Establishing the Freedom and Justice Party is the most important test in the history of the Muslim Brotherhood. In the past, the Brotherhood suffered from security measures aimed at impeding its political role, which gained the group public sympathy. At the same time, the group has been accused by critics of using religious sentiment to achieve its political gains. Despite such controversy, no one can deny that member of the group managed to interact with the people in a way other opposition parties failed to do. After announcing the creation of its first legal public entity, the Islamic group faces the danger of new publicity: what they said before in secret must now be said in public. Being a legitimate political party will force the group to announce its program, which will be subject to public assessment as all other official parties are. The party will also face ambitious members who believe themselves capable of leadership, and so the Brotherhood will have to find a democratic mechanism to replace the policy of listening and obeying, which the Brotherhood is used to, or it will face the danger of defections. The Brotherhood faced this danger before at different stages in history despite its strict and secret measures. What happened before with Aboul-Ela Madi and Essam Soltan happens now with Abdel-Monem Aboul-Fotouh and Ibrahim Al-Zaafrani, and the matter will increase in the future as the Freedom and Justice Party announces its official platform and interacts with the public. In political parties, choosing members is an easier process that the strict measures pursued by secret groups and organizations. Thus the question becomes, who will be preferred, the members of the political party or the members of the Brotherhood? The question would not be important if the party's membership were limited to member of the Brotherhood. We will face an organization that gathers both secretly and publicly at the same time, as happened with the July 23 (1952) organizations, which had a secret organization to lead the public one, which was the Socialist union. Although such a comparison might anger the Brotherhood, it must read previous partisan experiments which took place under different political regimes. The last challenge the group will face is excessive confidence as it moves from secrecy into the public, because what it is possible to say as a group is different as a political party. Arabic here.
