Ikhwanweb :: The Muslim Brotherhood Official English Website

Analysts describe MB as driving force behind ElBaradei's online bid for political reform

The political reform campaign initiated by could be presidential candidate Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei has been successful in collecting a total of 770,000 signatures.

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The political reform campaign initiated by could be presidential candidate Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei has been successful in collecting a total of 770,000 signatures. The online petition is in collaboration with Egypt's strongest political opposition the Muslim Brotherhood which is believed to be the driving force behind the petition's success.

The Coalition hopes to collect one million signatures by the end of October, prior to the upcoming parliamentary elections. The campaign lists seven demands including a call for relaxing restrictive regulations for candidates running in elections, judiciary supervision and monitoring of elections and the elimination of the emergency law which has been imposed to silence opposition despite assurances that it's used for combating terrorism and drug trafficking.

The online petition has taken to the streets in an effort to raise the number of signatures and according to sources; since its union with the Muslim Brotherhood, it has attained a five-fold increase in signatures in one month nearing its 1 million signature target.

Analysts believe that if in fact the 1 million signatures are reached the rapid success of the campaign could prompt the formation of a wider movement drawing additional scrutiny of Egypt's political system.

A rival petition in turn has been fashioned by NDP members calling for Gamal Mubarak the president's 47 year old son to launch a presidential bid in 2011. Controversy has surrounded the idea of Gamal being his father's successor despite denials from both Mubarak's

Nabil Abdel Fattah, head of the al-Ahram Centre for Social and Historical Studies has described the petition and its successes as the reflection of a new socio-political movement forming in the Egyptian womb which could not be easily marginalized.