Friday 6 April 2012

With USA Changing the Horse - Egypt has second thoughts on Muslim Brotherhood

In early December 2011, commenting on Khalid Amayereh's article: "We can't take people's support for granted."

I said:

Obama just changed the horse, just replaced the Moderate Arabs with Moderate Islamists.

More From The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report

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Egypt has second thoughts on Muslim Brotherhood

By Sarah Lynch, Special for USA TODAY

 "The main reason I don't support the Brotherhood anymore is because they say something and do something else," says Awes, who fixes air conditioners for a living, his skin rough and aged.

That something was the Muslim Brotherhood's announcement that it will run a candidate for president despite a vow during the parliamentary elections that it would not. Egyptians overwhelmingly supported the Brotherhood in those elections, but some express hesitation about handing total control of their government to the party by giving it the presidency in elections slated for May.

The reaction of Awes and others who voted for the Brotherhood is a sign that some Egyptians are not yet sold on the party as the answer to all of the country's ills, and are wary of concentrating power in one group following a 30-year dictatorship.
Uncertainty about the Brotherhood, whose Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) is one of two strong Islamist groups dominating the parliament, could be found recently among many patrons in crowded tea shops and the cafes where tobacco is smoked from water pipes known as shisha.
"We don't understand their intentions anymore," says Mahmoud Youssef, a tailor, drinking tea and playing cards on his day off in the Abdeen neighborhood.
Mahmoud voted for the FJP in winter's parliamentary elections but no longer trusts them. Even so, he says, the party has the right like any other to control the presidency and parliament.
'Genuine politics' plays out
During parliamentary elections, the FJP's vow not to run for the presidency was meant to reassure voters that the hated one-party state of former president Hosni Mubarak would not be followed by another one-party state of Islamists. The FJP already controls the Senate and parliament, and it has used its majority to appoint supporters of Islamic law to a committee that will write Egypt's new constitution.
Nominating former party deputy chairman Khairat Al-Shater to run for president was necessary to "uphold the homeland's higher national interests," the Brotherhood said on its website. "The Brotherhood, therefore, undertakes to bear the historical responsibility of achieving the objectives of the Egyptian revolution, which impressed the whole world, so this homeland should never turn back," it said.
Three Brotherhood leaders quit this week in protest over Shater's nomination, news reports said. But not all Egyptians criticize the group for modifying its position.
"Every party has the freedom to select whomever they want, to back their party, and pick a presidential candidate," Alaa Al-Din says at a cafe in al-Borsa, Cairo's Stock Exchange, though he intends to vote for a Shater rival.
Experts say the political intrigue and griping it has inspired are normal for a people who have been under dictatorship for decades. "Egypt is having genuine politics for the first time in three generations," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The Brotherhood has said it needs to control the executive as well as the legislative branch to enact reforms that may not be endorsed by Egypt's military, a powerful player in the economy and justice system that has run Egypt since Mubarak's ouster. The move risks loss of support, some say.
"The image of the Brotherhood is changing right now, and I think people will start to rethink about the Brotherhood as an honest movement," says Khalil Al-Anani, a political Islam expert at Durham University in England. "They didn't follow through on their promise."
Economic undertow
The development comes amid rising unemployment and a significant drop in foreign investment.
The tourism industry has swiftly declined because of unrest and lack of security, leaving many Egyptians jobless and longing for the days of Mubarak.

"For the Brothers, this is very risky," says Michael Wahid Hanna, a fellow at the Century Foundation and expert on Egyptian affairs. "They (could) be solely responsible for governing in Egypt at a time of desperate conditions and difficult transition and they will be held accountable for that."
Immediately after Shater's nomination, the Twitter pages of Egypt's non-Islamists oozed with outrage. Liberal figurehead and former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei called the situation "heartbreaking."

Still, some are forgiving. Wearing a wool, brown, button-down cardigan in a fashion typical among elderly Egyptian men, Hassan Dahab, 64, says that all Egyptians care about is finding a leader who will improve their lives.

"Laborers want to be able to work steadily and provide for our families," he says. "And whoever can provide me with that, I will vote for them."

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
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