How do you assess the performance of the National Salvation Front? The National Salvation Front (NSF) has succeeded in bringing the civil opposition parties under one umbrella, thus uniting opposition against the constitutional declaration made by President Mohamed Morsi and passed on 21 November, 2012. The NSF has thus given the people hope that the county is capable of transcending the current political crisis and in so doing it has attained considerable popularity, though this rises and falls according to the way it reacts to current events. On the organisational level, the NSF has an executive bureau and various committees, among them a legislative and legal committee made up of leading experts and addressing legislative needs. There is also a finance committee, an elections committee, and an economic committee, all made up of prominent experts. The latter committee is currently putting together an economic programme that will propose solutions to Egypt's economic problems and will be part of the NSF's preparations for a larger economic conference. Proposals of this sort are positive tools that will have an impact on public opinion. When it comes to foreign policy, the NSF has gained a good deal of international recognition, so much so that when foreign officials visit Cairo they always meet with the NSF. At present, the NSF is trying to form a group to represent it abroad and to speak on behalf of the Egyptian opposition in foreign countries. What kind of challenges remain for the NSF? The NSF has two major problems, the first being that decision-making is based on consensus rather than voting, which sometimes impedes the NSF's ability to take decisive action at crucial moments. The NSF includes parties and individuals that differ in terms of their ideological and intellectual precepts, something that became clear when the NSF hesitated to take part in the referendum on the constitution. The NSF's decision to take part was made only 36 hours ahead of the referendum, and this was not helpful. As it turned out, the referendum was opposed by 36 per cent of the electorate. Had the NSF spent more time propagating its views and connecting with the people, this figure would have increased by 10 per cent or so. The NSF needs to overcome problems of decision-making and to find a new formula in this regard. The second problem that the NSF has experienced is the lack of transparency in the relationship between the NSF and those calling themselves NSF youths. In fact, it is not clear who these youths are, since unlike the youths in political parties these are not registered with the NSF as such and do not have membership cards. The NSF leadership has no authority over them, and they make decisions in isolation from the NSF. This created a problem during the recent demonstrations near the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Muqattam, which was followed by the issuing of arrest warrants against activists. The NSF youths decided to take part in the protests in front of the Brotherhood headquarters, though the NSF itself refrained from doing so. As recently as a month or so ago, we had no coordination whatsoever with these youths, though over the past month one or two youth representatives have begun attending NSF meetings. There is an impression that the NSF youths are members of the parties operating under the NSF umbrella, such as the Constitution Party and the Egyptian Social Democratic Party. Is this true? Strictly speaking, there are no NSF parties as such — the coordination that occurs among these parties does so without consulting the NSF. The various parties continue to fly their own flags at public events, and the NSF does not have its own flag or slogans. As a result, the youths of each of the NSF parties do not abide by NSF decisions but only by the decisions of their own parties. If the NSF parties are little more than just a turn of phrase, what is the NSF really about? How have the NSF parties differed over participation in the forthcoming elections? The NSF is the political leadership of the civil opposition and nothing more than that. There have been major differences within the NSF regarding participation in the elections. It is true, however, that no party, whether a member of the NSF or not, is prepared to take part in fraudulent elections falsifying the will of the electorate. I believe that the NSF wants to take part in the elections. But it will need guarantees that the elections will be fair and free. You have set out three conditions for participating in the elections, one being the formation of a new government. Some say that you are deliberately giving the Muslim Brotherhood a hard time in a bid to take power. How do you react to this? Firstly, we have not asked for a new government, or for seats in the government, or even for people we choose to be included in the government. All we want is for a neutral government to run the country during the period of the elections, something which is necessary to ensure their fairness. We want to see reputable and honest individuals running the ministries that have a direct impact on the elections, such as those of the interior, justice and local government. Ministers should serve in these posts for three months, two months before the elections and one month after them. If the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) wins the elections, it will have the right to put a Brotherhood government in office. Secondly, it is not possible to hold elections without removing the political tensions from the streets, and these were caused by the president's constitutional declaration. I would like to point out that we do not recognise this declaration, and I consider it to be a catastrophe in the modern history of Egypt and a constitutional and legal scandal. The impact of the declaration should be neutralised by the resignation of the prosecutor-general, whom the president appointed in accordance with the constitutional declaration and in violation of the law. This measure is now inevitable, given the existence of a large body of opinion that believes that the prosecutor-general is biased towards the Brotherhood, making any decisions he takes controversial even if they are sound. In addition to this, the president and the FJP and civil parties should sign an agreement to amend a limited number of constitutional articles, with the new parliament seeking the amendment of these by a two-thirds majority. Our three demands include the appointment of neutral and trustworthy people in ministerial posts that are bound to influence the elections, the resignation of the prosecutor-general and his replacement as a result of the Higher Judicial Council submitting three names to the president, from which he can choose one in keeping with the constitution and the law, and the signing of a document amending the constitution. These are not conditions, but they are much-needed guarantees if fair-and-free elections