Tamarod office of coastal governorates Alexandria, Beheira, and Matrouh withdrew confidence from campaign founder Mahmoud Badr for “violating regulations,” the office said in a statement Sunday.
The office said Badr repeatedly announced decisions as party spokesperson without consulting with the campaign’s executive officers and violated party regulations.
According to the statement, Badr distributed false information, including a statement that all members of Tamarod attended a meeting to unify their support of Minister of Defense Abdel Fatah al-Sisi for president. Badr announced that all Tamarod’s members agreed to support Sisi for president; however, the coastal governorates office said not all members had attended the meeting.
Coordinator of Tamarod’s Alexandria office Sahar al-Gheryani said in the statement that members of the office were not invited to any meetings on the matter.
Gheryani said they were surprised to hear in the media that Badr had frozen the memberships of the central campaign of Tamarod’s Khaled al-Qadi, Hassan Shahin, and Mohamed Abdel Aziz. Gheryani said the move was a unilateral.
“Everybody has the right to run for president, and the people will choose for themselves,” Gheryani said, adding that after all the upheavals in Egypt, no one should “pander” to a certain candidate.
Contentions arose between Tamarod’s members on Saturdy after Qadi, Shahin and Abdel Aziz participated in a press conference in support of head of the Popular Current Hamdeen Sabbahi’s candidacy for president.
Badr had said the campaign supported Sisi for president, but some governorate coordinators of Tamarod rejected this.
Badr, on the other hand, denied that members were in conflict over different political affiliations, in statements to Al-Hayat Channel on Sunday.
Badr said that according to an opinion poll conducted by the movement in several governorates, public majority supported the presidential candidacy of Sisi. Badr believes Tamarod’s position should reflect the will of the vast majority.
The movement once more confirmed its support Sisi, with Badr maintaining it in a meeting held last Friday.
Thus, Tamarod is also dropping support for Sabbahi, also referred to as the “revolution candidate” who had officially announced his intention to run for presidency on Feb. 8.
