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Egypt's Brotherhood To Build On Unexpected Poll Gains
by Mohammed Abdel Raouf
CAIRO (IslamOnline) - Egyptian Islamists are trying to build on the surprise gains they achieved during the country's recent three-stage parliamentary elections by proposing to set up a political party.
In a recent interview with a London-based newspaper, Ma'amoun al-Hodaibi spokesman of the group, said the Brotherhood was currently mulling the idea of setting up a political party to be based on the 17 seats it won.
"The elections proved that the [government's] attempts to elbow the Brotherhood out of the political life ended in failure," Hodaibi told al-Hayat newspaper, noting that with its 17 seats, the Brotherhood forms the second largest bloc in the People's Assembly after the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).
The Brotherhood's seats also place them well ahead of legal parties such as the liberal al-Wafd, the leftist Tagamu Party and the Nasserite party, which adopts pan-Arab principles advocated by late president Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Despite intensive government's efforts, the Islamists, led by the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood movement, won 17 seats in the 454-seat people's assembly, Egypt's lower house of parliament.
Analysts say the number of seats won by Brotherhood members could have doubled if not for government action before and during the polling.
According to Brotherhood sources, Egyptian police rounded up several hundreds of its supporters and election campaign agents ahead of the elections, which began late in October.
During the polling process itself, police joined hands with other parliamentary hopefuls, especially the candidates of the ruling NDP, to prevent Brotherhood nominees from winning key seats.
In the final round of elections, held in the capital of Cairo and other seven provinces nationwide, two Brotherhood figures lost after what their supporters described as heavy police intervention.
Al-Hodaibi and Ahmed Seiful Islam Hassan al-Banna, son of the group's late founder, Hassan al-Banna, lost to NDP candidates in two different Cairo constituencies. Hodaibi and al-Banna had represented the group in parliament in both 1984 and 1987.
The Brotherhood also complained of what its officials described as 'systematic harassment' by Egyptian forces.
But despite the gain in parliamentary seats for the Brotherhood, banned in 1954, the group believes the results are not enough.
The Brotherhood, Hodaibi stressed, can easily form a political party because they have a comprehensive program, as well as trained members who can carry the program out.
Founders of the proposed party would include Brotherhood candidates who lost in the elections because "they would have certainly won seats but for the administrative and security procedures taken against their supporters."
Brotherhood members have gained remarkable experience over the past years as they managed to control basic professional syndicates like the Medical Association, the Engineers Syndicate and several seats on the board of the Bar Association.
Group members who advocate the idea argue that the Parties' Committee, the Egyptian government arm certifying all new political parties, would find it hard to turn down a request from at least 15 MPs to form a political bloc.
In hopes of gaining this political legitimacy, the Brotherhood is expected to avoid using the Muslim Brotherhood name in its application form to preempt any possible action by the government.
The state has issued laws that ban the Brotherhood, or its members, from taking part in any political activity in the country.
Turbulent History
Egyptian schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna founded the Brotherhood in 1927 in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia. It started as a religious group focusing its activities on Islamic call. By 1932, the group managed to spread its activities into neighboring regions with al-Banna moving to the capital of Cairo.
It was in its annual conference in 1935 that the Brotherhood first outlined its position towards politics, and all political parties and movements prevalent at that time.
With a clandestine pyramid organization, and a well-equipped militia, the Brotherhood became a heavyweight player in the Egyptian political arena during the 1940s.
Its growing influence and activity caused clashes with the government, ultimately resulting in the assassination of its founder, al-Banna, after a series of attacks on government ministers and senior officials by the group's military arm, the "Secretive Agency".
Following the July 23rd revolution of 1952, launched by the army's Free Officers Movement, the group was outlawed in 1954 after an attempt on the life of former president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Since then, state repression has alternated with periods of uneasy tolerance.
Still Egypt's largest and most influential Islamist group, the Brotherhood has kept a low profile since 1995 after the government accused it of benefiting from chaos created by an ongoing armed Islamist insurgency.
The organization states that it officially shuns violence as a means of attaining its goal of turning Egypt into an Islamic state.
Failed Attempts
The Brotherhood's plan to establish a political party is not a first for Egyptian Islamists.
Late last year, former members of the activist Jihad (Holy War) group sought licenses to set up the Sharia' Party, and another party named Islah (Reform).
Sharia' Party founders applied in October 1999 for approval by the government's Parties Committee. As expected, the Committee rejected the applications.
The government's crackdown on the once-powerful Brotherhood has provoked intense debate within the movement over whether to fight for legal representation or not.
A couple of years before, some members broke away in an abortive attempt to set up a political party called Wasat (Center). As a result, some of them were tried and imprisoned by a military tribunal for their efforts.
The Brotherhood made no attempt, at first, to stand in the way of the would-be party founders, but soon afterward questioned Wasat's motives, branding party founders as government agents.
Authorities slammed the door on Wasat, apparently perceiving it as a façade for the Brotherhood, which is usually accused of being a front organization for Islamists waging an armed struggle against the state since the 1990s.
The state's response to the party's application was harsh. It referred several would-be founders to court after the party submitted its first application on charges of trying to form a front party for the Brotherhood.
The court acquitted six of them, while seven were jailed for three years on charges they were members of the Brotherhood.
Real Challenge
Analysts stress that the Brotherhood's surprise gains in the country's first parliamentary elections in the 21st century made the group the only real challenger to the ruling NDP, chaired by President Hosni Mubarak, which holds a traditional majority in parliament.
Observers of the Egyptian political scene believe that in an immature democracy like Egypt, such a challenge is completely unacceptable.
Egypt's early experiments with democracy before 1952 were swept away after the revolution that toppled the British-backed monarchy.
Former president Anwar Sadat made a cautious return to political pluralism after taking office in
September 1970, but his own NDP has kept a firm grip on power since then.
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