Is Egypt About to Elect an Islamist President?
Registration to run for president of Egypt begins March 10. The military moved it up from April 15 to show that it is handing over power to the civilians. As I’ve said before, I’ve never seen any evidence that the army is not going to turn over control of the country to a new, elected president. All of the mass media and political hysteria to the contrary, the generals don’t want to hold onto the government.
Has the Brotherhood’s success in parliamentary elections gone to its head? Has the weak international response to its ascendancy emboldened the Islamists to seek total power now rather than to go slow and be patient? It’s starting to look that way.
The Muslim Brotherhood has announced once again that it will not run a candidate for president in the elections projected for June: “The Muslim Brotherhood will not support Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh or any candidate,” says Muhammad al-Badi, the leader of the Brotherhood.
But this is misdirection. The Brotherhood’s influential spiritual advisor Yusuf al-Qaradawi is supporting Abul-Fotouh. And guess what? The Brotherhood is going to support Abul-Fotouh “unofficially.” How? Simple: through the “independent” Justice and Development Party supporting an “independent” presidential candidate. Brotherhood leader Muhammad al-Badi now says that the president must have an “Islamic background,” and by that he rules out any “secular” candidate.
Egyptian voters who backed the Brotherhood — giving it 235 seats, 47 percent of those in parliament — will vote for someone. The Brotherhood doesn’t own their votes, but presumably most of these voters will support an unofficial Brotherhood candidate.
The Salafists, with 121 seats — almost 25 percent of parliament — will probably have their own candidate.
While this seemed impossible last year, it is now conceivable: the two leading presidential candidates will be Islamists, and thus Egypt will have an Islamist president.
That would mean the timetable for turning the country into an Islamist Sharia state could be vastly accelerated. It’s up to the Brotherhood to decide whether to move cautiously toward state power or to floor the accelerator.
If the reported plan for the election is accurate, the rules drawn up by the military help the Islamists. To run for president requires endorsement by 30 members of parliament. Only four parties have that many — the Brotherhood’s front group, the Salafists, the Wafd, and the Egyptian Bloc (Free Egyptians Party). Can individual Brotherhood members endorse a candidate without facing party discipline? Again, since the Brotherhood’s party is nominally independent of the Brotherhood, al-Badi’s statement does not restrict its freedom of decision.
According to the Egyptian media, each party can nominate one candidate. While some among the 80 members of small parties or independents could band together in some combination to nominate someone, the maximum number of candidates would be restricted to five. Or probably less.
Who will sponsor Amr Moussa, a man who has no party? He probably doesn’t want to be associated with the liberal and largely Christian Free Egyptians Party. That would be the kiss of death for any presidential candidate. And he certainly isn’t a Wafd guy. So how will his candidacy be launched? And if he doesn’t run, is there anyone who can beat the Islamists? Perhaps only if the Islamists want to be beaten — that is, if the Brotherhood decides to be cautious. Increasingly, it appears that they want to win.
There are three serious Islamist candidates, and they have few differences between them: Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, and Muhammad Salim al-Awa. The Brotherhood likes Aboul Fotouh, a high-ranking official who resigned from the group to run for president. Presumably the Salafists will back one of the other two, perhaps more likely Abu Ismail. Al-Awa is a long-time collaborator with al-Qaradawi, but the powerful cleric gave Aboul Fotouh the nod as the more electable candidate.
[On February 23, an unidentified group attacked Aboul Fotouh and seriously injured him. It is not clear whether he will recover quickly or fully.]
The only strong alternative to these men is Amr Moussa, the radical nationalist former foreign minister and Arab League head. He is simultaneously an experienced diplomat and pragmatist, a rabble-rousing populist, and a strongly anti-American, anti-Israel figure. He is the great hope for a more pragmatic though still radical regime.
But he is no threat to the Islamists. If he is elected president in June, he will be 76 not long after. The Brotherhood could easily rationalize the idea that he is a transitional figure. By the time the second election is held, projected for 2018, the Islamists would be ready to put their own man into office.
Perhaps another non-Islamist candidate will appear. But who could possibly have the charisma and national appeal to come in second, much less be in first place?
I estimate — based on public opinion polls and this is a very rough estimate — that around 25 percent of the Brotherhood voter base, who voted for the Brotherhood out of a belief it could solve problems rather than due to an ideological Islamist conviction, might be ready to support Amr Moussa. Yet if the Brotherhood runs a good campaign, especially against a less appealing candidate, they could hold onto those voters, too.
The Brotherhood must decide between its two remaining options: unofficially back one of the Islamists or make a deal with Amr Moussa. And what would be the terms of that deal? Amr Moussa has no party or organized base behind him. He needs the Brotherhood. What would it demand and what would it give?
If Amr Moussa is elected, the world will proclaim that Egypt is stable, there is no problem, and the Islamist threat was a mirage. Not at all. The Islamists will use the time to build their base for long-term transformation of Egypt. What can Amr Moussa build? And remember that Amr Moussa is unique and irreplaceable. There is no other figure like him; there are plenty of Islamist leaders who will be interchangeable.
He will be more hostile to Israel and move further away from the United States. He will probably avoid war with Israel or a break with the United States. But what is happening may be a pact-with-the-devil situation. Amr Moussa will want the Brotherhood and Salafists to make his term in office comfortable. After that, he won’t care. But we will.
Yet increasingly it looks as if the Brotherhood is now too confident to go for such an option. Amr Moussa might not even be a candidate at all.
