The announcement from Gamaa Islamiya provides a boost to Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh's chances in the May 23-24 vote. He received a similar endorsement from an influential ultraconservative Salafi group last week.
Senior Gamaa official Assem Abdel-Maged said an internal poll showed that a majority in the group supported Abolfotoh.
"We felt that it is too much for the Muslim Brotherhood to have it all: parliament with its two chambers, the presidency and the Cabinet." he said. "This is harmful to the whole Islamist movement."
The Gamaa's support would likely improve Abolfotoh's showing in the group's strongholds in provinces south of Cairo. It also leaves the Brotherhood, Egypt's largest political group, more isolated as it moves closer to a confrontation with the country's ruling generals.
The Brotherhood won just under half the seats in parliament in recent elections. The more hardline movement of Salafis, who advocate a strict implementation of Islamic Shariah law, won nearly a quarter of parliament seats.
Saad Emara, a lawmaker and a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, expressed worries over splitting the Islamist vote but said that "political calculations" of the Salafis might have prompted them to support a rival "to limit the powers of the Muslim Brotherhood."
The Gamaa was involved in the 1981 assassination Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. The group fought the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak in a bloody insurgency in the 1980s and 1990s, seeking to establish an Islamic state in Egypt before renouncing armed struggle and moving into mainstream politics.
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