Powerful Brotherhood figure vows to protect Mursi’s ‘legitimacy’

A powerful figure of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood vowed on Saturday that his movement was “prepared” to protect the “legitimacy” of President Mohammed Mursi and called for the constitutional referendum to go ahead as planned on Dec. 15.

Businessman Khairat el-Shater, who was the primary candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood in the presidential elections before he was disqualified, accused unnamed parties of “seeking to disrupt the currency regime and overthrow the president.”

“We are prepared to protect legitimacy; we and the Copts are partners in the nation and will not be dragged into sectarian strife,” Shater said, adding that “the decision to dissolve the parliament was aimed to obstruct the work of the president.”

“The president wants to avoid political battles with remnants of the previous regime,” Shater said during a conference of Egypt Islamist coalition.

The coalition of 13 parties “insist that the referendum on the constitution take place on the scheduled date, with no modification or delay," according to a joint statement read to media by Shater.

The refusal butts up against opposition insistence that dialogue between it and Mursi’s government cannot begin unless Mursi postpones the referendum and gives up sweeping powers he assumed last month.

Egypt’s Vice President Mohamed Mekki on Friday said the referendum could be delayed, but only if the opposition guaranteed it would not exploit what would be a legal breach of Mursi’s duty to hold the plebiscite by December 15.

The rejection issued Saturday was signed by the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Freedom and Justice Party, as well as the Al-Nour party representing hardline Salafists.

Street clashes between Mursi supporters and opponents killed seven people and wounded more than 600 in Cairo this week, and prompted the army to deploy tanks and troops to protect Mursi’s presidential palace.