"Now you see it, now you Don't" - Muslim Brotherhood accused of ‘vanishing ink’ trickery at polls.

"Now you see it, now you Don't" - Muslim Brotherhood accused of ‘vanishing ink’ trickery at polls.(TOI).AIRO (AP) — Rumor had it a devious conspiracy was afoot: Egyptians voting for a new president Saturday were being tricked into using pens with disappearing ink so their choice on the ballot would vanish before it was counted. “Is this the right pen?” an old man in a traditional galabeya robe shouted, holding one up to the judge supervising at a polling station in Giza, the sister city of Egypt’s capital, Cairo. There was no concrete evidence for the rumors, but some voters in polling stations around the city were clearly concerned as they marked their paper ballots. Talk of a plot just deepened Egyptians’ worries that the dirty tricks rife in elections under authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak were still in play and that powers greater than them still manipulate the system, even after a revolution last year aimed at bringing transparency. 
The claim seems to have emerged two days before the vote. A right-wing, Rush Limbaugh-style TV host, Tawfiq Okasha, known for his backing of the ruling military, accused the Muslim Brotherhood of importing 180,000 disappearing-ink pens from India. He proclaimed that they intended to distribute the pens outside polling stations to voters they believed would vote for Ahmed Shafiq, the former Mubarak prime minister running against the Brotherhood’s candidate, Mohammed Morsi. “I warn everyone. I warn the Shafiq campaign. I warn all voters,” Okasha shouted on his show on the satellite channel he owns. “The voter will make his mark on the ballot with it and four hours later the mark disappears. The vote counters will open the ballot and find it blank.”
A Brotherhood spokesman, Mahmoud Ghozlan, denied the claims. The rumor gained further ground when officials suggested the plot was a reality, though they did not accuse the Brotherhood or any other group. Speaking to journalists Saturday, the interior minister in charge of security forces warned that the pens had indeed been brought in from abroad. Farouq Sultan, the head of the presidential election commission, said that “once the rumor” spread, the commission asked the Interior Ministry to provide 50,000 pens for the polling centers to use. He and the interior minister said that election workers had been instructed not to let voters use anything but the official pens. Sultan said that “as far as he knew,” some vanishing-ink pens had been discovered in circulation.Read the full story here.

Egypt’s army plans to issue complementary constitutional declaration; U.S. ‘troubled’.

Egypt’s army plans to issue complementary constitutional declaration; U.S. ‘troubled’.(AA).The ruling military council held an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss how they would proceed after the country’s Supreme Constitutional Court ordered the dissolution of the parliament, an Egyptian daily reported on Friday. The controversial court decision comes on the eve of Egypt’s second round of presidential vote, scheduled on Saturday and Sunday, between former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq and the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Mursi. “The military council has begun important and intensive consultations with legal experts in order to write a constitutional declaration outlining the standards of the Constituent Assembly,” Egypt’s al-Masry al-Youm quoted an official source as saying. “The complementary declaration will also stipulate the powers of the new president, and will likely be issued within hours,” the source said.
The source noted that the presidential powers would be derived from the Constitutional Declaration issued in March 2011, following the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak by a popular uprising in February. The new president would be sworn in before the general assembly of the Supreme Constitutional Court, the daily quoted the official as saying. The United States said on Friday that it was “troubled” by Egypt’s top court’s decision to dissolve the parliament, and that it was studying the implications of the move. “We are troubled by the court ruling yesterday that will effectively dissolve a democratically elected” body, Muslim Brotherhood State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters. 
Analysts said that the court decision gives the nation’s army the means to keep its key political role and challenge the Muslim Brotherhood. If Shafiq is elected, the military council leading the country is likely to transfer power as promised, without much reluctance. But the Brotherhood’s candidate Mursi will face “lots of problems” securing the keys to power from the army, he cautioned.
For some experts, the court’s decision is evidence of the tact with which the military has refined its strategy since taking power in February 2011, allowing it to protect its central role in the political process. “The general judicial framework of the decision is shaky,” said Mathieu Guidere, a specialist in the Muslim world at France’s Toulouse University. He stopped short of calling it a coup but said it was part of “a political strategy that has been carefully devised by the military, which is trying to keep all options open whatever the results of the presidential elections.”
The parliament’s invalidation in particular “leaves the field open for a rebalancing of the assembly in favor of Shafiq and a return to a presidential regime.” Khalil al-Anani, a Middle East specialist at Durham University in Britain, also said the ruling should be seen in the context of a wider army strategy. “What happened yesterday is part of the whole transition plan that has been set up by the military,” he said. “The military over the past year-and-a-half has tried to absorb the revolutionary momentum,” he added. “They started with the youth, and now they are trying to suppress the Muslim Brotherhood.” Strengthening the perception of a careful army bid to protect their powers is a decision by the justice ministry to restore the right of military personnel to arrest civilians. For Antoine Basbous, who heads the Observatoire des Pays Arabes in Paris, “we are witnessing a disguised restoration” of the military-political power system in Egypt. “The Egyptian army is not ready to cede power and to see the Islamists throw their generals in prisons and return the troops to their barracks like in Turkey,” Basbous said.Hmmmmm........Lets see how far the Muslim Brotherhood has 'infiltrated' the Obama Regime?Read the full story here.

Ex-presidential candidate Al-Shater Reinstated Deputy Chairman of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Ex-presidential candidate Al-Shater Reinstated Deputy Chairman of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.(IW).Secretary-General of the Muslim Brotherhood Dr. Mahmoud Hussein has confirmed the return of Khairat Al-Shater to his position in the organization as a member of its Guidance Bureau and Deputy Chairman. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Guidance Bureau has officially withdrawn Al-Shater’s resignation, which he submitted following the announcement by the Muslim Brotherhood and its political wing the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) that they nominated him for the Presidency. Thus the Brotherhood reinstated Al-Shater once the reason for his resignation was eliminated, as the Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission (SPEC) made its decision to formally exclude him from running for the presidency, despite the legal validity of his position. A press statement about reinstating Al-Shater in membership of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Guidance Bureau Given the decision of Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission excluding Khairat Al-Shater from running for the Presidency, despite the legal validity of his position, the Guidance discussed at today's meeting (April 18, 2012) the resignation submitted by Khairat Al-Shater – from his position as Deputy Chairman and member of the Guidance Bureau – after the Brotherhood’s Shura Council tasked him with applying for nomination. According to the Brotherhood’s Rules of Procedure, due to the elimination of the cause of removal from office, the Guidance Bureau has decided not to accept the resignation. Thus, Khairat Al-Shater returns hereby to his position as member of the Guidance Bureau and Deputy Chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood.Hmmmm.....As i said before Egypt's presidential election, Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi 'favorite' Abdelmoneim Abul Futuh still in the race.Read the full story here.