Taking their chance
Mohamed Habib, deputy supreme guide of the Muslim
Brotherhood, talks to
Amira
Howeidy about the group's parliamentary elections tactics
A typical afternoon in the middle-class district of Manial Al-Roda is
crowded with Ramadan traffic, school children returning home and
election bunting strung across the streets, zig- zagging between
buildings and lamp posts. Given the preponderance of banners urging
people to vote for Mohamed Thabet Mekki, the National Democratic Party
(NDP) candidate, Al-Manial might appear as a government stronghold. But
Manial Al-Roda is also home to the head office of the "outlawed" Muslim
Brotherhood (MB), Egypt's largest opposition group. When security forces
closed the Downtown headquarters of the MB in one of its toughest
clampdowns in 1995, the group's head office moved to a modest apartment
at the far end of the conspicuously quiet Al-Malik Al-Saleh St. Two
palm-sized white and blue stickers printed with Al-Ikhwan
Al-Muslimeen (The Muslim Brotherhood) affixed to the sides of a
first floor wooden door are the only sign that this is the headquarters
of the group which has emerged as the NDP's main opponents in the 8
November parliamentary elections. Inside, a handful of people are glued
to an Al-Jazeera TV interview with Mohamed Khairat Al-Shater, deputy
supreme guide of the MB. The other deputy, 62- year-old Mohamed Habib,
is busy being interviewed by two reporters. Known to be politically
savvy and open, Habib, a professor of geology, is in charge of the MB's
parliamentary elections file.
Fielding 150 candidates across the nation, the group is operating in
an unprecedented harassment-free environment -- in 2000 approximately
6,000 Muslim Brothers were arrested ahead of the parliamentary elections
while in 1995 many of the group's leaders were tried before military
courts -- and freely flaunting its slogan "Islam is the solution".
MB candidates in Alexandria and Al-Minya are campaigning online via
newsletters and sleek websites and the "Islam is the solution" slogan
has been reinvented as a smooth modern logo with white letters set
against a blue background and a white leaf. "Together for reform" has
been added for good measure.
In an extensive interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Habib outlined
the MB's strategy and expectations during the elections period and
beyond.
The Muslim Brotherhood is allowed to flaunt its once-taboo slogan,
none of your members have been arrested, your candidates are promoting
themselves freely and the state-run media no longer automatically refers
to you as "outlawed". What is going on?
Let me talk about the general atmosphere and our reading of the
political scene. There is the NDP, the ruling party, which is contesting
the elections in all 222 constituencies; it is trying to win a
two-thirds majority at least. Then there are the political parties which
recently formed the United National Front for Change. The front was
faced with many difficulties, largely because of the lack of time in
which to properly coordinate ahead of the elections. And then there are
the marginal parties.
The MB represents the strongest social and political currents in
Egypt. It has an organisational structure, institutions and presence on
the street. We could have fielded 444 candidates like the NDP, but we
preferred to keep the number at 150. They are spread across as many
constituencies as possible, approximately one-third of the parliamentary
seats.
So are you leaving some constituencies uncontested for the NDP
candidate?
We do leave some constituencies uncontested when the NDP candidate is
a symbol like [parliamentary speaker] Fathi Sorour or [chief of the
presidential staff] Zakariya Azmi, but this is not a hard and fast rule.
The late [Supreme Guide] Maamoun El-Hodeibi, for example, ran against
[then Minister of Social Affairs] Amal Othman in Doqqi and in this round
Hazem Ismail is running against her.
We are in fact coordinating with the front and with other political
forces, though not, of course, with the NDP.
We are talking about a climate that's not only different from 2000,
but different from last year. There is a lot of criticism of the
president, his family and the establishment, something that has never
happened before. To have more than one candidate run for the presidency
-- it was a charade of course -- but nine candidates competing against
the president, it is a step forward.
And you are no longer referred to as banned.
Well there are some negatives coming from the [state-run] media but
we are treated as a group that exists and that is active. You will
notice that no one stops our marches, our conferences go ahead, our
banners are everywhere across the nation, perhaps less in Cairo than
elsewhere. Also, no one has been arrested till now. Rigging the ballot
though, that is a different thing. We think the vote will be rigged,
though in a different way than before.
We still have the emergency law, the independence of the judicial
authority law has not been issued yet, and judges are not empowered to
fully supervise the elections. The electoral roll should be an
embarrassment to the regime -- all those millions of dead people -- it's
unfathomable. There are hundreds of court cases demanding that voter
lists be updated but nothing happens. They leave the possibility of
electoral fraud wide open, though it is likely to be on a smaller scale
than in the past. Instead of 80-90 per cent of the vote being
manipulated, it will probably be 60 to 70 per cent this time. But it
will happen.
Then there are the businessmen who control [elections] and their
resources will play a role in the tally.
The MB appears to have the money to influence elections so why
refer only to businessmen?
Fame rather than wealth goes the saying. You can see our headquarters
for yourself...
But you hosted the most lavish political Iftar of Ramadan. It was
the talk of town for a week.
Paid from our own pockets.
If you will spend that much on an Iftar, how much money are you
willing to spend on your election campaign?
