Muslim Brotherhood: just another party

RNW, 14 July 2011, by John Tyler         

(Photo: RNW)

  

Egypt’s ruling military council has made a number of concessions aimed at defusing angry protests over the army’s handling of the transition to democracy. Some 700 police officers will be removed from their jobs over the killing of protestors earlier this year and parliamentary elections scheduled for September will be delayed up to two months. The postponement is intended to give new parties more time to organise.

‘All Egyptians work for the sake of Egypt and its progress.’

This is a one of the slogans the Muslim Brotherhood is using for their campaign in the lead-up to parliamentary elections later this year. Egypt is holding its first truly open elections, and the Muslim Brotherhood is the party to beat.

Normal

But the role as open favourite is a new one for the Muslim Brotherhood, which has experienced decades of government repression. The Brotherhood is undergoing a transition from underground movement to legitimate political party.

As part of this transition to democracy, two leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood attended a workshop earlier this spring sponsored by the Dutch embassy and given by Dutch consultancy bureau, BKB. Representatives from parties across the political spectrum spent three days discussing various aspects of election campaigning.

Dutch workshop

Said Al Abadi says he learned quite a bit during those three days. Al Abadi runs the Egyptian office of the English language Muslim Brotherhood website, ikwanweb.com. He says the slogan above was the result of one of the things he learned. Not the message itself, of course, but the need to craft such a succinct message and stick to it throughout their campaign.

Al Abadi was also impressed by a session on the use of photographs. The Dutch consultants said politicians usually look more appealing when photographs show them in action. Al Abadi said that would be a new phenomenon in Egypt, where most photographs, even those from election campaigns, are either head shots or of a figure seated at a table.

But the workshop was useful for more than giving specific pointers. It was also helpful in making the adjustment to a new era of politics, says Al Abaddi. He and his colleagues are accustomed to working in a closed atmosphere, without any exchange of ideas in public.

Open era

The workshop was something of a shock, says Al Abadi. Suddenly, he found himself sitting across from political leaders with completely different views of the world. It took him a while before he felt comfortable speaking openly in such a setting.

‘Since the revolution, there is a new era, a new opportunity to work openly. This was a challenge, how to make the transition from working underground, in a closed atmosphere, to working in an open atmosphere. The training was very helpful. We started to have a feeling of how to work with others.’

One of the other politicians sitting across from Al Abadi at the workshop was Basim Kamel. He is a leader in the newly-formed Democratic Socialist Party, and he agreed that message building was the most useful aspect of the training.

Brotherhood not the issue

But whether or not the Muslim Brotherhood becomes a normal party is not the most important issue, Kamel says. Rather, it is the Egyptian voter who needs help in becoming “normal” in a new democratic era. Kamel is concerned voters will cast their ballots for the wrong reasons.

‘They need a lot of guidance and awareness building, at least to tell them they should not elect candidates on the basis of religion, tribe, ethnicity or even gender. They should make their selection on who would best represent them.’

Originally scheduled for September, it has just been announced that the elections will be postponed. The delay is something the Democratic Socialists had been calling for in order to allow other parties to catch up to the level of organisation and recognition enjoyed by the Muslim Brotherhood. Even though the Brotherhood was officially illegal under previous regimes, they were tolerated and even ran a very successful campaign in parliamentary elections in 2004, becoming the second biggest block in parliament.

Room for improvement

Al Abadi says he doesn’t understand the unease, from other Egyptians or from Western governments, over the Muslim Brotherhood gaining too much power. He says the Brotherhood isn’t interested in running the country, at least not yet. They are only running for 50 percent of the contested seats in parliament and have promised not to run a candidate in the presidential elections that will follow.

In the meantime, the Brotherhood has some way to go before they are used to working openly. The office for their website, where Al Abadi spoke with RNW, was hard to find. There was no sign and even the doorman did not know that a Muslim Brotherhood office was in his building.