Muslim Brotherhood tightens grip
A conservative Muslim who has promised to implement Islamic law in Egypt strengthened his chances of winning the presidency of the Arab world’s most populous country yesterday by offering a deal to form a united front with defeated opponents.
Mohamed Morsi, 60, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, polled about 25 per cent in the first round of the presidential election last week. He will face Ahmed Shafiq, 70, who served as the ousted president Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister and won 24.5 per cent, in a deeply divisive second-round vote next month, according to preliminary results.
The Brotherhood has been vague about the specific impact that Islamic law would have on issues such as alcohol consumption or the freedom to wear a bikini on the beach, saying only that it would protect Egypt’s tourist industry.
Yesterday the Brotherhood invited candidates who lost in the first round, including Hamdeen Sabahi, the secular Left-winger who came third, and Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a moderate Islamic candidate, for talks on forming a joint anti-shafiq campaign in the next round.
Sabahi abruptly withdrew from the meeting after announcing that he would file an appeal for the election to be suspended because of alleged voting irregularities.
Shafiq, a former fighter pilot and air force commander, is seen as a remnant of the regime overthrown in February last year.
The pitting of an Islamist against a former Mubarak minister has dealt a blow to many supporters of the revolution who had thought that the dictator’s fall would lead to greater freedom.
Alaa al-aswany, a liberal Egyptian novelist, was among those calling for rivals to join forces against Shafiq, whose hands, he said, ‘‘were steeped in the blood of martyrs of the revolution’’.
Morsi’s strong support has raised fears of Islamist domination. The Muslim Brotherhood and the more conservative Salafists together control more than 60 per cent of the seats in Egypt’s parliament.
Morsi, widely dismissed as an uninspiring second choice candidate, lacks the flair of millionaire businessman Khairat al-shater, the Brotherhood’s disqualified first choice. But Morsi is likely to win the support of many voters who opted for Aboul Fotouh, a former Brotherhood member.
Concern over what an Islamist takeover of government would mean for Egypt is growing, particularly among the Coptic Christian minority which makes up 10 per cent of the population.
Distrust of the Brotherhood has grown since the group backtracked on promises not to enter the presidential race and not to contest more than 30 per cent of seats in parliament. The once shadowy underground movement has failed to convince many voters that it will place the interests of the people above its own.
Many believe that the Brotherhood will show its true colours once it has secured power.
‘‘We don’t trust them,’’ said Mahmoud el Guindy, 30, a factory manager, who fears the Brotherhood will damage tourism. ‘‘How can we trust their assurances when they have changed their minds at every stage?’’
Morsi, a former Nasa engineer who holds a doctorate from a California university, was behind a 2007 draft Brotherhood manifesto that tried to bar women and Christians from seeking the presidency. He argues that the Brotherhood’s al-nahda (renaissance) programme is based on a ‘‘centrist understanding of Islam’’.
The Brotherhood candidate insists that Egypt will not become a theocracy, saying he believes in a ‘‘modern democratic civic state’’. But his shift towards more hardline rhetoric in the final weeks of the campaign alarmed many.
‘‘The Koran is our constitution,’’ Morsi declared in a speech at Cairo University. Safwat el-hegazi, a radical cleric who has been banned from Britain for stirring up religious hatred, appeared on stage at a Brotherhood campaign event, rallying the crowd with a call for the creation of a caliphate with Jerusalem as its capital.
Morsi maintains a tough stance on Israel and has referred to Zionists as ‘‘vampires’’. He favours a review of the 1978 Camp David accords, which brought peace between Egypt and Israel, but says he will stick to the agreement as long as Israel does not violate it.
The Brotherhood candidate has also demanded the release of Omar AbdelRahman, the Egyptian so-called blind sheikh who was jailed for life in America for incitement to terrorism, a move that could stoke tension with Washington.
Given the choice of candidates, many supporters of last year’s revolution say they will abstain.
Fifteen months after the overthrow of Mubarak, the euphoria of the revolution has been displaced by anxiety over an uncertain future. ‘‘If Shafiq were to win, we are back to square one,’’ said Mohammed Mounir, a Cairo shopkeeper. ‘‘It would be like there was no revolution.’’