A political reform initiative drafted by the banned Muslim Brotherhood has caused an uproar While the US's Greater Middle East Initiative (GMEI) may be straining Egyptian- US relations, its effects are being felt on the domestic political scene as well. This became clear when the banned Muslim Brotherhood group announced its own political reform initiative last week. The initiative, revealed on 3 March at the Press Syndicate's downtown headquarters, was not only condemned by Interior Minister Habib El-Adli, it also caused a sudden rift in relations between the ministry and the Press Syndicate itself. El-Adli did not mince his words, harshly criticising the syndicate for hosting the group. At a 4 March press conference, El- Adli also lashed out at the banned Brotherhood, describing it as an illegal group, which was by no means authorised to come up with any kind of reform initiative. Only legal political parties are authorised to come up with reform initiatives, El-Adli said. "Since the Brotherhood is an illegal entity, it was a grave error for the Press Syndicate to give a banned group a venue to disseminate their views." Citing President Hosni Mubarak's invitation to legal political parties to conduct a national dialogue with the ruling National Democratic Party on a new political reform agenda, El-Adli said, "I totally reject this banned Brotherhood's so- called reform agenda and I think that the Press Syndicate has to be blamed for hosting their conference." In response, Galal Aref, the Nasserist- oriented Press Syndicate chairman, said the syndicate's hosting of the Brotherhood's press conference was "an administrative glitch" rather than an "error" because "the syndicate was not aware" of the brotherhood's involvement in the event. Aref said the syndicate's halls are available for rent, but that "from now on, this concept will be scrapped because we are eager to safeguard the syndicate against partisan interests and propaganda." Aref was critical of those he said were trying to exploit the crisis to poison the relationship between the syndicate and the state. "Some do not want to see this relationship flourish," he said, "especially following the positive atmosphere generated by President Mubarak's decision -- two weeks ago -- to revoke prison sentences for publication offences." But how did the syndicate end up hosting the conference? Some syndicate sources alleged that the syndicate council was fully aware of the Brotherhood's intention to rent out one of the syndicate's halls for a press conference. Other political observers alleged that two syndicate council members (with Brotherhood leanings) facilitated the arrangement. Aref said, "the syndicate had nothing to do with the conference. A public figure contacted the syndicate's council, asking to hire one of the syndicate's halls. He did not specify the purpose for which the hall would be used. We had no idea at all that it would be used for the Brotherhood's Supreme Guide to hold a conference." At the controversial press conference, the Brotherhood's newly appointed supreme guide, Mohamed Mahdi Akef, denied that the initiative was "opportunistic, in the sense that it is not aiming to exploit foreign American pressures" to challenge the government. Although Akef attacked Prime Minister Atef Ebeid's government, saying, "its performance has left the country in a mess and sorry state," he reiterated the Brotherhood's conviction that a dialogue with the US was unacceptable. Akef then described the Brotherhood's initiative, which seemed to consist of a mosaic of new and old ideas. These include revoking the emergency law, ridding the information media of non-Islamic content, curtailing the sweeping powers of the president, ensuring religious, speech and political freedoms, releasing political detainees, and deepening the principle of rotation of power via elections marked with integrity. Akef also said the Brotherhood believes that political power should be in the hands of the majority of the people, and that Christian Copts are an integral part of Egyptian society. "They must be on equal footing with Muslims in terms of having equal rights," Akef said. He also said women must be authorised to occupy all kinds of top posts. Alluding to the Turkish Prime Minister's Recep Tayyib Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, which used to be an Islamic party, Akef also said that the Brotherhood was ready to change its name if that was a stipulation for becoming a political party. El-Adli's fury may not have been provoked by the Press Syndicate's accommodating a Muslim Brotherhood press conference, as much as by the fact that the Brotherhood reform initiative comes in the midst of massive American pressure on the US's Arab allies to reform and democratise themselves. This dynamic reached a crescendo last month with the announcement of the Greater Middle East initiative aimed at eliminating the Arab world's democratic deficit. To government insiders, the Brotherhood's initiative seemed to be an opportunistic way of capitalising on US President George Bush's administration's initiative. At the conference, however, Akef tried his best to suggest the opposite. According to him, the Brotherhood initiative was actually meant to boost the regime's immunity against American pressure -- by providing a homegrown kind of reform. Rifaat El-Said, chairman of the leftist Tagammu' Party, told Al-Ahram Weekly he does not believe in any Brotherhood political reform initiatives. "I wonder what suddenly prompted them to scrap their strict and rigid interpretation of Islam -- exemplified by their long-time slogan 'Islam is the solution' -- in favour of this new liberal image." El- Said's conclusion: the initiative perfectly fits "the Brotherhood's old opportunistic style, which aims at usurping power at all costs." Analysts are also wondering whether the Brotherhood's choosing to hold the press conference at the Press Syndicate represents a shift in the group's strategy vis-a-vis the government. There is a general agreement that unlike his predecessors, Akef seems to be a forceful and confrontational character, determined to give the Brotherhood a more vigorous say in domestic political issues. Hamdi Hassan, a Muslim Brotherhood MP, told the Weekly that there was "no good reason why the Brotherhood should be stripped of the right to draft political reform initiatives. The Brotherhood was excluded -- for no convincing reason -- from the national dialogue. In spite of this, we believe we are an integral and important part of this country. We have the largest number of opposition MPs in parliament. We have every right to tell people what reform agenda we embrace for improving the living conditions of this country and its people," Hassan said. He said that rather than creating tension between journalists and the Interior Ministry, or embarrassing the government as it faces American pressure, the Brotherhood's initiative was a bid by the group to "connect with President Mubarak's call rejecting the imposition of any foreign reform agendas on the country." The initiative's appearance also happened to coincide with a very critical time for the Press Syndicate, just a few days after its fourth General Congress of Journalists ended with the jubilant revelation that Mubarak had at last approved the abolition of prison sentences for publication offences. Yehia Qalash, a member of the Press Syndicate's board, commented on the crisis by saying that El-Adli's attack on the Press Syndicate may end up being a prelude to attempts at circumventing Mubarak's call for abolishing prison sentences for publication offences. In this respect, a large number of journalists also fear that the Brotherhood incident may lessen the political leadership's trust in the media's ability to conduct their business responsibly. That would be an overreaction, Qalash said. "Although the Press Syndicate's accommodation of the Brotherhood conference was an administrative glitch, it should not have infuriated El-Adli in this way. Above all, the syndicate is a forum for all kinds of thoughts." If anything, according to Qalash, the Brotherhood press conference brouhaha has revealed that, "the Interior Ministry is still acting in isolation of the political reform initiatives which President Mubarak espoused." Mohamed Abdel-Alim, a journalist and Wafdist MP, told the Weekly that the state's view of the Press Syndicate should change. "This syndicate must act as a forum for all kinds of thought. It must reflect a diversity of opinions, showing the outside world that Egypt is really moving on the true path to pluralism, freedom and democracy." Abdel- Alim said the syndicate's independence, as well as its stellar record of providing a forum for all political currents, "is a message to the outside world that Egypt has a lively and free civil life." By Gamal Essam El-Din
