The Muslim Brotherhood (30 page)

The Brotherhood’s willingness to enter into talks with the regime met with outrage among other parts of the opposition who had refused to negotiate with a power they believed had no legitimacy. It also prompted fury in Tahrir Square where protestors accused the Brotherhood of betraying the revolution. Banners and slogans were raised in the square on the day of the dialogue pronouncing, ‘No negotiation, no representation before [Mubarak] leaving! No wisemen! No Brotherhood! The demands are in the Square.’
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Many demonstrators viewed Omar Suleiman’s offer of dialogue as little more than a bid to fragment the opposition and the Brotherhood’s
willingness to play ball as an act of treachery. Whilst the Brotherhood portrayed its participation in the dialogue as a valiant effort to ‘place the people’s demands on the table’,
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the protestors clearly saw things differently.

The Brotherhood’s youth elements were not much enamoured with the willingness of their leadership to strike deals with the Mubarak regime either. Many Ikhwani young felt as though the Brotherhood leadership had risked compromising the whole revolution by its willingness to negotiate. These elements, along with other parts of the opposition, refused to compromise and continued to insist that they would not leave Tahrir Square until Mubarak had gone from office.

Under such pressures, the Brotherhood again found itself having to justify its actions. On 7 February it issued another statement asserting that it had entered into the dialogue in order to convey the people’s demands to the Vice President.
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The statement also stressed that the Brotherhood had done so ‘while continuing the revolution’ and that throughout the dialogue it had insisted that Mubarak should go.

Sensing that the dialogue was going nowhere and seeing the way in which the public mood was going, the Brotherhood began publicly denouncing the government for not doing enough. On 8 February, al-Bayoumi told the
Al-Hayat
newspaper, ‘As initial signs indicate, nothing practical has happened. There were mere promises and pledges of reform, but they have not been implemented.’
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However, the Brotherhood was still stating that it was open to dialogue with the regime.
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On 10 February, Saad al-Katatni was quoted as saying, ‘We will participate in the second round of the dialogue with Egypt’s vice-president Omar Suleiman … We have decided to take part in the talks to find a way out of the current crisis. No date has been set for the talks, but we believe they will be in the next few days.’
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By this point, events were moving faster than the Brotherhood. Thousands of protestors were still packed into Tahrir Square demanding Mubarak’s departure. The protestors became even more determined
following Mubarak’s speech on 10 February in which the ageing leader promised not to run in the next presidential elections but refused to stand down. This prompted massive protests across the country and in Cairo demonstrators surrounded the presidential palace, the parliament and the state broadcasting building demanding the president’s departure. Knowing that it was beaten, the regime concluded it had no choice and by the evening of 11 February Mubarak was gone.

The Brotherhood was as jubilant as the rest of the protestors at Mubarak’s departure. It was also equally explicit that Mubarak’s removal was not the end of the road and that the army still needed to transfer power to a civilian authority for the revolution to be complete. However, the movement carried over the cautious approach it had employed during the uprising into the transition period. Once again the Brotherhood was quick to stress that it was not hungry for power and that it had no intention of dominating the post-Mubarak political arena. In a statement issued the day after Mubarak’s departure, the Brotherhood declared that it would neither nominate a candidate for the presidency nor seek a majority in parliament.
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A few days later, Issam al-Ariyan said, ‘We are also not targeting to have a majority in the upcoming parliament. This is a time for solidarity, unity, we need a national consensus.’
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This concern not to frighten anyone off, least of all the still dominant military regime, was understandable. Ending up in confrontation with the military could spell disaster for the Brotherhood. If it was to ensure its role in the new Egypt, the movement’s leadership knew that it had to play the game right. Doing so meant employing patience, moving gradually and, perhaps most challengingly, treading a difficult path between the military and the people. Despite its desire to see an end to
the powerful military regime, the Brotherhood knew that being wholly on the side of the revolutionaries, who were still in Tahrir Square demanding that the Supreme Council for Armed Forces (SCAF) hand over power immediately, was a risky strategy that might backfire. Not only might such an approach result in further chaos and violence, it could still see the military retaliate and deny the Brotherhood any kind of legitimisation as a political actor. This would be a disaster for the movement that was determined to play its part in post-Mubarak Egypt. The Ikhwan calculated that its best option was to work with the SCAF to help it come up with an acceptable transition plan. This way, the Brotherhood believed, it could direct the transition and secure the best gains for itself in the unfolding process. However, the Brotherhood was also aware that it could not cosy up to the generals too much. This would risk alienating its supporters and losing the revolutionary credentials it had managed to chalk up despite being a latecomer to the uprisings.

