The Egyptian Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) has ruled in favor of eight members of the Muslim Brotherhood, who were earlier disqualified by the electoral commission from participating in the parliament’s Upper House elections today, the online news portal Al-Jazeera.Net reported.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a religion-based party and as such is banned from participating in any elections. However, members of the MB, who are running as independent candidates, may participate in the vote.
The Upper House of the parliament has fewer authorities than the Lower House, but enjoys much prestige. Once every three years Egyptians vote for 132 out of the Upper House’s 264 seats. Eighty-eight members are elected by the people, while 44 are directly appointed by the president.
The MB is the strongest opposition party in Egypt and holds one fifth of the parliament’s Lower House seats. In the past few weeks it has claimed that the security authorities have arrested over 1,000 of its members in an attempt to scare them ahead of the elections.