Egyptian Left boycotts election after army bloodbath

This video is called May Day Tahrir Square Cairo 2011. Communist party of Egypt.

By Tom Mellen:

Party boycotts military-led elections

Friday 14 October 2011

Egypt’s Communists announced on Thursday that they will boycott parliamentary elections scheduled for November 28 over concerns that they will be neither free nor fair.

The Egyptian Communist Party (ECP) warned that the ruling junta’s plan to hold the ballot under the draconian Mubarak-era Emergency Law and amid turmoil on the streets would have a “catastrophic effect on the revolution and the nation.”

ECP, which is part of a Socialist Front with four other left-wing parties, called on all other progressive forces to join the boycott.

It predicted that the general election, the first since the overthrow of former president Hosni Mubarak, will result in “a parliament with a former regime and anti-revolutionary majority” because the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has failed to prevent members of the former regime from running.

The ECP called on citizens to continue to agitate for the current “transitional period” to be extended by six to eight months to facilitate the formation of an interim civilian government prior to the parliamentary election.

The ECP said that this new transitional administration would “be responsible for protecting citizens from elements of chaos and coercement, ridding state institutions of counter-revolutionary forces and elements of corruption, drafting a new constitution and organising parliamentary and presidential elections.”

Candidates began registering for the parliamentary elections on Wednesday.

Workers’ organisations in Egypt have joined calls for unity after security forces and state backed thugs attacked Christian Copts: here.

Egypt’s Military Expands Power, Raising Alarms: here.

Egypt: The Torture Career of Omar Suleiman and the Rendition to Torture Program: here.

New torture case in Egypt brings more anger: here.

Britain demands Egypt repay millions lent for arms deals. Whitehall ‘breaks pledge to write off debt recklessly given to dictators’: here.

The Constituent Assembly election in Tunisia, slated to draft a new constitution, is scheduled for October 23: here.

Financing Questions Shadow Tunisian Vote, First of Arab Spring. David D. Kirkpatrick, The New York Times News Service: “As Tunisians prepare to vote on Sunday in the first election of the Arab Spring, the parties and their supporters have ramped up a bitter debate over allegations about the influence of ‘dirty money’ behind the scenes of the race. Liberals, facing an expected defeat by the moderate Islamist party Ennahda, charge that it has leapt ahead with financial support from Persian Gulf allies”: here.

Tunisia’s Islamist Ennahda Party denied having any intention to roll back women’s rights in the country today after hundreds of women demonstrated in the capital: here.

John Foster talks to a top Sudanese Communist about the political turmoil that his country is contending with: here.