The Muslim Brotherhood risks alienating the public as it tries desperately to cling on to political gains made in a parliamentary election that might yet be judged unconstitutional, Gamal Essam El-Din reports People's Assembly speaker Saad El-Katatni's 29 April announcement that the assembly would suspend its activities until next Sunday to protest against the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces' (SCAF) refusal to allow the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) to form a cabinet to replace Prime Minster Kamal El-Ganzouri's took many non-Islamist MPs by surprise. El-Katatni told parliamentary reporters that a limited cabinet reshuffle will be insufficient to restore confidence between the government and parliament. "When we rejected this government's policy statement on 26 February we were rejecting policies and programmes, not personalities," says El-Katatni. So what will happen when the People's Assembly reconvenes on Sunday without a new government in place? The fact is nobody knows. El-Katatni threatened on Sunday that if El-Ganzouri's government was not replaced he would instruct parliament to begin debating "some of the interpellations submitted against cabinet ministers". There are 185 interpellations that have been submitted so far, said El-Katatni, "any one of which could bring the government down". If such a statement begs questions over why these interpellations have not been pursued by the speaker until now, it seemed lost on El-Katatni. Similarly lost is why such a statement would leave non-FJP MPs with the firm impression that the Brotherhood is playing party politics with parliament. On Sunday 80 MPs belonging to the Salafist Nour Party -- the second largest parliamentary bloc after the FJP -- joined liberal and leftist deputies in opposing El-Katatni's suspension of parliament. Emad Gad, liberal MP and Al-Ahram political analyst, told Al-Ahram Weekly that El-Katatni was imposing the Muslim Brotherhood's will on parliament. "El-Katatni should have taken a vote on a critical decision which took all non-FJP MPs by surprise," said Gad. Sunday's decision to suspend parliament for a week was, he said, "a decision that had been taken in advance by the FJP in coordination with the Muslim Brotherhood". Gad was among many deputies who refused to depart the chamber following the announcement. By Monday 175 MPs had signed a petition demanding El-Katatni reverse his decision. Independent MP Yasser El-Qadi told parliamentary correspondents that "most non-FJP deputies believe that the Muslim Brotherhood has hijacked the assembly and that the group's leader, Mohamed Badei, is pulling the strings". El-Qadi added that almost all non-FJP deputies, including the ultraconservative Salafist Nour Party, had rejected the notion of withdrawing confidence from the current government. "Yes, we reject El-Ganzouri's annual policy statement but we also realise there is too little time ahead of presidential elections to install a new government," he said. Liberal MP Amr Hamzawy said El-Katatni's decision was an attempt to "turn parliament into a battleground for partisan political interests". "El-Katatni's suspension caused much damage to parliament's reputation. Public opinion is not on the side of the People's Assembly in this respect," says leading Nour Party MP Abdel-Tawwab Othman. He revealed that some deputies have mooted the possibility of tabling a motion withdrawing confidence from El-Katatni himself. FJP deputies rallied to support El-Katatni. Saad El-Husseini, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Guidance Bureau and chairman of parliament's Budget Committee, argued that "the government and SCAF breached parliament's dignity and it was necessary for El-Katatni -- in his capacity as parliamentary speaker -- to defend the assembly's honour". The showdown between SCAF and the FJP is not confined to the fate of the El-Ganzouri government. The two are also at loggerheads over rules for forming a new constituent assembly tasked with drafting a constitution. At a 28 April meeting between SCAF, led by Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, and political party representatives, new criteria were agreed for the assembly's formulation. The following day FJP members of the People's Assembly Constitutional Affairs Committee surprised observers by denouncing the deal. Sobhi Saleh, the committee's FJP deputy chairman, told journalists on 30 April that the Saturday agreement between SCAF and political parties was "a direct insult to parliament which is empowered by Article 60 of the constitutional declaration to form the [constituent] assembly". Saleh's statements drew sharp attacks from secular parties which accused FJP leaders of backtracking on their promises and attempting to impose their will over the constitution. Ongoing differences between the Brotherhood-dominated parliament and the ruling military council are seen by many commentators as part of a broader dispute over Egypt's political destiny. Gad believes the Muslim Brotherhood, fearing the imminent election of a non-FJP president, is seeking a more influential role in the short term. "They want to maximise their parliamentary dominance, especially given rumours that parliament might be dissolved and that their presidential candidate Mohamed Mursi does not enjoy broad popular support," said Gad. "A new power structure is emerging in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to carve a foothold for itself within this new structure." In a related development, the Muslim Brotherhood was dealt a blow this week when two leading Salafist parties -- Nour and Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya -- announced their support for presidential candidate Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh. Abul-Fotouh was a senior Brotherhood official before being expelled from the group's ranks after declaring his intention to stand in the presidential elections. When the People's Assembly reconvenes on Sunday the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) should have begun its review of petitions questioning the constitutionality of the election law. It the SCC finds in favour of the petitions the People's Assembly and Shura Council could be dissolved and new parliamentary elections ordered. "The possibility of the SCC rejecting the election law, the clash with secular forces over the constituent assembly and the failure of its candidate to win broad support in the presidential elections has left the Muslim Brotherhood prey to nervous hysteria," says Tagammu Party official Hussein Abdel-Razek. "All they want now is to use their parliamentary power while they can to control the government in a bid to entrench their interests and prevent any non-FJP president from challenging their powers." It is a strategy that Hussein predicts will backfire as the public increasingly sees the majority party placing its own interests over those of the nation. (see pp.5-6)
