The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood are having a hard time of late, much to the delight of their many political opponents inside Egypt. On Tuesday, 22nd December 2009, MB announced the results of the first elections held in 15 years to its leading Guidance Bureau. Unfortunately for the Brothers, the results of the election were strongly contested by leading elements within their own organisations. Even worse, these dissident Brothers have chosen to do their dirty washing in public.
The vote by the 100 member Shura Council of the Muslim Brotherhood pitted two powerful internal factions against one another for control of the organisation. One faction, made up of significantly younger leaders of MB, are keen to play down the hard-line, clerical fascist core policies of MB, instead wishing to promote the Brotherhood as a “moderate” political force wedded to notions of democracy and social reform. The other faction, made up of older, “conservative” MB leaders take a less media-friendly line, demanding that the Brotherhood remain overtly committed to its clerical fascist principles and to the assertion of Islamist theocracy.
In Europe, we have become accustomed to the re-invention of the Far Right: the ditching of overt support for the Third Reich and fascism, the repeated declarations that they are no longer anti-democratic, pro-dictatorship and wedded to a violent racist creed. Of course, we all know that this is but window dressing. Such spin has also met with considerable opposition from within their own ranks. The struggles between the Political Soldier and Flag Group within the neo-Nazi National Front in the ’80s pivoted around exactly such issues.
The struggle between so-called “moderates” and “conservatives” inside the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood are of very similar dimensions and are being waged by very similar sorts of people. Indeed, to suggest that the “moderates” of MB are indeed moderates is as much to take leave of one’s senses as a declaration that Griffin and his followers inside the National Front of the 1980s were moderates. Just as the struggles inside the British neo-Nazi movement were tactical in their nature (and not in any way determined by rejection of basic Nazi ideological positions) and driven by the fascists’ continued lack of support from the British people, so to are the present struggles within the equally fascist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
Muhammad Habib, deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, pinned his hopes on the younger generation of “moderates”, led in its turn by Abdel Moneim Abul Futuh. However, it all went disastrously wrong for Habib and his faction within MB, leading one Egyptian commentator to describe the election as:
an internal coup d’etat against the reformist camp of the Brotherhood.
According to the Investigative project on Terrorism:
The conservatives won out, but Habib is crying foul and aired the Brotherhood’s dirty laundry on Al Jazeera. He claims the elections were held suddenly, not properly announced, and the person who scheduled and organized them – Mohammad Mahdi Akef, the Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood – did not have the authority to do so. Al Arabiya reports:
“Mohamed Habib, the first deputy to the Supreme Guidance, said Sunday that the election violated the bylaws of the movement. And added that the call for the election ‘came from an individual [Akef] and not from the Guidance Bureau who are in charge for calling for the elections.’”
Habib is also upset that, due to state crackdowns and illnesses, many Shura Council members were unable to participate in the vote. He claims:
“The objective of holding the elections with this hastiness is to establish one group against another group, and not just to exclude me personally, but also to infringe upon the rights of the Guidance Office.”
Some Shura Council members, including Habib, refused to vote under those circumstances. Akef, of course, claims the elections were legitimate. “Let Habib say what he wants to say, I am walking in line with the institutes of the group. I confirm the soundness of the [election] procedures 100 percent,” he said. Habib is calling for the elections to be investigated.
As IPT‘s report comments:
Looking at all this, one can’t help but wonder: If the Brotherhood cannot manage to conduct an internal election according to its own internal regulations that their leaders write, how can it be trusted in government?
The answer is, of course, they cannot.
2 Comments
Shades of the MB’s “Blueprint” fiasco.
Yes, you are right, DavidT. The Brothers are extraordinarily prone to making complete idiots of themselves in public at critical moments. It is one of their weaknesses that I think we should both treasure and encourage.
Earlier last month, the present Supreme Guide of MB in Egypt was whining about how the main opposition parties in that country would not let MB into their prospective anti-Mubarak grand coalition. Given recent events, one might feel that the opposition has been proven quite correct in its decision to exclude MB from amongst their ranks.
Oddly, it seems, that particular article has recently and mysteriously disappeared from the MB website.