The Brotherhood therefore had to navigate a careful path between the two camps, relying on its age-old strategy of forging temporary alliances of convenience and playing to both sides simultaneously. This way, the movement’s leadership believed, the Brotherhood could manoeuvre itself gradually into a position of power. For all the Brotherhood’s denials that it was seeking to dominate the post-Mubarak political arena, right from the outset its actions suggested otherwise. The Brotherhood jumped at the chance, for example, to participate in the committee of legal experts established by the SCAF immediately after Mubarak’s departure. This committee, which comprised a small and select group of legal experts, was tasked with drawing up a set of recommendations for amending the constitution ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections. Lawyer and senior Brotherhood member, Sobhi Saleh, was appointed to the committee that was headed by Tariq al-Bishri, the former head of Egypt’s administrative court, a known Brotherhood sympathiser.

Being part of this committee would enable the Brotherhood to have a direct say in how the transition would pan out. The committee proposed a series of amendments to regulate both presidential and parliamentary elections. The most crucial element for the Brotherhood in this respect, however, was that it could have a say in when the country’s new constitution was to be drafted. Most political groupings in Egypt wanted a new constitution written before parliamentary and presidential elections took place. Conversely, the Brotherhood was intent on ensuring that elections occurred prior to the constitution writing process, and importantly, that they took place as soon as possible.

The Brotherhood’s rush to hold elections had little to do with lofty ideals about the nature and machinations of the transition to democracy. Rather, being the most organised political grouping on the scene, the Ikhwan knew that it was best placed to succeed in any national poll. The Brotherhood’s years of underground activism and the resulting networks it had established put it way ahead of its liberal and secular rivals, many of whom were new to the scene. As such, the Ikhwan wanted to ensure that there could be no delay in going to the polls.

Equally important to the Brotherhood was how the document was to be drawn up. The movement worked hard to ensure that the amendments specified that the constitution be drafted by members of a 100-member committee, to be elected by the People’s Assembly and the Shura Council, the two houses in Egypt’s parliament. The Ikhwan was eager for parliament to have the overall say in appointing the committee because it had calculated that it could win in parliamentary elections. It would thus be able to dominate the whole constitution drafting process and ensure that the resulting document have a strong Islamic flavour.

While an Islamic flavoured constitution was the last thing on the SCAF’s mind, it was willing to work with the Brotherhood in return for the latter’s supporting its roadmap. On 19 March, the proposed constitutional amendments were put to the people in a referendum.
Many political groupings, including those of a liberal bent, were desperate for the amendments to be rejected because they still wanted the constitution to come before the elections. However, having got the SCAF to agree to its transition plan, the Brotherhood was not going to squander its gains by allowing the people to vote ‘no’. The movement mobilised its supporters by portraying the referendum as a choice between Islam and secularism, warning voters that opposing the amendments would be tantamount to rejecting Article II of the constitution of 1971, which describes Sharia as the principal source of legislation.
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According to some reports, the Brotherhood resorted to even cruder tactics in order to convince people to vote ‘yes’, allegedly adopting slogans such as ‘Voting yes, with Allah’ or ‘Voting no is siding with the Copts’.
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By touching on such a raw nerve, the Brotherhood ensured that its supporters felt a kind of moral duty to come out and support the amendments.

