How the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt cracks under pressure - naturally
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 12:03AM 
This is pretty much how I always expect it to go in these situations: the long-oppressed opposition party finally has its chance at the brass ring and - booyah! - it starts fracturing over how to do it. This is usually how the single party - realized or just self-actualizing - falls apart. It's how I would see the Cuban Communist Party falling apart after the Castros depart. ["Falling apart" here also meaning birthing new parties.]
WSJ story on leader of one of the more moderate factions within the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood deciding to break from the party and declare his own presidential campaign. "More moderate" is defined as:
. . . a positive relationship with the West, more rights for women and religious minorities, and democratic reform within the party's top-down leadership structure.
But here's the real rub: Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh and his faction believe the MB must split into two groups -a political party and a religious organization with attendant charities.
Since Dr. Fotouh, 59 years old, is effectively breaking the MB's promise not to field a candidate, many in the group are calling for him to resign because the group won't support his candidacy.
Despite the fears triggered by his announcement, I think this is a good thing. If we want the Nelson Mandela-like figure, he will necessarily be of the group and simultaneously above the group. The MB is the most organized party, so it's not odd that compelling figures will arise from it, but they need to do so as Fotouh seems to be doing, by forging a special, above-it-all path.
Obviously, a very early reading, but that's my suspicion. The MB was the ONLY party to turn to - in opposition - under Mubarak, but now that he's gone, factions not only emerge but they break off and form new parties.
But no, I don't expect Egypt to pick some perfectly secularly leader. I think that's unrealistic and - in some way - unwise. But they do need the above-the-party-type figure, and maybe this guy is it.
Yes, I know I will be immediately bombarded by THE quote or action from Fotouh's past, but none of that will impress me. The only thing that will count is what he does now. Mandela was a figurehead for a Soviet-sponsored national liberation movement in my PhD diss - totally on the OTHER side. Then the ANC got its chance, and Mandela made the most of it, and South Africa is South Africa today and Mandela is a near saint.
If you want the Egyptian Mandela, this IS the most logical source-path.
Reader Comments (3)
I don't think the world will get that lucky on the first go around. Elections are, at best always a crap shoot, especially on the first go around.
Of course, a lot would depend upon how fractured the MB becomes, also.
Well there was already a split of the Muslimbrotherhood a few years ago: the Wasat Party,because the Wasat people believed that the Muslim Brotherhood is a unchangable fundamentalist organization.Why do this so called moderate Mandela-like Muslim Brothers not join Wasat? Are they moderates? What distinguishes them from the writings of Hassan El-Bannah and the quest for a Islamistic Egypt under Sharia law? Before being so overoptimistic, the author should give more information of the programme of the "Mandela Brotherhood" and its new leader Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh. On the website of the Muslim Brotherhood I cannot even find his name. Mandela was a secular leader, but the Muslimbrothers are politcal Islamists which don´t want a seperation of state and religion--that might be the big difference.
The article of Tom Barnett doen´t mention the Egypt election law. To be honest:I also don´t know much about it. How is the president elected? Directly by the people or by parliament?--means: the elected parties decide who will be president. In the first cae it could be a simple trick of the Muslim Brotherhood: Let´s run an "independent" president AND get elected in the parliament. In the second case this would be a real antagonism and competition between Dr. Fotouh and the Muslim Brotherhood as both have to be elected by parties.BUT: Or they unite their parties´ votes to get the "independent" Islamistic president elected.Do you know more about this? This should be the basis for your judgements, not just the slogans by Dr. Fotouh and the Muslim Brotherhood.