Egypt's ruling party has asked the public prosecutor to investigate candidates in next week's parliamentary election who are running as independents but are backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, an official said on Thursday.
The illegal, but tolerated, Brotherhood has 130 candidates in Sunday's vote. They are listed as independents to circumvent a ban on the Islamist group acting as a political party.
The Brotherhood's list is smaller than the one it fielded in the 2005 vote when it secured a fifth of seats to become the biggest opposition bloc by far — despite what the Brotherhood and rights groups said were efforts by the security forces to prevent Islamist supporters from voting.
Brotherhood leaders say a security clampdown in the run-up to Sunday's vote is likely to mean its bloc will shrink.
"It is time to take, not a police measure, but rather a legal measure according to the normal laws of this country," Ali El Din Hillal, head of media for the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), said of the request filed with the prosecutor general.
He said it could take days or weeks for a response, so a decision was not likely to come before voting. The complaint includes details about 52 of the candidates with related video, recorded and printed evidence, he added.
The Brotherhood is banned under article five of the constitution which outlaws parties based on religion.
"In its complaint, the National Democratic Party requested an investigation into this matter, which is a blatant challenge to the constitution and to the law, and a breach of the rules of the electoral process," the party said in a statement.
Authorities are wary of any group with Islamist leanings. Egypt fought an insurgency by Islamist militants in the 1990s. Anwar Sadat, the president who preceded Hosni Mubarak, was assassinated by Islamists in 1981.
Hillal told a gathering of reporters that the party was not resorting to any emergency laws in the lawsuit.
Egypt has since 1981 been under emergency law which critics say has been used to stifle dissent. The government says it now uses the special powers only against terrorism and drugs crimes.
In the 2005 election, the NDP's official candidate list did not secure a majority, but it then invited back many candidates previously affiliated to the party who had run as independents after they were not chosen for the NDP list.
Hillal said the NDP independents could not be compared to candidates running as independents on behalf of a banned group.
