The Muslim Brotherhood is straddling the fence on Egypt's presidential elections, opines Amr El-Choubaki* Many of Egypt's political groups found the Muslim Brotherhood's position on the upcoming presidential elections -- as outlined in a published statement -- puzzling. For many, it was hard to know whether the Brotherhood supported or opposed President Hosni Mubarak. As far as the opposition is concerned, the Brotherhood remains a wild card. Official opposition parties have excluded the Brotherhood from dialogue. And Kifaya, the Egyptian Movement for Change, has complained that the Brotherhood is more interested in dominating than cooperating. As things stand, the Muslim Brotherhood is an object of mistrust for both opposition and government. The statement in question was perhaps trying to please both government and opposition. On the one hand, the Brotherhood's stance was close to the opposition's in refraining from advising followers to vote for the incumbent president. The Brotherhood's statement described the laws passed after the amendment of Article 76 as disappointing, called for the release of political detainees and urged the abrogation of emergency laws and extraordinary courts, demanding the recognition of public freedoms. This is all in keeping with the opposition. On the other hand, it is in line with several of the election promises of President Mubarak himself. What the Brotherhood is assuming is a position of "positive boycott" or "passive participation" in the elections. It is doing a juggling act. It wants to please its many followers, remain part of the country's political scene and smooth out things with the government. Eager to maintain its internal unity, and worried over its rapport with the government and the opposition, the Brotherhood told the nation that it would be sending its members to vote for no one in particular. The Brotherhood could have declared support for one of the opposition candidates, but this would have implicated it into the sort of "detail" the group has been careful to avoid. Such a step could have alienated the government, particularly if the candidate in question was Ayman Nour of the Ghad Party. It could also have displeased some within the Brotherhood ranks. And it could have lost the group goodwill in the opposition's ranks, in view of the rivalry between the Wafd and Ghad. The move may have alienated some of the minor parties that the Brotherhood likes to think it can count on when the time is right. By all accounts, the Brotherhood's relation with the government is a mystery. Some leaders are known to have publicly advised "obedience to the men in command", a notion that mixes outdated religious beliefs with modern political views. The irony is that the "man in command" has over the last few months ordered a large number of the group's supporters detained. No other opposition group was treated as harshly by the government to date. And yet most opposition parties are wary of the Brotherhood. Often, the group and the government are said to be making secret deals. Often, it is said, the Brotherhood is ready to "sell out" in exchange for seats in parliament or in professional unions. The government's release of Muslim Brotherhood Secretary-General Mahmoud Ezzat renewed such rumours. The group gets little sympathy over the fact that it is the one opposition group with the largest number of followers in prison. One reason for the prevalent suspicions concerning the Brotherhood is that this group thinks differently from everyone else when it comes to dealing with the authorities. Unlike the Egyptian left, which has no problem confronting the regime or even accusing it of treason, the Brotherhood sees the ruler as the "man in command"; a figure that deserves obedience in Islamic tradition. This is a far cry from modern tradition, where the ruler is just another rival. While the opposition muses the mixed signals the Brotherhood is sending out, group figures suspect that the opposition wants to push it into a doomed confrontation with authorities. Unlike smaller parties with simpler choices, the Brotherhood is a massive organisation with a mixed constituency. By advising its followers to vote for the candidate of their choice, the group is trying to remain part of the scene, and hoping to keep its followers interested in the parliamentary elections to follow. It is trying to keep the momentum. Come parliamentary elections, it is hoping that its followers would be sufficiently motivated to go to the polls. This makes sense. Boycott is effective mostly when the public is used to voting. In this country, the public is rather indifferent and needs some motivation to get involved. The Brotherhood is self-contradictory in that it hopes to function both as a political movement and as a religious party. Unable to choose between being a political party and a religious group, the Brotherhood has decided to straddle the fence, opposing the president without alienating him, and appeasing the opposition without getting into alliance with any of its figures. The day the Brotherhood makes up its mind, the day it is willing to name the person it is supporting and the opponent it is running against, has not yet come. Until that day, until the Muslim Brotherhood acts as a civil party fully engaged in the political scene, democracy will remain incomplete. * The writer is an analyst at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
