At a Thursday press conference convened by Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), council member Mokhtar El-Mulla reiterated that next week’s parliamentary polls – slated to kick off on Monday – would be held on schedule. 

The conference was attended by SCAF member Mamdouh Shaheen; Abd El-Moez Ibrahim, head of the Supreme Elections Committee; and Deputy Interior Minister Mohamed Refaat Qomsan.

At the conference, El-Mulla dismissed suggestions that relations between the Egyptian people and armed forces had been adversely impacted by recent events, insisting that the public still retained faith in the SCAF and its mandate.

Ibrahim, for his part, stated that parliamentary polls would take place “no matter the circumstances,” stressing that elections represented the sole means of ensuring national reconciliation.

At the conference’s conclusion, El-Mulla declared that much that was being reported about the ongoing Tahrir crisis was “false.” He claimed that live ammunition was not being used against protesters, asserting that videos currently circulating online “did not reveal the entire picture.” Investigations of the incident, El-Mulla noted, were “ongoing.”

Shortly after the conference, the SCAF released Communiqué 85, stating that Egypt was going through “critical times” and calling on Egyptians to work together so as to prevent the country from falling into a state of chaos. The statement added that the Ministry of Interior had been put in jeopardy as a result of ongoing clashes that threatened to affect the country’s security.

The statement went on to call on the nation – especially Egypt’s revolutionary youth – to show restraint during the current crisis, stay away from rooftops overlooking demonstrations, and apprehend suspicious individuals and hand them over to authorities.

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