Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood begins To Take Control

Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood



Mohamed Badie


The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition group, announced Wednesday that his group has the ability to win 75% of parliamentary seats in the country’s planned September elections. This statement comes in spite of earlier assertions by Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie that the Brotherhood has more modest political aspirations.

Speaking to the state-run news agency MENA, Badie revealed his group’s initial intentions to compete for only one-third of parliamentary seats in the post-revolution elections. Badie also denied that the Brotherhood had negotiated any deals with the ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) about the country’s political future.

Commenting on a meeting between the leader and the SCAF, Badie said that he only extolled the military’s role in aiding the revolution and urged the council to uphold its agreements to transfer power to civilian authority at the end of the transitional period.”We cannot let the relationship between the people and the army spoil,” Badie cautioned.

Hosni Mubarak

Despite Badie’s claim that the Brotherhood is only aiming for a small share of Egypt’s newly forming government, Islamists stand to gain a great deal of political power in September, especially if they run on the same ticket. Unlike the Islamist groups that are generally well-funded and organized, traditional opposition parties were crippled under the three-decade rule of Hosni Mubarak. Now these parties, along with the liberal youths who orchestrated the widespread protests, are scrambling to organize in time for elections.

Christians Begin Fleeing Egypt as Islamists Grow in Strength, “They’re Afraid of the Fanatics in the Mosques”… (Israel Today) – A growing number of Egypt’s 8-10 million Coptic Christians are looking for a way to get out as Islamists increasingly take advantage of the nationalist revolution that toppled long-standing dictator Hosni Mubarak in February. Egypt Daily News reported on Tuesday that “lawyers who specialize in working with Coptic Egyptians…say that in the past few weeks they have received hundreds of calls from Copts wanting to leave Egypt.”

“They are insisting on leaving Egypt because the risks of staying here are too great,” Naguib Gabriel, a Coptic human rights lawyer, told Egypt Daily News. “Many Christians are afraid of the future because of the fanatics in the mosques.”

Christian Victom In Egypt

At least 20 Christians have been killed in sectarian violence with Muslims since Mubarak’s ouster. And groups like the Muslim Brotherhood have been taking an increasingly visible role in forming Egypt’s next government.

Egypt: Al-Azhar Sheikh Demands Pope Benedict Apologize For Insulting Islam Before Renewing Interfaith Dialogue…  Al-Ahram, Egypt, April 13, 2011 - As part of yesterday’s Cairo visit by the Vatican envoy, Al-Azhar Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Al-Tayeb demanded an official apology from Pope Benedict XVI for his insult to Islam, calling it a basic condition for renewing the interfaith dialogue between the two institutions.

Al-Azhar decided to freeze the dialogue with the Vatican in late January following Pope Benedict XVI’s criticism of Muslims’ treatment of Christians in the Middle East.