By Diana Rose Wairumbi
Egyptian security forces have arrested former Islamist presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh, along with five of his aides for alleged contacts with the banned Muslim Brotherhood group, state news agency MENA reported on Wednesday.
In the country’s first elections after the 2011 uprising Fatouh was one of the top presidential candidates taking about 18 percent of the first-round vote.
The arrests come several weeks before the presidential election in which President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is seeking a second term in a race against a little known politician.
This also comes two days later after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called for fair and free elections during his first visit to the country.
The Brotherhood was banned by Egypt in 2013 after the army led by general-turned-president Al-Sisi ousted President Mohamed Mursi, also a member of the Brotherhood in Egypt.
Abol Fotouh aimed at mounting an independent bid for the presidency, quit the Muslim Brotherhood in 2011 and has distanced himself from the Islamist movement since then.
According to the party’s Facebook page Abol Fotouh’s party deputy, Mohamed al-Qassas, was detained last week and is being held pending an investigation.
The party has since then condemned the arrest and criticised what it called “the systematic targeting of the opposition politicians” in a post earlier this week.
International rights groups and thirteen local have criticised Egypt’s March presidential election on Tuesday, saying the race would neither be fair nor free.
“Egypt’s government says it is in a ‘democratic transition’ but move further away with every election,” the groups stated in a joint statement.
The country’s electoral commission has vowed to run the vote “according to principles of independence, transparency and objectivity.”