If Egypt’s next president is an Islamist, that means an Islamist regime is coming within months to the country, whatever “moderate” camouflage it receives. How will the mass media and Western governments pretend this isn’t happening? Proclaim that the Brotherhood are the moderates saving Egypt from the Salafists! Absurd, but a possible line of argument for them.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian economy is going down the drain. Does the Brotherhood want to be responsible for dealing with these problems and potentially taking the blame? Yet one should not also be too materialistic in evaluating this. Arab states have had many economic difficulties over the decades and they have responded successfully — in political terms, that is — with repression, demagoguery and blame of foreigners (the trial of evil American imperialists who aided NGOs is already beginning), and international adventures.
If the Brotherhood decides to go for the prize now, as al-Qaradawi prefers and al-Badi seems to favor, nobody is going to stop them.
Talking about the Egyptian army handing over “power” and holding onto “government” are rather tricky terms. It assumes the army has been “governing” these last 30 years in particular rather than acting out the part of a mafia that uses Egypt as an ATM machine; the army are not ideologues but bandits.
If this is indeed true, the army doesn’t really care what any parliament does as long as it doesn’t threaten its lucrative franchises. In fact, the army would love for the MB and salafis to take it on the chin when people riot in the streets and there are no jobs or foreign investment or security.
It’s a win/win for the army because the Islamists will either deflect attention away from the army or by failing show how much the army is in fact needed rather than a democracy.
The Islamists may be given just enough power to enforce their ideological concerns. What does the army care about who wears head scarves or how much liquor is available – the army lives and has lived by its own rules anyway.
The fact that it has been non-Islamists rioting in the streets near Mohamed Mahmoud Street shows the MB is not at present willing to directly confront the army through other than the courts which it may well attempt to do eventually. Until then, the banner and demand to oust the army is being carried by a woeful few who are at present mostly silent in terms of actions though not in words. The Islamists are also calling for the army to remove itself from gov’t affairs but absolutely not taking to the streets – why should they, they have parliament?
How this will all play out is anyone’s guess but other than the right to hold banners in public insulting the gov’t, virtually nothing has changed for the average citizen in Egypt other than gutting jobs in the tourist sector. Pressure will turn on the Islamists and not the army to produce jobs and higher wages. The Islamists in turn must prove it is the army standing in the way of this. If the Islamists fail and the public turns against them as they have the army, the recent vote suggests simply more fakery to keep Islamists right where they are and the army, not subject to a vote in the first place, right where they are as well.
Despite what is written about Egypt, the very common monthly salary of 100 dollars a month suggests a disconnect between the ideological goals of the wealthy MB members of parliament and what the average Egyptian expects of them which sure as hell isn’t more religion – this revolution is about money and always has been. The Islamists may very well find themselves in charge of security forces they currently do not control being forced to fire on protesters while the army sits back and laughs. However it is hard to imagine a scenario where the Islamists get control over security forces in the first place. That means the army-controlled interior ministries would be protected and parliament, by an amazing coincidence, not protected.
maybe its because i have been reading about the 1930′s—but this sounds similar to the way in which hitler attained power—am i reading too much into it???
Could you also put Al Gore and his green shirt activists in that same line of thinking?
“rise and fall of the third reich”.
Obama is our Hitler. And Hillary is one of his henchmen. Did y’all read her comments to the Tunisian students?..she sure as hell doesn’t speak for me. But she is right…Obama is going to win again..because we don’t pay attention to what is going on. Yeah, it scares the freakin hell out of us.
If you read, study and live by the koran, you are the problem. There are no good muslims.
Egypt is getting wilder and wilder. It , along with a few other middle eastern nations will be attacking Israel, probably with the help of Russia. Israel is a strong nation..but it’s not strong enough to withstand the destruction that is on it’s way. It may not be eradicated from the earth, but it will be severly crippled, by muslims…
I fear for us. prepare. i’m not usually an alarmist, but the whole islam/muslim thing is out of hand. They kill for sheer pleasure..because you do not believe as they do etc.. There are no good muslims as far we are concerned. If you live by the koran you are a blemish on mankind.
Ha, ha! of course they are, Barry! That’s the whole point!
“While this seemed impossible last year, it is now conceivable: the two leading presidential candidates will be Islamists, and thus Egypt will have an Islamist president.”
Something the Obama administration told us could never happen. Now here it is, a country that is going to be run by the Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood. Swell. This has the potential of turning the entire Middle East on its head and it will really put Israel in danger. That the Obama administration couldn’t see this coming is shameful and it should teach them that they shouldn’t overthrow dictators unless they know first who or what is going to replace him. Just like they didn’t do in Libya and are not doing now with Syria. Clinton really needs to find a new day job. This just isn’t working out for her.
Expecting Egyptians that agree with Arabs who do not want Jews to be pushed into the sea, like the book which came out roughly 40 years ago by Muhammad Abu Shalbayeh, to be the dominant segment is too much to expect, at this time.
Eventually, they will have to be the dominant segment, and I suggest what FDR had in mind for Vietnam is the way to get us from where we are, to where we need to be.
Check “Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam” by Chester L. Cooper
It appears to me, region #5 under the GATT treaty is being formed as per agreement with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Mr. Rubin’s primary concern is the fait of Israel. Let’s be honest here! Israel will be fine if the Obama Administration will support an attack on the nuclear installation in Iran.Obama sides with the Muslims because he views them as an oppressed people victimized by the nefarious Zionists.
Should not the American policy be based on the fact that given the history of Jews being perceived as parriahs almost every where they have settled, to say once and for all times, ” Let them live in peace”. Jews deserve peace.
Why shouldn’t they? We did!
Should we care? If we’ve develpoed our own energy sources, we didn’t need Middle East oil, we could leave the 7th century thugs alone to pound sand.
“the economy is going down the drain”
Radicals are good at stirring the pot, but the end result is a stew that no one will eat. I say let the Islamists rule for a time. Maybe they will learn the difference between democratic rule by mob and republican rule? I doubt it. Bring on the next dictator! If I could vote I would vote for Zahi Hawas.
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