The Brotherhood’s efforts certainly paid off. A striking 77.3 per cent of voters came out in support of the changes. Although this was not all down to the Brotherhood, its efforts at mobilisation certainly helped swing the vote in the movement’s favour. The results left the secular and liberal opposition reeling. They also left the liberal parties feeling as though they had been thoroughly stitched up by the military and the Brotherhood – the two big forces that had emerged out of the revolution. So much so that allegations began to surface that the SCAF and the Brotherhood had struck some kind of sinister backroom deal and that they were two sides of the same coin.

Perceptions to this effect were heightened by the fact that following Mubarak’s departure, the Brotherhood pulled back from the ongoing demonstrations, distancing itself from the other revolutionary elements. When crowds flooded back into Tahrir Square at the start of April to demand that the SCAF move faster to hand over power, the brothers stayed away. Still they stayed away on 27 May when hundreds of thousands went back to Tahrir and when protests were held across
the country in what was dubbed the ‘Second Friday of Anger’ or the ‘Second Revolution’. The Brotherhood’s absence also led some to conclude that the movement had hatched some kind of plot with the SCAF to share power.

Both the Brotherhood and the SCAF were quick to deny such allegations. Guidance Office member Saad al-Katatni asserted, ‘It happened many times that our political stand coincidently went in the same direction of the military council’s desires, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we have a deal with them … We don’t care whether the military council is satisfied with our decisions or not.’
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Indeed, accusations of a secret deal appear to be rather far-fetched. The two sides may have had some grudging respect for each other but they were hardly natural allies. Yet they somehow needed each other. With the Brotherhood being the largest and most potent force in the country, it was in SCAF’s interests to get the movement on board and, more importantly, to convince it not to create further trouble on the streets. One retired general reflected later, ‘The SCAF’s goal at the time was to calm down the streets, and with the Brothers being the most organised and numerous group, they naturally felt it made sense to let them have a critical say.’
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Furthermore, in order for the SCAF to ensure it could direct the transition in the way it wanted, and, more importantly, to ensure the preservation of its own privileges, it was vital that it come to some kind of understanding with the Islamist movement it had fought so hard to suppress over so many decades. As one retired Egyptian army general put it, ‘When you enter a new block, you usually look to see who is the strongest thug with whom you could have an understanding. The SCAF was the newcomer, and the thug was the Muslim Brothers.’
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For the Brotherhood, meanwhile, making itself indispensable to the SCAF, and working with rather than against it, was the surest way of getting what it wanted out of the transition process. Only this way could it ensure that the necessary constitutional foundations were
put in place for it to be able to capitalise on its natural advantage. As one Egyptian analyst explained, ‘The brothers do not want any obstacle to the elections because they are trying to achieve power through the ballot … They are opposed to the immediate departure of the military as that would create turmoil in Egypt and delay the elections.’
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Moreover, in the Brotherhood’s view, co-operating with the SCAF was the most effective way to weaken it in the long term. As one Brotherhood member put it, ‘How do you eat an elephant? One mouthful at a time.’
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Thus the two sides came together in a kind of tactical and uneasy alliance of convenience.

The Brotherhood also knew that it needed to keep the SCAF sufficiently sweet to ensure that the latter would approve of its forming a political party. This was essential for the Brotherhood, as without a party it would not be able to contest the elections or enter the political scene in any meaningful way. Almost as soon as Mubarak fell, the Brotherhood’s Shura Council announced its intention to set up a political arm. Then in April 2011 the Brotherhood set up the Freedom and Justice Party. Three members of the Guidance Office were appointed to lead this new political venture. Mohamed Morsi was appointed as party head, Issam al-Ariyan as its deputy and Saad al-Katatni as its secretary-general with all positions valid for a four-year term. On 18 May 2011, the Brotherhood formally submitted a request to establish the party, which boasted some 9,000 founding members.
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