What Does Egypt Have to Fear?

What Does Egypt Have to Fear?

Should Egypt fear the US? Not really, it is just an ‘outside actor’ after all. Or, should the US fear Egypt? How many recalcitrant allies does the US really need? Should Egypt be afraid of being ruled by corrupt old men or is it enough that they fear the judiciary, the ballot box and election results?

The Muslim Brotherhood has a legacy of repression at the hands of the ruling regime, which outlawed it long ago fearing its capability to overtake it in a free and fair race in the political arena. The Brotherhood has just ended a landmark five-year term in which it served as the largest-ever minority bloc in Egypt’s short multi-party political history and it has consistently been the boldest critic of Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade authoritarian rule. Does the Brotherhood fear the regime? Obviously not.

Driven by dread that the Brotherhood will not only expose its ‘irregularities’ but will also beat it in the race, the regime cracked down on the MB, arresting about 1400 of its members before the polls. The Brotherhood has confidently stated that it will not give up in its struggle to make the necessary reforms in Egypt and restore people’s rights.

Egypt’s regime is about to do a cabinet shuffle fearing their current ministers have not been ‘up to scratch’. But the biggest change that is on everyone’s lips is the change of presidency which would not only affect everyday Egyptians struggling to feed their families, but it would also have an impact on foreign investors and Egypt’s Western allies. There is a choice between either a presidential transition or a continuation of Hosni Mubarak in power. In the meantime, the NDP members are trying to bump each other out of the way, fearing to lose their chances to secure high positions in next year’s presidential elections.

The ruling regime cringes when international observers, monitors, human rights activists and other such people persistently expose the government’s crimes. Likewise, announcing fabricated election results and maintaining an international reputation as a ‘democratic’ country is becoming more and more difficult, especially now that they have an international reputation for recruiting, paying off and overseeing the work of thugs to ensure that some voters never get to enter the polls and utilizing the state’s policing powers to drive away those observers and candidate representatives who hold official accreditation. The daunting everyday tasks of running a dictatorship could be made so much easier, if the Muslim Brotherhood and other concerned bodies did not insist on documenting and reporting the government’s irregularities.

 

Just how scared should the Egyptian regime be of the Muslim Brotherhood?

The government reassures itself that membership in the MB is in the low hundreds of thousands, and in a fair election, they hope the MB would not be expected to win. But with people protesting against an inept regime, it would be easy for them to endorse the Brotherhood, after all the MB has been developing for decades, with grass-roots organizations spread across the country and sponsoring charities that earn it recognition, trust and support. Many MB members are professional doctors and pharmacists who assist Egypt’s poor providing inexpensive but comprehensive services while government hospitals extort bribes and are ill-equipped.

Egyptian and international groups were unanimous in stating that the elections were actually a step away from democracy or even the minimum political reform, and was also an invitation for the growing opposition to radicalize. But despite the cries of tyranny and fraud, Egypt must feel sure that the US will keep it close as all the White House could come up with in response to the elections were a few lame phases like ‘give cause for concern’ and ‘worrying’, promising to raise these concerns at the ‘appropriate time’. Confident, Egypt dismissed any such meddling in their internal affairs. Apparently intimidated by Mubarak, the Obama administration should perhaps be more concerned about who will succeed him.

The Egyptian government has not succeeded to crush the spirit of the Brotherhood; even though they have boycotted the election runoffs, they continue in their efforts to participate in the society, highlighting the government’s crimes, bringing them to justice through the courts and urging reform. Even if the Brotherhood attained a legal status and lost its claim to victimhood, it would not change much as, more than the presidential seat, they seek lasting reform. So, what has the ruling regime got to fear?