The Majority Strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood II: Responses
Guest Author: Roel Meijer
Will the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt promote the goals of the 25 January revolution, expanding civil, political, economic and social rights; or will it tailor these issues for its own purposes? Especially its strategy to gain power, here called the majority strategy, by means of general and presidential elections, has attracted attention. In two blogposts I will explore how this strategy be explained when its slogan under Mubarak had been “participation not domination” (musharaka la mughaliba)? In the first blogpost I have explained the background and development of the majority strategy. In the current blogpost I present an analysis of the counterforces and the failures of this strategy. My overall argument is that rather than its ideology, it has been the political strategy that explains both the success as well as the failure of the Brotherhood after the fall of Mubarak.
Counterforces
Despite the spectacular success of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafi Nour party in winning three-quarters of the seats of parliament, marginalizing the traditional parties, such as the Wafd, the success would not be long-lived. Resistance against the Brotherhood’s majority strategy emerged from all directions of society.
The Tahrir activists were the first to voice criticism of the Brotherhood on account of its opportunistic use of Tahrir protests. While the Brotherhood was careful to maintain relations with SCAF, and chimed in with increasing popular critique of the demonstrators as “anarchists” who were sabotaging the economy and the unity of the country, the Brotherhood did support ‘Tahrir’ when it exerted pressure on the military. Khairat al-Shatir on several occasions threatened SCAF to march to Tahrir if it did not comply with the demands of the revolution. Muhammad al-Biltagi followed him in this respect. The activists, however, condemned this opportunistic use of the resistance against the military.
In the meantime the former Brotherhood youth who had been evicted organized themselves in different organizations such as al-Tayyar al-Masri and joined the elections with a left-wing slate. Although they hardly won parliamentary seats, their critique and inside knowledge, which was published widely, damaged the Brotherhood in the larger cities. The very fact that the debate on the Brotherhood was opened up to an unprecedented extent after the fall of Mubarak, forced the Brotherhood to respond and defend itself, making it vulnerable.
More liberal-minded older generation leaders, who had been members of the Guidance Council, such as Abd al-Mun‘aym Abu al-Futuh, Ibrahim Za‘farani and Muhammad Habib, were perhaps more successful in their critique. Their critique of the undemocratic manner in which FJP was founded and operated (no founding conference, limited influence of its members, appointment of its leadership by the mother organization instead of being elected among new members), damaged the Brotherhood, but mostly among existing liberal critics. More important was Abu al-Futuh’s challenge in the presidential elections. Attracting the new critical generation and even Salafis, he was able to pose as a liberal open-minded Islamist alternative to the Brotherhood, even if his campaign was far from flawless.
Increasingly also the critique of civil society was felt. The heavy-handed attempts of the Brotherhood to gain or retain control over professional organizations had alienated many of its members. This was especially the case with the doctors’ syndicate. The Doctors’ syndicate had been dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood after Mubarak had frozen the board elections in 1993 and no new elections had been held since. By the time Mubarak fell a whole new generation of doctors had emerged who found that the board members had done little to improve the profession, leading to a dramatic deterioration of the national health service. They founded new organizations such as the Doctors Without Rights, and Doctors of Tahrir. Typically they were much more activist than the conservative older generation of the Brotherhood. In May 2011 they organized two strikes. These were opposed by the board dominated by the Brotherhood, following the deal with SCAF to oppose activism and promote “stability”. The Brotherhood later lost dramatically in syndicate elections on 18 October 2011 against the Independent List that won a majority in the boards of 14 of the 27 governorates.
But the story did not end there. The Doctors Without Rights persisted in its demands of raising the percentage of national budget form 4% to 15% and higher wages for doctors and a major overhaul of the whole system that should be based on accountability. When these demands were not met, it organized a new strike on 1 October 2012 against the Brotherhood faction that now directly supported a Brotherhood government. As the strike dragged on for weeks, the strike became politicized and turned into an anti-Brotherhood campaign that attracted greater support from all kinds of opponents of Mursi. When the proposal of the constitution was made available the doctors joined the critique of the final draft proposal demanding a revision of the article on the right of health for citizens.
