CAIRO - Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood expelled five of its members for setting up a political party in defiance of the group's own Freedom and Justice party, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The Brotherhood's Guidance Council decided to bar the five members of the movement's youth wing after they established the Egyptian Current party, Shorouk newspaper said.
One of the five said they planned to appeal against the expulsion and to impress on the Brotherhood leadership the part they played in the popular uprising that unseated President Hosni Mubarak in February.
"The decision for us to join the movement was not a decision made by the council, so how can we be expelled from it?," Abdel Rahman Khalil was quoted by the newspaper as saying.
Those behind the new party have a more secular agenda and are more in favour of a secular state than the Brotherhood.
The Brotherhood is seen as the best prepared political group to contest the polls, but internal squabbles, confusion over policy and suspicion that its leaders are interested only in power have dimmed its allure for some Egyptians.
Brotherhood Secretary-General Mahmoud Hussein already said in June that members who joined other parties would be forced to leave, a decision that has irked some younger members who took part in the protests that ousted Mubarak.
The movement, which has said it will not seek the presidency, has also expelled Abdel Monem Abul Futuh, a senior member who said he would run for president.