are to be held and if current tensions are to be defused. Will the Muslim Brotherhood agree to these demands? If it does not, we will not participate in the elections and the streets will not calm down. The country will continue to be ravaged, and there will be no security and no chance of economic recovery. The youths are not going to back down no matter how much they are bullied or threatened. If they are brought to trial, the courts will throw out their cases, as the charges against them are too flimsy. If the authorities close television station, the US will put pressure on them. These matters are not to be taken lightly. Human rights are involved. We don't want the country to face continuing turbulence, and we want to see things heading for safer shores. Do you expect the Brotherhood to listen? The Brotherhood is obsessed with the idea of tamkin [monopolising power], and it wants to control the entire state apparatus. Brotherhood officials are not willing to listen unless they are in full control. They are afraid of free elections, and they don't want fair elections. They are unlikely to recognise the outcome of an election that they lose. If they were to discover during the elections that the outcome was not going to be in their favour, their reaction would be bloody, and their attitude is similar to that of all fascist organisations in history. For them, free-and-fair elections are something that only happen once in a lifetime. The Brotherhood has problems. All its decisions are made by the guide of the organisation and his deputy and not by the president [of the republic] or by democratic means. The Brotherhood has not grasped the fact that political justice in the post-revolutionary period is essential for the progress of Egypt. If the Brotherhood had approached things differently, we wouldn't have had these problems in the first place. But it seems that the Brotherhood's decisions are made by someone who is afraid of free elections and is intent on rigging them. One NSF leader has said that the Brotherhood has offered the NSF 100 seats in parliament in return for its participation in the elections. Is this true? No. No such offer has been put to me. Brotherhood officials have not talked to me, and I have not talked to them. This matter has not come up in any NSF meeting. No NSF leader has ever mentioned receiving such an offer. Is the US putting pressure on the NSF to make it participate in the elections? There has been no pressure, but there has been encouragement. In a meeting with US secretary of state John Kerry during his recent visit to Cairo, he tried to encourage us to take part in the elections. I was the NSF spokesman at the meeting, and I told him that the preparations for the elections could not possibly lead to fair elections and that we wanted to have guarantees of fair elections. He said that the US wanted to see free elections across the world, especially in countries with which the US has ties. Would you say that there was a US-Brotherhood conspiracy to contain the Egyptian revolution? No, there is no conspiracy. The Americans have opened lines of communications with the Brotherhood in order to stay ahead of the game. When it was decided that [former president Hosni] Mubarak would have to go, the Americans with typical pragmatism decided to back the Muslim Brotherhood. How do you view relations between the Brotherhood and the US? The Brotherhood maintains close ties with the Obama administration, and it has its full backing. This has been US policy since the time of former president George W Bush. It is based on two points. One is the belief that the Brotherhood alone is capable of forming a government that will bring stability to Egypt. The other is that the Brotherhood will act to keep Gaza and Hamas in check. The Brotherhood has been successful on the second point, for it has made Hamas recognise Israel for the first time ever through the signing of a clear and meticulously executed non-aggression agreement. The Brotherhood has also allowed Israel to build an electric fence on the borders, something Mubarak refused to do because it wasn't part of the peace treaty between the two countries. Israel is now very secure as a result. However, the Brotherhood has failed to bring stability to Egypt, and there is not much hope for stability under current circumstances. The dangers posed to Sinai by jihadi Salafis could also turn everything upside down, turning Sinai into another Tora Bora, which would be terrible for both Egypt and Israel. As for the American people and the US congress, I believe that they differ in their outlooks from the US administration. They are largely opposed to the Brotherhood or they are afraid of it. How would you describe attitudes in Europe? Things are different in Europe, and the Europeans are quite suspicious of the Muslim Brotherhood. European governments may be dealing pragmatically with Egypt's current government, but the people and the parliaments of Europe are against the Brotherhood, not least because of its policies on women and human rights. Looking back to the 19 March 2011 referendum on the constitutional amendments, do you feel that a deal took place at that time between the Muslim Brotherhood and the former ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF)? There was no conspiracy. The SCAF was made up of decent people whose political experience was modest. This means that while it may have known everything about protecting the borders, it was nevertheless dragged into fatal errors, such as during the shooting of people in the streets. The SCAF trusted the Brotherhood, but the Brotherhood turned against it. Why did the SCAF side with the Brotherhood and the Salafis and not the civil groups? The civil groups were calling at the time for the army to leave, but the Salafis wanted the SCAF to stay because they were plotting to remove it later on. The difference in tactics was due to a difference in attitude. The civil groups are outspoken. They believe in democracy, and their ranks are filled with people who speak their minds and call a spade a spade. The Brotherhood doesn't have much use for democracy, and the word of the guide or his deputy is final. When do you expect people to rebel against the rule of the Brotherhood? If the Brotherhood goes on refusing to offer guarantees for free-and-fair elections, the political turbulence will continue, the economic crisis will worsen, and riots over bread and fuel will ensue. But I don't think that the Egyptian people or the world as a whole will allow the Brotherhood to keep up the lunacy until a second revolution unfolds. Do you expect the Brotherhood to bow to international pressures? I don't think that they will bow to demands for political justice until they come under international pressure and are reminded of what they need to do. I believe that such pressures are currently being applied as a result of the present political turbulence. (see pp.20-21)