We don't do Iftars every month. It is an annual event. The elections
are very different. We don't have a centralised [financial] system in
this respect and it varies from one district to the other. Some
candidates have a good base of MB supporters, in other constituencies
that less so. But our human resources are extensive.
So what is your popular base?
We don't compile statistics. We can't because of harassment, tracking
and restrictions. They say 750,000: but are they Muslim Brothers? The MB
is not a bloc or a nucleus isolated from the rest of the population.
Our people work voluntarily, not for money. The NDP spends money on
everything: they pay the person who hangs the banner and those who wrote
the banner etc. They pay for everything and this consumes a lot of
money. We have people who volunteer, who do this work for free.
The people trust us, we have credibility, which is why we don't need
to buy people's votes.
Other than promoting your slogan freely how has your election
strategy changed as a result of the political climate?
"Islam is the solution" is not just a slogan, it encapsulates the
nuanced initiative for comprehensive reform that we announced at the
Egyptian Press Syndicate on 3 March 2000. And we have not changed,
though there might be some emphasis on political and constitutional
reform, since they are the opening to all other forms of reform.
The NDP's Mohamed Kamal said on Monday his party would file a
complaint against the MB because your slogan violates the elections
law.
We are not violating the law. The elections law bans slogans that
could incite sectarian strife which isn't the case with "Islam is the
solution". The Egyptian constitution says that Islam is the religion of
the state and Islamic Sharia the source of legislation. Our slogan isn't
simply an _expression_ of our own identity but of the identity of the
Egyptian people. It is our reference.
Why did you make a point of fielding a female candidate?
Women constitute half the society.
But the MB seems eager to have a female candidate even if she
isn't as qualified as potential male candidates. Makarem El-Deiri's
statements have been criticised by many.
We want to emphasise the right of women to contest elections and hold
political office. We hoped to field tens of women in the elections. We
have extremely qualified sisters who are competent and capable. There
are geniuses, and women with great potential. Distinction didn't come to
men and then stop there. But there are problems. We have a sister, for
example, a university professor who is doing a great job in social work
and also in syndicate work. But she has six children and recently gave
birth to a seventh. What can we do? We wanted to support her candidacy
but her husband objected because of the new born.
But the female element in the MB remains limited and ineffective.
Why are there no women on the Guidance Bureau for example?
In 1995 the MB's Shura Council held a meeting. The police arrested 83
of them. Then the [authorities] set up military trials. Some of the
detained were sentenced to five years, others got three years. We work,
and continue to work, in a repressive, tyrannical climate. Look at the
detentions and the torture that happen in the State Security
Investigation headquarters and which lead in some cases to the death of
detainees. Should we subject our women, sisters, daughters to this?
After his release from prison, MB leader Essam El-Erian said the
security mindset has changed. Do you agree?
There is no such thing as a security mindset. There are political
decisions. The political momentum and congestion on the Egyptian
street... [and] the persistence of foreign pressure on Egypt caused a
change in the strategic vision of Egypt's political leadership. Some
sort of release was needed to prevent an explosion.
Do you concede that other, smaller groups like Kifaya began to
break this congestion while the MB remained watching?
I want to say something. Kifaya does not have an organisational
structure. On my own I can say whatever I want, right? And the state
will ask who is this person anyway? But when I'm responsible for a
family I have to take them into consideration. As a group we were
subject to repression and horrific torture in prisons... Our experience
has been stained with blood through long decades.
I have a question: if the MB organised a small scale demonstration,
will the [security forces] treat it the same way it treats a Kifaya
demonstration? And why not? There is a state of intense polarisation.
There are no parties, no political forces. There are no movements in the
street except the state with its repressive forces and the MB. What
happened when we fielded 150 candidates in 1995? Military trials and all
the candidates detained. In 2000 we were forced to reduce the number of
MB candidates to 75.
But Kifaya's demonstrations were also violently suppressed.
That happened later, when their voice got louder. It's not that we
don't want to give them credit. We just want to describe things as they
are.
But you decided to follow suit and take to the streets...
And the result was that they broke our bones and arrested 3,000. How
long did the Kifaya activists spend in prison? Two hours? A day?
Are you saying they are protected by foreign pressure on
Egypt?
No, I don't want to say that.
And that the MB enjoys the same form of protection...
We don't.
Are you saying the MB has not taken advantage of international
interest in what's happening in Egypt and the de facto international
monitoring of the situation here?
When 3,000 Muslim Brothers were arrested the US administration didn't
move.
The American administration turned a blind eye to the amendment of
Article 76 of the constitution, despite all its flaws. Then it talked
about the referendum and how it should be fair and elections should be
free, but this is a form of political deception. If they really wanted
genuine democratic change, the constitutional amendment should have been
done the right way and the door should not have been shut in the face of
independent candidates [contesting the presidential elections].
How many Muslim Brothers will make it to parliament this time?
I say approximately 50.
If state policy remains unchanged and the MB is allowed to operate
freely, will you pursue a political reform agenda? Will you take to the
street to achieve the reforms you are demanding?
Taking to the streets is not the only method, and not an end in
itself. There are conferences as well. If we are allowed to organise a
conference and allowed to mobilise tens of thousands to attend it then
we will say yes, we are on the threshold of a positive environment and
there is a chance. But the street is not yet ready.
