Brotherhood, Independent MPs Boycott House Sessions Over Mubarak’s Amendments

MPs for the Muslim Brotherhood, independents, Karama Party held a press conference in which they declared boycotting House sessions and rejecting president Mubarak’s proposed constitutional amendments.
 
MPs for the Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary bloc, independents, Karama Party held at 12.00 PM on Sunday at noon a press conference in front of gate 3 of the People’s Assembly, in which they declared boycotting the House sessions and rejecting the proposed constitutional amendments .
 
Dr. Hamdi Hassan said, the media spokesman for the MB parliamentary bloc, said:” In the press conference, a statement will be sent to people, in which the MPs confirm their rejection to the amendments, and tell people that these amendments sidelined about 97 % of the Egyptian people from participating in these amendments .
 
The MPs for the Muslim Brotherhood and other political and national powers held many conferences and seminars all over Egypt, in which they explained the bad consequences of these amendments on the future of Egypt, and they confirmed that these amendments should have drafted with a national consensus among all powers and parties, not with such one-sided method adopted by the National Democratic Party.
The People’s Assembly, headed by its speaker Dr. Ahmed Fathi Sorour started on Sunday discussing the report of the committee of constitutional and legislative affairs about the president’s request for amending 34 articles of the constitution; the discussions lasted six morning and evening sessions at the end of which the House votes on every article and ratifying them requires the approval of two thirds of the MPs .
 
The NDP majority managed after five sessions to approve the amendments in principle, and the House speaker received suggestions tabled by 99 Muslim Brotherhood and independent MPs and 109 suggestions from the National Democratic Party’s MPs and 4 suggestions from Wafd Party, in addition to written views lodged by 14 parties and some public figures.
 
In a related context, eng. Saad Al Husseini, a member of the MB parliamentary bloc, confirmed to Ikhwanweb that: “The Brotherhood MPs did not prefer taking the measure of presenting a collective resignation from parliament after they got assured that it will be useless in blocking or canceling amendments and he said they retreated from doing this after consulting constitutional and law scholars.
 
Al Husseini said:”Article 87 of the constitution sends the issue of deciding on the resignation to the House speaker, the House office body and the General Secretariat; consequently, the resignation with be put on shelves till that the amendments are peacefully ratified; then, the regime will, with this resignation in its hands, have the opportunity to get rid of the main opposition in the House, and make it a threat on the opposition; thus, it is useless to lodge a resignation that won’t block the approval of constitutional amendments.
 
Al Husseini said that a document was signed for boycotting the parliament sessions in which the constitutional amendments are approved, and the boycott started on Sunday by 102 MPs, including:  88 from the Muslim Brotherhood, 2 from Karma party, 2 from Wafd and 9 independent MPs, while 4 Wafd MPs, one Tagamue MP, and 3 of independent MPs participate in the sessions.
 
Al Husseini confirmed that Muslim Brotherhood MPs participated positively in the House discussions and in the hearing sessions, and they lodged a memo of suggestions for the amendments, all these are registered in the reports of the House, to be a testimony to history; but when it is time to approve this constitutional “relapse”, they were obliged to boycott the sessions, especially after the government declared that the referendum will be held next April, 4, and this means holding discussions is useless.
 
Al Husseini pointed out that the government prepared every thing for ratifying the amendments; it dealt with this as if people approved these amendments. .. to the extent that the government defined dates for discussing laws emerging from the constitutional amendments like law of exercising political rights and the election law according to which Shura Council elections will be held, scheduled in late April!


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