The independent trade union movement had a similar experience. The first independent had been founded under Mubarak, but it really expanded after his fall, expanding to two hundred independent trade unions, representing 2 million employees, by the end of 2011. Organized in the Independent Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU) and the Egyptian Democratic Labor Congress (EDLC), it competed with the corporatist, state controlled ETUF that had been founded in 1957 under Nasser. Although the EFITU was supported by the progressive minister of manpower and Migration, Ahmad Borai, it never succeeded in obtaining legal recognition under the government of Ahmad Sharaf, whose proposals were blocked by SCAF that was unwilling to sanction social rights.
Strikes were stepped up under the Mursi government as it became clear that the new Brotherhood minister of Manpower would not take measures beneficial to workers, condemning strikes, sit-ins and other forms of protest, as part of the official policy of the Brotherhood. Like the doctors, independent labor has recently strengthened its position by forming with a host of left-wing political parties the National Front for the Defense of Labor Rights and Unions Liberties.
Not all professional organizations were opposed to the Brotherhood after they became unfrozen. The Engineers syndicate was supportive of the Brotherhood, as was the Teachers Syndicate and the Pharmacists Syndicate, Dentists Syndicate, where the Brotherhood won the first free elections since the early 1990s in accordance of its majority strategy.
In others the results were mixed. In the Journalists’ Syndicate, its leader was sympathetic to the movement while its board was not, leading to internal struggle when the Brotherhood came to power. Often new organizations were established next to existing ones and had neither relations with the Muslim Brotherhood, not with the former NDP, such as the Teachers Outside Trade Unions, the Coordinating Committee of Teachers, Judges for Reform, Engineers against Legal Restraint, Coordinating Committee of Revolutionary Lawyers. They would mobilize against Brotherhood organizations, such as Coalition of Engineers for Egypt and Doctors for Egypt.
But not only did the Brotherhood’s majority strategy not succeed across the board in the professional organizations, it also did not make inroads in organizations where the previous regime was strongly represented, such as the judiciary. The judiciary had always been divided in reformists who advocated the complete independence of the judiciary and judges who had been appointed by the government. Some organizations changed over the years. For instance, the Judges’ Club (Nadi al-Quda’) had been reformist under Ahmad Makki, but became pro-government under Ahmad Zind. High Court of Cassation had been pro-government but with the appointment of al-Gharyani it had a pro-Brotherhood leader. The same applied to the Supreme Constitutional Court, that had been independent but became more subservient to the government.
Finally, the intellectual elite turned against the Brotherhood, when it realized the Brotherhood was pursuing a majority strategy. It especially condemned the Brotherhood for breaking its promises, first to just participate with winning 30 %, then with 40% and later 51% percent of the seats in parliament, and eventually going all the way. Its broken promise not running a presidential candidate infuriated them and seemed to confirm all the suspicions many intellectuals had always felt for the Brotherhood. Even highly sophisticated intellectuals such as Hasan Nafa‘a or Fahmi Huwaydi, who believed that the Brotherhood should take part in the political process, grew increasingly worried and disenchanted with the heavy-handed policy of the Brotherhood to dominate and exclude its critics rather than to cooperate and include them in fulfilling the demands of the revolution. When Mursi was inaugurated on 30 June 2012, many lambasted the Brotherhood and mocked its solemnity and moralism as a meager replacement for real politics and reform. They were careful to point out its lack of policy and its pursuit of the same economic policy that the previous government had pursued.
Failure of the majority strategy
The growing opposition against the Brotherhood started when its majority strategy had seemed at its most successful. At that point it became clear that the deal the Brotherhood had made with SCAF would not work in its favor. This was apparent from parliament and the Majlis al-Shura. Although the Islamists had a majority in both, they were hamstrung by the Constitutional Declaration of 30 March 2011 that withheld power form parliament the end of the transitional period and the acceptance of the new constitution. After their victories, the Brotherhood became increasingly entangled in the very jungle of measures and procedures it itself had agreed upon.
The Brotherhood found itself increasingly isolated and beleaguered from all sides after it tried to implement its majority strategy in its attempt to dominate the Constituent Assembly together with the Salafis in March 2011. Its claim that it represented the majority and the “will of the people” and that its opponents only represented a small minority of the “elite” (nukhba) grew increasingly thin as more and more institutions were able to organize opposition to the Brotherhood and withhold the legitimacy it craved for.
