(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Security sources say dozens of angry protesters attacked Shafiq's campaign headquarters in two provincial towns, one of which in Fayyoum south of the capital Cairo and the other one in Hurghada on the Red Sea.
Shafiq’s campaign headquarters in Cairo had already been attacked last Monday. Besides supporting Mubarak's verdict, Shafiq has lashed out at his Muslim Brotherhood rival.
Shafiq, who was a former prime minister of Mubarak, said the Islamic party is part of the old regime because it did nothing against Mubarak's regime. He also said the Brotherhood will take Egypt back to dark ages. The ex-air force commander accused the party of using mosques to propagate its own agenda.
Ahmed Shafiq will face the Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi in a presidential run-off later this month.
We have conducted an interview with Waleed el-Haddad, spokesperson of Freedom and Justice Party. What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Q: Looking at the comments that have been made by Ahmed Shafiq there, he says and I am quoting him here that “the Muslim Brotherhood is looking for making Egypt a state for a faction” and he said that, “I am a secular representative” whereas the Muslim Brotherhood is a sectarian representative. What is your argument, first of all, against what Mr. Ahmed Shafiq is saying?
el-Haddad: Firstly, I would like to thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to share our point of view and our position towards what happened yesterday in Mubarak’s verdict and also what happened today in the speech of Ahmed Shafiq.
Ahmed Shafiq now is asking or calling the people to vote for him and I think our people in Egypt are very intelligent and they will not go to vote for him because he needs to reproduce the past regime or the ex-regime again.
Now when we are talking about Ahmed Shafiq, he is now talking and giving his speech in front of his house when the protests and all the Egyptian people now are in Tahrir Square. They are against this regime.
Ahmed Shafiq is calling or searching for the secular country and the people now are asking now not for a Islamic state but a civilian state with Islamic reference and this was the choice of the people and we can see that it is obviously from the choice of the people from the last parliamentary election and Shura council elections.
And also from the elections of the president, we see that more than 65 percent of the votes have gone to Hamdeen Sabahi and Aboul Fotouh and Mohamed Morsi who are representing the revolution. So the choice of the people is a civilian country or a civilian state by an Islamic reference, not a secular state that Ahmed Shafiq is calling. And also they are seeking the revolution not the ex-regime to return again.
Q: Speaking of that, when we are looking at accusations that the Muslim Brotherhood is facing, since the Muslim Brotherhood did dominate the parliament and since it got the votes there, media reports especially outside of Egypt were saying that this party is after radicalizing Egypt that from now on, if they become president, if they rule over Egypt, they are going to make Islam something that the people have to and must accept in all manners of life. What is your response to that?
el-Haddad: This is a propaganda from the media that we are trying to dominate all the forces in one hand. When we are talking about this tool which is the parliament and the government or the cabinet and the presidential position, we are talking about different parts of the country or the state; we are talking about the legislation and also we are talking about the executive power.
When we talk with the people, that is we have the majority in the parliament; this parliament is only for monitoring and for legislation, not only for executive power.
We need the executive power to achieve and implement our program. So we have to have the cabinet and when we went to the SCAF, the Supreme Council for Armed Forces, to request and to take the responsibility, they refused and when we tries to withdraw the confidence from the current government, from al-Ganzouri government, they also refused this.
So we will have to go to the presidential position and we nominated firstly Mr. Khairat al-Shater and then now we have Dr. Mohamed Morsi who will be in the run-off with Ahmed Shafiq and also we are very trusted from our people and from the choice of the Egyptian people because now there is a clear choice between the revolution or reproduction of the old regime.
Now the people in Tahrir Square and different squares in all Egyptian governorates are calling Dr. Mohamed Morsi as the president for the revolution or the candidate for the revolution. Now we are trying to gather different candidates like Aboul Fotouh and Hamdeen Sabahi in one presidential council to have the president, Dr. Mohamed Morsi and the deputies or the vice president.
One of which Aboul Ftouh and the other is Hamdeen Sabahi. This is our position now. We are calling the civilian state by Islamic reference. We need to implement our Islamic Shari’a in different prospects in economy, in politics, in social life, in civilian life and NGOs and also for building the human people in Egypt.
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