- Islamic MovementsMB NewsMB Understanding
- November 24, 2009
- 10 minutes read
Expert political analysts: Brotherhood‘s legitimacy forcibly imposed upon Egypt’s ruling regime
Influential politicians and trade unionists have unanimously agreed that the Muslim Brotherhood Movement have managed to achieve public legitimacy since it won 88 of the 454 parliamentary seats in the 2005 elections. The movement has succeeded in imposing its legitimacy despite the fact that the regime still refers to the group as an outlawed organization.
The conference titled “Crisis management between state and civil society“, which took place at the headquarters of the Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement stressed that the example provided by the Muslim Brotherhood’s experience especially in the political work contradicts the arguments of other political parties who claim that the security clampdown on the group has negatively affected them.
Dr. Wahid Abdel Meguid, deputy director of Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, expressed that the Egyptian political parties have lost sight of the country’s priorities where they have incorrectly directed their energies concentrating more on internal strife rather than focusing on benefiting the community.
Dr. Mustafa Kamel El-Sayed, Professor of Political Science, Cairo University, ascertained that the ruling regime was obsessed with the desire of controlling all aspects of the community including the trade and labor unions, where other political parties and NGOs continue to be observers rather than participants.
He added to achieve success “Collective action must have clear and beneficial long-term objectives indicating that through these objectives any political party which aspires to assume or at least to take part in power needs sacrifices to achieve its goal”
Hamdeen Sabahi, a former leader of Al-Karama Party and independent legislator in Egypt’s lower house, explained that the ruling regime will not permit any political party to actively participate in the political arena if they suspect that the party will influence the community
Political researcher Dr. Iman Mohammed Hassan explained that the political differences among leaders of political parties and the absence of internal democracy p completed the parties’ weakness and fragility giving a golden opportunity for the State to tighten its grip. She added that the leading parties focused only on civil and political rights ignoring their responsibilities for economic and social development.
UN legal expert Abdullah Khalil said that the government largely succeeded in penetrating human rights organizations in an attempt to absorb foreign funding by establishing thousands of NGOs which entail the funds to pass through government channels before being distributed to community-based organizations.