For a long time the judiciary constituted the main opponent of the Brotherhood’s ambitions. Fearful of its own position and still protected by SCAF, in June the Supreme Constitutional Court disbanded the parliament under the pretext of procedural mistakes. In April the same the Electoral Committee headed by the head of the SCC ruled against participation of several presidential candidates, among them Umar Sulayman, the Salafi leader Hamad Abu Isma’il, but also Khayrat al-Shatir, who was replaced by Muhammad Mursi.
By the time of the presidential elections declining the popularity of the Brotherhood became apparent. Winning in the first round only 24,9 %, against 24,5% for the establishment figure Ahmad Shafiq, 21,1 % for left wing candidate Hamdin Sabbahi and 21,6% for the more liberal-minded Islamist Abu al-Futuh, Mursi and the Brotherhood had done quit poorly; they had lost half the votes compared to the parliamentary elections half a year earlier. Clearly the following of the Brotherhood was a lot more volatile than had been expected and the boast of representing the will of the people became a lot more precarious. Only with support of the left and Islamist liberals was Mursi able to win barely from Ahmad Shafiq in the run-offs. In return Mursi pledged to the opposition to include them in the decision-making process, virtually promising to abandon its high-handed majority strategy. The new government reflected this intention, as well the establishment of a Advisory Council, with members such as Hasan Naf‘a.
Polarization
Despite these good intentions the Muslim Brotherhood continued its earlier strategy. From the fact that the Brotherhood could get rid of SCAF by firing its head Husain al-Tantawi on 12 August, it drew the conclusion that it could go it alone with its Salafi partner the Nour party, after all. Finally the Brotherhood have its cake and eat it too.
The elimination of SCAF from the power equation, however, made the Brotherhood the focus of all the social, economic and political demands that had been formerly directed at SCAF. The anger at the closed manner at which the Brotherhood pursued its policies, its inability to present an alternative to the economic policies of the Mubarak regime, its incapacity to respond to critique and understand the deep-seated demands for reform only fed the anger of the more critical part of the population.
This anger would express itself in the gradual walk-out of 29 of the 1000 members of the second Constitutional Assembly after it was established in June, reaching a crescendo in November. Although many commentators have argued that its illiberal character is the reason for lack of support, this in itself is a reflection of the failure of the Brotherhood to include other social, ideological, economic and cultural currents into the deliberative process of the formulating the constitution and write their rights into the constitution.
The result has been an attack over the past months of journalists, trade unions, human rights organizations, Coptic church, women’s organization, of the several draft and eventually of the final version of the constitution on 2 December as they progressively left the Constitutional Assembly. Theirs was basically in a vote of no-confidence in the Brotherhood-Salafi coalition to realize the demands of what they think is the revolution. Though Mursi’s “power grab” of 22 November of arrogating far-reaching power to himself and firing the Public Prosecutor is explainable as a means to be one step before the no-less undemocratic Supreme Constitutional Council to disband the Constituent Assembly and possibly annul the presidential elections, for the opposition it confirmed the worst fears of the Brotherhood. As opposed to the majority of the Brotherhood, it tried to mobilize its own ‘majority’ on Tahrir square.
Conclusion
The Muslim Brotherhood stands before a sheer impossible task of governing Egypt and solving the deep and almost insolvable economic crisis, while dealing with growing resistance of the vested interests on the hand in the military and the former regime on the one hand, and emerging plethora of activists and reformist movements on the other hand, while it has under fire of a strongly politicized Salafi movement not to give concessions to “secularists” and “atheists”. Even if the so-called liberals at a certain point have done everything in their power to sabotage the rule of the Brotherhood, the movement itself has made it extremely difficult for itself by pursuing a majority strategy that excludes instead of includes its opponents in order to implement widespread reform of the state instead of imposing its views on society.
Roel Meijer teaches modern Middle Eastern history at Radboud University in Nijmegen and is senior researcher at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations. He has published widely on Islamist movements: Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement and most recently, The Muslim Brotherhood in Europe.
This is part two of The Majority Strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood. The first part was published last week: Background and Development. A referenced version of this article has appeared in Orient, 1, 2013.