Between a series of sweeping arrests and one of the largest military trials in recent years, the Egyptian government is pulling all the stops on the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), the regime’s largest and most threatening opposition party. The upper house of Parliament, Shoura Council, elections are in less than one week, June 11, 2007, and the reluctant lessons learned from the 2005 People’s Assembly elections have enlightened the regime of the opposition’s popularity, especially in recent days. Since Thursday, May 31, 2007, 80 MB members and 52 supporters of MB candidates in the elections have been arrested in various provinces throughout Egypt. In addition, a military trial of 40 senior members charged with terrorism and money laundering, which began late April 2007, resumed Sunday, June 3, 2007, further crippling just one week before the elections. Egypt has always sidestepped international pressures concerning political reform and democratization; however, the prospects for democracy continue to dwindle as the nation faces another political election.
Muslim Brotherhood Perseveres
Though the MB has been banned as a political party since 1954, it has continued to operate and is Egypt’s most powerful opposition movement. Its lawmakers, who ran as independents in the 2005 elections, hold 88 seats in the 454-seat People’s Assembly. However, it was only after much trial and tribulation that the MB gained those seats. The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) ensured, through the use of gangsters, state security officers, and excessive violence, that the independent’s polling stations were closed down and supporters were effectively deterred from voting (Previous Report). Although to a lesser extent than the 2005 Parliamentary elections, the constitutional referendum in March 2007 warranted similar government behavior towards the MB and even individual Internet bloggers, who posted their oppositional opinions on the web (Previous Report).
The consistent threat of violence and arrests, however, has not discouraged the MB from running in the upcoming elections again. In fact, 40 MB candidates were originally planning to run in the elections, but the MB barely managed to complete registration measures for 19 candidates. Even when faced of the largest military trial in years, the MB persists to carry out its political agenda.
Forecast: Democratic Reform Will Require Change from Both Sides
Egypt continues to provide false promises of democratic reform and progress to the international community. With its recent track record of unjustifiable arrests of oppositional party members and/or individual bloggers, we believe the prospects for true democracy in Egypt are not promising in the near to midterm.
Unless the Egyptian government incorporates a significant and representative portion of its oppositional parties, prospects for change will remain ambitious, at best. The MB will continue to rise in popularity and mostly out of spite for the current regime. On the other hand, we believe that in order for the current regime to consider incorporating elements of the MB, the movement will need to tone down its appeal to Islamic Sharia Law and capitalize on its desire to provide economic, political, and social relief through a planned program that can be easily expressed to the masses.
We remain concerned over the Egyptian government’s continued practice of stifling any opposition it may face and we believe that unless both side takes serious compromising measures, Egypt’s future political and social landscape will only continue to spiral downward.
