"The whole world understands that we can participate with a far more number than the quota we get, however our participation is a national duty no matter how many seats we will get," said Ezzat Saturday in an interview with Xinhua.
He said the group still hopes to harvest 30 percent or even more of the seats in the parliament in the upcoming elections.
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928, with the aim of establishing a state ruled by the Islamic law through peaceful means. It was officially banned in 1954, but it runs its candidates as independents to bypass the ban on religious parties.
In the 2005 parliamentary elections, the group grabbed 88 seats in the People' s Assembly (the Lower House of the Egyptian parliament) and emerged as the largest opposition bloc.
"There have been a lot of illegal and arbitrary decisions against us," Ezzat added.
Over the past few days, the banned group alleged that police had arrested about 70 of its members and five leaders in Alexandria, about two weeks after they announced they would participate in the polls, despite calls for a boycott from some opposition parties.
On Oct. 26, Councillor Abdel Aziz Omar, head of Egyptian Supreme Election Committee announced that the usage of the motto " Islam is the Solution" would be removed from the list of candidates. However, the media spokesman and head of the Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary bloc, Dr. Mohamed Saad el-Ketatni said that the motto is political and not religious.
For the group, the upcoming election is not the end of the political reform. "No one should imagine the next election as a battlefield," said Ezzat, adding that participation of elections is the right of every people.
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