Gamal Essam El-Din reports on the strange pairing of ex-IAEA chief Mohamed El-Baradei and the Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed El-Baradei, the former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), surprised many on Saturday when he announced "a political partnership" with the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's outlawed Islamist movement, which is facing a hostile campaign from security forces and regime stalwarts. Sitting side by side with Saad El-Katatni, the Brotherhood's parliamentary spokesman, and with Islamist slogans covering the backdrop, El-Baradei told the press conference that followed their closed door meeting that the "Muslim Brotherhood is the strongest opposition force in parliament and has a right to form a political party". "I came to meet Brotherhood deputies in parliament not to exert pressure on the regime but to step up joint efforts aimed at securing change." He described the results of June's mid-term Shura Council elections, in which the Brotherhood failed to win a single seat, as "clear evidence of the ruling National Democratic Party [NDP] regime's corruption". The next stage, he told reporters, will witness greater cooperation between the National Assembly for Change (NAC), founded by El-Baradei in February to press for constitutional reform, and the Muslim Brotherhood. "The Brothers will help collect signatures from ordinary citizens in support of the NAC's manifesto, 'Together We Will Change'," explained El-Baradei. "The Brotherhood and NAC will also work together to press for the adoption of the manifesto's seven guarantees to ensure that the parliamentary elections of 2010 and the presidential election of 2011 are fair." "The manifesto seeks to amend articles 76, 77 and 88 of the constitution to place elections under full judicial supervision, lift restrictions on who can be nominated in presidential elections, and fix the duration of the presidency to a maximum of two terms in office. It also seeks an end to the state of emergency, the full revision of voter lists, international monitoring of elections and equal media access for all candidates." El-Baradei said he looked forward to holding a meeting with the Brotherhood's Supreme Guide Mohamed Badei, arguing that "the more Muslim Brothers show an active participation in political life, the greater the pressure exerted to achieve change and reform". El-Katatni insisted that his meeting with El-Baradei was not a response to the movement's failure to win a single Shura Council seat for "the Shura poll was not an election in any meaningful sense of the word". "Our meeting focussed on ways to push for change and reform. We believe that if we can gather the largest possible number of signatures in support of NAC's manifesto of change, this will be a significant step forward," argued El-Katatni. El-Katatni stressed that "support for El-Baradei's campaign for change does not extend to his expected presidential bid in the 2011 elections". El-Baradei responded by stressing that he would consider a presidential bid only if his seven conditions for change are met. The new relationship between El-Baradei and the Muslim Brotherhood was on display on Friday when, in a visit to Sinoris in the governorate of Fayoum, El-Baradei led a street march in which 3,000 Brotherhood supporters participated. After performing Friday prayers El-Baradei went to the house of Taha Abdel-Tawab, a Brotherhood activist and mosque cleric, who was allegedly tortured last February by security police forces after brandishing pro-Al-Baradei slogans. During a visit to Europe last month El-Baradei told Paris Match that the leader of Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc, El-Katatni, had assured him that the Brotherhood believed "no political party should be based on religious foundations". In a quick response, El-Katatni insisted he had never discussed the issue of religious parties with El-Baradei. Some independent observers suggest that the sudden warmth between El-Baradei and the Muslim Brotherhood is based on little more than opportunism. El-Baradei is facing rifts in the NAC, and some of his secular supporters are beginning to question his tactics. Hassan Nafaa, Cairo University professor of political science and NAC coordinator, last week announced his resignation from the NAC. Though he later backtracked, Nafaa said many of the hopes he had pinned on NAC had been dashed. During a talk show on the Dream satellite channel he said, "there is not enough enthusiasm for the NAC and the main reason for this is that El-Baradei spends so much time outside Egypt". "El-Baradei's presence is crucial to NAC's campaign for change and its support on the street," said Nafaa. "Initially, we thought his tours outside Egypt would be short but we were wrong. Nor has anyone been able to persuade El-Baradei to travel less." "The result is that the NAC has so far failed to achieve its main goal: the collecting of a million signatures from ordinary citizens in support of changing the constitution." Nafaa also took El-Baradei to task for angering important segments of public opinion. "He has criticised the opposition parties and publicly opposed the principle of reserving 50 per cent of seats in parliament for representatives of farmers and workers, with the result that the NAC has already lost the support of large segments of the public." Mustafa Elwi, a Cairo University professor of political science and appointed NDP member of the Shura Council, told Al-Ahram Weekly that, "the rifts which have hit El-Baradei's NAC have clearly forced him to fall in the arms of the Brotherhood". "El-Baradei is a secular liberal man who believes in a civilian state while the Brotherhood is an Islamist movement based on mixing religion with politics and committed to restoring the Islamic Caliphate," said Elwi. "They make very strange bedfellows indeed." "El-Baradei's long absence from Egypt has led him to mistakenly assume that the Brotherhood is the strongest political force in Egypt. He also seems to believe that the Brotherhood is sincerely interested in forming a political party." Nafaa hopes "the Brotherhood's partnership with El-Baradei is not just a tactical step aimed at irritating the regime." Elwi, in contrast, believes that "the Brotherhood's cosy relationship with El-Baradei is motivated by resentment at its loss in the Shura elections". "Brotherhood leaders have retaliated by trying to use El-Baradei as a stick to beat the regime. This is clearly a tactical partnership. They will abandon each other as soon as one party gets what it wants."
