Why am I not surprised?
Islamist Group Breaks Pledge to Stay Out of Race in Egypt
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK Published: March 31, 2012
NEW YORK TIMES
CAIRO — The Muslim Brotherhood nominated its chief strategist and financier Khairat el-Shater on Saturday as its candidate to become Egypt’s first president since Hosni Mubarak, breaking a pledge not to seek the top office and a monopoly on power.
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The Muslim Brotherhood nominated its longtime strategist Khairat el-Shater in the Egyptian presidential election.
Because of the Brotherhood’s unrivaled grass-roots organization and popular appeal, Mr. Shater, 62, a multimillionaire business tycoon who was a political prisoner until just a year ago, immediately became a presidential front-runner.
If he wins the June election, the Brotherhood, a previously outlawed Islamist group, would control the presidency, the Parliament and the committee writing the new constitution, moving toward a confrontation with Egypt’s military rulers over the country’s future.
His candidacy is likely to unnerve the West and has already outraged Egyptian liberals, who wonder what other pledges of moderation the Brotherhood may abandon. The Brotherhood is also engaged in a standoff with the military over its calls to dissolve the military-led government, and the degree of civilian oversight of the military in the new constitution.
The Brotherhood’s participation also turns the election into a referendum on the role of Islamist politics in post-Arab Spring governments that is sure to resonate across the region. Mr. Shater faces Islamist rivals to his left and right — one a more liberal former Brotherhood leader, the other an ultraconservative Salafi. Indeed, the Brotherhood may have entered the race in part because a win or near win by either rival Islamist would badly damage its authority as the primary voice of the Islamist movement in Egypt.
Within the Brotherhood, Mr. Shater is considered a conservative but a pragmatist. He has argued that Islam demands tolerance and democracy, championed free trade and open markets and guided the Brotherhood through its first public commitment to uphold the peace agreement with Israel.
But he also argues for an explicitly Islamic government. And while some in the group have argued that it should tolerate diverse approaches to Islamist politics from its own members, he has asserted the authority of the Brotherhood’s executive committee over the group and its political party, stirring allegations from liberals that the behind-the-scenes power of the Brotherhood’s executive Guidance Council subverts democracy.
Doubts about the strength of the Brotherhood’s commitment to its stated positions raise particular concerns in the United States and Israel, which considered the Mubarak government’s commitment to the peace agreement a linchpin of regional stability.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, declined to comment specifically on Mr. Shater but called the nomination a worrisome turn. “Obviously this is not good news,” the official said. “The Muslim Brotherhood is no friend of Israel’s. They do not wish us well. The big question will be how pragmatic they will be once in power. It could go in either direction.”
In Washington, the United States State Department declined to comment in the immediate aftermath of the announcement Saturday night. But many American officials who have visited Cairo have met with Mr. Shater, and some have praised his moderation and effectiveness.
At a news conference announcing the nomination, officials of the Brotherhood and its political arm insisted they were forced to offer a candidate because of the urgent needs left by more a year of military-led transitional government. They alluded to a mounting economic crisis as well as unspecified “threats to the revolution” or attempted restorations of the old order.
“We decided that Egypt now needs a candidate from us to bear this responsibility,” said Mohamed el Morsi, president the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. “We have no desire at all to monopolize power.”
Mr. Shater was not present at the news conference. Instead, the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Mohamed Badie, read a letter from Mr. Shater resigning his post as Deputy Supreme Guide in order to run for president. “Although I never thought of occupying any executive position in the state or running for it, I can’t help but comply with the decision of the group,” Mr. Shater wrote, according to Mr. Badie’s reading.
In the latest reminder that the party remains under the firm control of the Brotherhood’s leadership, the officials of both said that the decision for the party to back Mr. Shater as a candidate was made by Brotherhood’s Shura Council, an internal legislative body.
Mr. Shater, a Nasserite socialist organizer in high school, was long considered a hero of reformers within the Brotherhood in part because he was outspoken about the importance of democracy as the key to revitalizing Egypt. He helped chart its first steps into electoral democracy, both in Egyptian professional associations and as the only real opposition in the Mubarak dominated Parliament. And he led the way in reaching out to build alliances with other political groups and bridges to the west.
He cultivated close ties with both the conservative old guard and reform-minded youth. And he embraced new technologies, including leading the creation of the Brotherhood’s Web sites in Arabic and English.
In prison and out, Mr. Shater also served as the Brotherhood’s chief liaison for negotiations or other exchanges with the Mubarak security services, and since Mr. Mubarak’s ouster Mr. Shater has continued that role as the Brotherhood’s chief point of contact with the ruling generals as well.
Since the ouster of Mr. Mubarak, however, many younger and reform-minded members have said they have grown disappointed with Mr. Shater because he has also enforced a closed and hierarchical view of the Brotherhood left over from his decades of work underground. Mr. Shater led a push to bar Brotherhood members from dissenting from the political tactics and stands of its Freedom and Justice Party, and he also led the expulsion of dissenters who sought a less-traditionally Islamist political path.
One of those Mr. Shater helped expel is now among the other front runners in the presidential campaign, Aboul Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a former senior leader of the Brotherhood and a liberal reformer within the group. Mr. Aboul Fotouh was expelled for defying the Brotherhood’s decision, now reversed, not to allow any of its members to run for president. He has continued to try to rally other Brotherhood members and Islamists to his banner as well as more liberal and secular groups.
In a direct challenge to the Brotherhood, Mr. Aboul Fotouh argues that no one has a monopoly on the application of Islam to political life, so an Islamist movement should have room for liberals and leftists as well conservatives.
Although the Brotherhood has now dropped the pledge Mr. Aboul Fotouh was expelled for violating — not running for president — the group has continued to oppose his candidacy because of his insubordination, even threatening to expel members who did support for him.
On the other side, Mr. Shater also faces competition from a popular Islamist candidate on the far right. Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, an ultraconservative Islamist lawyer and preacher, has also burst into the front of the field with an old-school Islamist platform, including vigorous attacks on Israel and the West as well as an emphasis on restoring Islamic law. Although he once ran for Parliament in a campaign linked to the Brotherhood, his success would seriously undermine the Brotherhood’s efforts to portray Egypt’s Islamists as moderate and unthreatening.
But Mr. Badie, the Supreme Guide, warned Mr. Shater’s opponents to watch out. “To all those who will slander engineer Khairat El Shater, his prayer against those who slander him are answered — literally by the way,” Mr. Badie said, alluding to Mr. Shater’s prayers for the end of the Mubarak government while in prison. “The prayers he made in his prison were realized to the letter, by Allah.” |
