim Brotherhood group has called for fresh presidential election as a way-out of the country’s lingering political crisis.

This came in a statement issued by the group on the 5th anniversary of a deadly dispersal by security forces of two major protest camps in support of former president Mohamed Morsi in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawaya Square and Giza’s Nahda Square in 2013.

While Egyptian authorities say 632 people, including 8 policemen were killed in the dispersal, rights groups put the death toll at over 1,000 victims.

The Muslim Brotherhood said its 10-item initiative aims to “cruise the country out of the dark tunnel”.

“The best way-out of this dark tunnel is the return of President Morsi to power to chair a coalition government agreed upon by national powers for a specific and sufficient period of time to prepare the country for fair election supervised by an independent judicial entity…without exclusion of any party,” the group said.

It went on to call for national dialogue as a way of bolstering unity inside Egypt.

There was no comment from the Egyptian authorities on the Brotherhood’s call.

Egypt has been roiled by turmoil since the military deposed Morsi, the country’s first freely elected president, in a military coup in 2013.

Since Morsi’s overthrow, Egyptian authorities have launched a relentless crackdown on dissents, killing hundreds and sending thousands behind bars for violence-related charges.

Last month, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, a former army chief who led the 2013 coup, announced his rejection of reconciliation with the Muslim Brotherhood, saying that “he was fighting terrorism tirelessly”.

Egyptian authorities have declared the Muslim Brotherhood a “terrorist organization” in 2013.