 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 May 2000 Issue No. 481 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 May 2000 Issue No. 481
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Books Features Interview Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters A place for the Brotherhood
By Omayma Abdel-LatifThat the Muslim Brotherhood is planning to contest the November parliamentary elections is no longer news. The question is what strategy will the outlawed group use in pre-election campaigning.
There is no talk so far of campaign strategies, no mention of the names of candidates and no explanation of political platforms. In what could be an attempt to dispel fears of any systematic activity that might trigger the government's ire, prominent group members, speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly, insisted that the decision to contest the elections was not a collective decision. They said group members were free to run individually.
"I don't know who is running in which constituency," Ma'moun El-Hodeibi, the Brotherhood's spokesman, told the Weekly. "These elections are contested by individual candidates, not slates of candidates. Everybody should speak for himself; no one represents the Muslim Brotherhood because we are not allowed to function as a legal group," he added.
El-Hodeibi declined to reveal the number of candidates the group will field in this year's elections. In the last elections in 1995, the Brotherhood fielded 150 candidates, but only one of them managed to make it to parliament.
The apparent decision to keep the group's election activities low-key has been viewed by some analysts as an attempt to assuage possible government opposition. Sources close to the outlawed group said that it is ready to do whatever it takes to gain representation in the next parliament.
Watchers of political Islam viewed with scepticism the group's insistence that the decision was not collective. "The claim that group members are acting individually is a hoax. There must be a degree of coordination on an event as significant as parliamentary elections," said Niveen Mos'ad, a professor of political science at Cairo University. Mos'ad, who has carried out extensive research on political Islam, believes that the group's claim and the new strategy of low-profile activities are an obvious attempt to avoid a government clamp-down.
The Brotherhood itself, however, seemed to dismiss the possibility of a pre-poll clamp-down. "We are simply claiming our constitutional and legal rights to run as independents in the elections. Therefore, any possibility of a confrontation with the state is highly unlikely," Essam El-Eryan, a prominent member of the group, told the Weekly. El-Eryan, who was arrested and put on trial just before the 1995 elections, has not decided yet whether he will contest the November ballot. Last January, El-Eryan completed a five-year prison sentence for belonging to an illegal group.
Despite official statements that group members can run as independent candidates, any change in the government's policy of politically ostracising the group is unlikely. Twenty group members are standing trial at present for "disseminating the ideas of a banned group, endangering security and trying to infiltrate and control various political organisations." This leaves little room for speculation on the chances of official acceptance of the group any time soon.
The Brotherhood, however, seems to be bowing to government pressure and attempting to project an image that conforms with the political order by not showing any antagonistic tendencies towards the state. "We are not seeking confrontation and we are not participating in the elections as a group because the entity called the Muslim Brotherhood does not exist in the eyes of the state," El-Eryan said.
But he was careful not to accuse the government of obstructing candidates running for election on an Islamist platform. "We cannot forecast the government's reaction to the participation of some candidates with an Islamist platform, but it is not wise to accuse the government of harassing those who have an Islamist agenda as long as they are acting within the existing constitutional and legal framework," he said.
Both El-Eryan and El-Hodeibi said they had faith in President Hosni Mubarak's vow that the elections would be free and marked by integrity.
The Brotherhood's decision to contest the elections appears to be a retraction of earlier statements made by the group's supreme guide, Mashhour Ahmed Mashhour, which may be interpreted to mean that participation in the ballot is opposed by the group's rank-and-file. In an interview with the Weekly earlier this year, Mashhour flatly dismissed the possibility that the group would make ideological concessions and soften its rigid doctrine. He made the group's participation in the elections conditional on political reform and guarantees that the ballot would be free and fair. The opposition's demands for electoral reform have not been met.
In the view of Mustafa Kamel El-Sayed, a professor of political science at Cairo University, the group's bid to participate in the elections reflects its growing fears of becoming politically isolated, particularly at a time when all political parties have made up their minds about running.
"Although they are aware that there is no possibility of the state accepting them and that it is very unlikely that any of them will make it to parliament, they want to claim a place on the political map, and this in itself is a shift toward a pragmatic adjustment to the political order," El-Sayed said.
