The conversation ranges through a multitude of issues. The regime's ostensible efforts at political reform feature prominently. Jaded, Habib speaks dryly, and not without a significant dose of irony. "The regime is careful to maintain the status quo," he asserts. "It has no sincere desire to take steps towards reform."

He speaks bitterly of the constitutional amendment proposed by the President that would allow for multi-candidate presidential elections, describing it as "bound by impossible conditions that left it devoid of substance," an opinion shared by a significant segment of Egyptian civil society. He continues, referring to the then-upcoming referendum on the amendment—described by Habib, incidentally, as unconstitutional—allowing multi-candidate presidential elections, "When you have 10,000 judges, and around 54,000 polling stations, how can judicial supervision take place? This suggests an implicit intent to rig results." The amendment was subsequently ratified by popular referendum, and laid the basis for Egypt’s first multiparty presidential election, held September last. The result, unsurprisingly, was a landslide win for the 24-year incumbent President Mubarak.

"The cornerstone of reform is the positiveness of the people and their willingness to put pressure on the government, and to participate in the political process." For decades, he continued, people have been hopeless, passive, and indifferent, which allowed the government to maintain the status quo. According to Habib, the Brotherhood's main aim, before and during the presidential election, had been to urge people to participate in the electoral process, to prevent the government from rigging the results.

In fact, the Brotherhood allowed its members to vote for whomever they chose, with the somewhat vague restriction of warning them that voting for a tyrant was religiously prohibited. That they did not outright boycott the elections they had so vociferously condemned left analysts openly speculating about a possible deal between the Brotherhood and the government, a suggestion the Brotherhood denies.

"How could we ask people to boycott the election?" Habib demands. "They were on a boycott already!" a reference to the dismally low voter turnout that marred the election. For him, public participation would draw the government’s attention to the fact that the people could make a difference, which would in turn pressure it to move towards reform.

"It was an unfair game. It was like a match between Real Madrid and Kafr Abu Tesht [Egyptian slang referring to an imaginary, extremely benighted town]," Habib said. Not all the candidates had equal opportunities, he argues. "The election results were predetermined. Certainly, they were faked," he added.

According to Habib, vote rigging was tacitly encouraged through a number of means. These included the introduction of legislative measures that facilitated fraud, and not allowing the judges to fully monitor the electoral process. These were coupled with wide-spread public apathy. With these three factors acting in concert, results could be easily skewed. Therefore, "the Muslim Brotherhood was working in those three directions," and called for full judicial supervision of the elections, supporting the judges’ position through conferences and rallies.

Asked about the Brotherhood’s ambivalent attitude towards the various presidential candidates, Habib said "I know that not rallying behind a certain candidate caused some perplexity among our voters, but we made our stance clear: we chose to give people the opportunity to decide for themselves." It would take some time, he explained, before people realized what it was like to have a political vision and be able to participate in the political process.

Habib makes the point that the people who didn’t vote were fully aware of the implications of what they were doing, and did so accordingly. For him, the low turn out—23% of eligible voters, according to the most optimistic governmental sources—was "a clear indication of a widening gulf between the government and the people."

Habib maintains that to pressure the government, a stronger public opinion and voice would be needed. "The government is under pressure, but still more pressure needs to be applied. People who have been totally inactive for decades cannot be mobilized in two or three months."

What about US efforts to democratize the Middle East? Were the regime's moves towards greater political freedoms suggestive of a victory for US policy in the region? The response Habib makes is typical of most Arab and Muslim politicians.

"The American administration invaded Afghanistan, occupied Iraq, violated human rights in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. They supported and continue to support the Zionist entity… and then after that they discuss establishing democracy, good governance, and human rights. The American administration has thus left us no choice to assume well of it." He adds, "The US has its agenda, it has its interests; it is not a charitable institution."

Central Security forces beating protesters

Habib is equally dismissive of suggestions that the Brotherhood’s recent reinvigoration was prompted by fears of their being overshadowed by the relatively smaller but more outspoken Kefaya movement. Instead, Habib maintains that the sudden dynamism of the Brotherhood was dictated by the current state of affairs, viz., increasing international pressures on the government, political stagnation coupled with resentment of the regime reaching a boiling point, and staunchly denies that it had anything to do with the rising profile of the less-popular but more ubiquitous (in Western media, at any rate) Kefaya. The rapid succession of street protests and demonstration was an attempt, Habib says, "to mobilize the Egyptian street, in a peaceful and civilized way, to pressure the regime to concede to the calls for reform."

Here, Habib chooses to drop a completely non-sequitur hint at the institutionalism that pervades the Brotherhood—uncommon in a country that has historically been dominated by personality cults and individuals. "We are, coincidentally, conducting a comprehensive review of this period. We are evaluating and analyzing its different factors, in an effort by us to draw out the details of the coming period."

But still, doesn’t the recent upsurge of protests by Egyptian opposition groups in general and the Brotherhood in specific, coupled with steadily-growing domestic pressures on the regime, dovetail all too well with stated US policy in the region? Habib’s initial response is somewhat vague. "We want reform on a national agenda, and we want a population that can choose its leaders of its own free will, and also has the ability to hold accountable and remove those leaders." But then he bluntly adds "The people who wait for America to come and free them do not deserve to live free."

Reflecting on the regime’s dealings with the opposition, Habib is of the opinion that the government’s policy towards the opposition can be summed up as: creating divisions between the various political groups; and fragmenting the groups from within, all the while relying on the public’s apathy towards politics.

"The US has its agenda, it has its interests; it is not a charitable institution."

With the Muslim Brotherhood, on the other hand, the government uses a containment policy, arresting and incarcerating Brotherhood members (at the time of the interview, 11 members were under arrest and 9 were in detention). Generally, the more the Brotherhood attempted to generate a broad-based, popular appeal, the more the government would suppress them. Such suppression takes various forms, from freezing NGOs in which Brotherhood members are heavily involved, to rigging university student unions’ elections to prevent Brotherhood activists from acquiring leadership positions on campuses.

But did the wave of arrests that targeted the Brotherhood during the past few months, which saw thousands of Brotherhood activists detained, curtail their ability to act, to mobilize? Habib smiles softly, before responding. "The Brotherhood operates in an institutionalized fashion, and does not depend on individuals. Secondly, the Society is not several tens or hundreds of individuals, for us to be affected by the arrest of 3,000 of our members." The Brotherhood's activities continue unabated, he asserts, and their efficiency was in no sense impacted.

It is perhaps such bitter experiences with the regime that account for the cynical tone that creeps into Habib’s voice when he is asked if perhaps a sudden change in government policy, such as a cancellation of the notorious emergency laws, would be enough to elicit some form of Brotherhood endorsement for Mubarak’s regime. "I do not expect that a regime that has become addicted to forgery and the monopolization of power will voluntarily grant general freedoms and cancel emergency laws. Confidence in this regime approaches, or is, zero." Somewhat more brightly, he adds "But our hopes lie with the Almighty and with this blessed people."

Continue to Part Two

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** Azizuddin El-Kaissouni  is the editor of Muslim Affairs' Views & Analyses page. A graduate of the American University in Cairo. He holds a BA in Political Science with a specialization in International Law. You can reach him at a_elkaissouni@hotmail.com

Dina Abdel-Mageed is staff writer for the Muslim Affairs section of IslamOnline.net. A graduate of the American University in Cairo, she holds a BA in political science with a specialization in public and international law.

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