Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood could be unravelling Monday, 11 July 2011 04:52

By Leila Fadel

Egypt’s most powerful political force, the Muslim Brotherhood, may be splintering. The influence and organisational abilities of the Islamist group have raised fears in the West and among some secular and liberal groups in Egypt that the democratic path here may end with an Islamic state. But the historically unified movement, long considered the only viable opposition to Hosni Mubarak, has struggled to adapt to the new political landscape that has emerged since his ouster.

Just three months before parliamentary elections, the group is facing dissension within its ranks, as reformers push for a more open system of choosing leaders and political candidates. The Brotherhood’s leadership appeared to be dragged reluctantly into the mass protests that forced Mubarak from office, and the young members who joined the uprising say the the group is still too slow to react to the sentiments of the Egyptian masses.

Amid those strains, some within the movement who have been calling for change are slowly splitting off from the organization’s sanctioned Freedom and Justice Party and forming their own more inclusive political parties. The result could splinter the Muslim Brotherhood’s voter base and weaken its representation in the next parliament.

So far, just four new parties are being formed, and Brotherhood members dismiss them as insignificant. But the cracks in the Brotherhood’s usually monolithic structure suggest the movement may be unraveling. “The splintering shows the strains that the revolution has put on the Brotherhood,” said Elijah Zarwan, an Egypt expert from the International Crisis Group.

The group has retaliated against the breakaway forces, and this week expelled five youth members from the larger social and religious organization for forming a new party, according to Islam Lotfy, who said he was among those who were thrown out. The expulsions were widely reported, but a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman, Mahmoud Ghozlan, said that they were under review but had not been implemented.

Last month, the leadership of the Brotherhood expelled Abdel Moneim Abou El Fatouh, a leading reformer inside the organization and the respected head of the Arab Medical Union, for putting himself forward as a presidential candidate. The Brotherhood has said it plans to field candidates for 30 to 50 percent of parliamentary seats. But, in an apparent acknowledgment of concerns that it could wield too much power in a post-Mubarak Egypt, the movement’s leaders have said they do not seek to rule the country and will not field a candidate for the country’s top office.

Lotfy, 33, a lawyer, was part of the youth coalition that helped drive the Egyptian revolution in January. He said his new party, the Egyptian Current, would be more diverse and promote a democratic government, though he stopped short of describing the party as secular.

He called his expulsion “aggressive” and warned that the Brotherhood would lose more support if it isolated itself from the new realities of Egypt. “Maybe the leaders are scared of this new era of freedom because they aren’t used to it,” he said. “They’re used to living under persecution.”

During Mubarak’s nearly 30-year rule, the group was technically banned and its members were persecuted and arrested. Still, it was allowed to exist on a tight leash and in 2005 won about one-fifth of the seats in parliament with candidates who ran as independents.

The organisation was late to sanction protests against Mubarak and has been criticized for now trying to co-opt the revolution that went forward without it. While the Brotherhood doctrine seeks to create a state governed by its strict interpretation of Islamic law, the group rejects militant violence to achieve its goals and is considered too mainstream by extremist groups such as Al Qaida. “The context changed too fast for them to adapt,” said Ibrahim Houdaiby, a former Brotherhood member and analyst. “They are losing people, but we have to wait and see how that will impact the group at large.”

Already the Brotherhood’s political party has softened its stance on issues such as whether women and Coptic Christians can run for president. On the group’s website, a statement from the deputy of the political party, Essam el Erian, says any Egyptian citizen has the right to run for president. The Brotherhood also announced in June a formidable electoral alliance with the country’s most historic liberal and secular party, Wafd, despite differences.

Since Mubarak’s ouster, the group has not officially participated in any popular protests against the conduct of Egypt’s interim military leadership, prompting charges that the Brotherhood is too close to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.  Some younger members of the Brotherhood have been striking out on their own since the organization failed to back the early anti-Mubarak protests. “We are trying to do what we did during the revolution, where we put aside affiliation and ideology and worked in the interest of Egypt,” Lotfy said.

Estimates of the number of Brotherhood members who have split off to form new political groups vary, from 200 to 2,000. Brotherhood officials dismiss the splinter groups as unimportant when compared with their estimated 600,000 members and millions of supporters nationwide, and no one disputes that the group’s decades-long head start in organizing makes it Egypt’s most potent political force. “People have the right to express their opinions freely, but they have commitments with the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Mamdouh Ismail, a lawyer and member of the group.

WP-Bloomberg