Electoral Success and the 2007 Platform In the 2005 parliamentary elections, under pressure from the Bush Freedom Agenda, the Mubarak regime gave the Brotherhood a wider space in the media and more freedom to conduct their electoral campaign. The group won an astounding 20% of the vote, the most seats of any opposition group, despite outright cases of election rigging (Soage and Franganillo, 2010). The electoral success put the Muslim Brothers under the spotlight. The government started a campaign against the group by targeting its top leaders, and the Brotherhood was under pressure from intellectuals, political parties, and other civil society organizations to reveal their positions on a number of issues they had previously remained silent about. In 2006, the Brotherhood issued a detailed program for the Consultative Assembly elections, and in September of 2007, issued a detailed party platform. The Muslim Brotherhood party platform of 2007 represented a critical challenge for the group’s integrity. Internal disagreements between modernist and conservative camps were brought into the public eye, whereas in the past the Brotherhood was able to remain vague regarding a number of issues such and women and minority rights, citizenship rights, the role of the religious establishment in the government, and the interpretation of Sharia law, among other issues (Brown and Hamzawy, 2008). The 2007 party platform was comprehensive in terms of the issues that it covered. The platform came in 128 pages, the largest size of a programmatic statement issued by the Brotherhood thus far. Economically, the platform revealed a preference for a strongly interventionist state that would mitigate the effects of free trade. Politically, the platform recommended a limited state, and a greater role for civil society. Despite the details of these recommendations, these issues were largely overshadowed by intense disagreements and controversies regarding guarantees for the implementation of Article 2 of the Constitution and the suitability of women and Christians for the presidency and priministership (Brown and Hamzawy, 2008). Two issues acquired center stage in the debate: 1) The Brotherhood proposed the formation of the Ulama Council to place stress on a strict implementation of Sharia law. This represents a divergence from the previous employment of Islam as simply a frame of reference (marja’). The Ulama Council was proposed as a body that would be elected by the full participation of all religious scholars in the country. Its function would be to advise the legislative and executive branches on matters of religious interpretation. Yet the Council was supposed to have more than a consultative role; its decisions were proposedto be binding in matters where Islamic jurisprudence is clear and cannot be subject to interpretation. 2) The political leadership capacity of women and Copts also raised debate. The platformof the Brotherhood sided with the position that women and Copts should not be permitted to become the president in a Muslim state. This was a shock even to those who sympathized with the Muslim Brothers’ right to form a political party. The proposal for the Council of Religious Scholars was clearly a response to conservative elements within the Brotherhood both among the rank-and-file and at the top of the group. But the proposed body also served to alienate many others inside and outside the group, who had different interpretations of the role of Sharia law and who objected to the manner in which the decision to include this body in the platform was made. A number of scholars, including Amr Hamzawy, Nathan Brown, and Khalil Al-Anany criticized this proposal and described it as a step backwards. Similar reactions materialized regarding the Brotherhood’s position toward women and Copts. The amount of public controversy among the Brotherhood on satellite TV channels, newspapers, and internet outlets was unprecedented in the group’s history. The controversy pitted modernists versus conservatives. The younger generations, especially internet activists, were divided among these lines, but were mostly less conservative and supportive of a more liberal interpretation and implementation of Sharia. The modernist group was championed by such prominent Brotherhood members as Abdel-Moneim Abul Fottouh, Gamal Hishmat, Essam al-Erian, and Sa’ad El-Katatni. This camp charged that the pary platform represented neither Brotherhood parliamentarians nor the movement as a whole and described the drafting process as monopolized by a small group within the Brotherhood. They argued that the Supreme Constitutional Court is the most appropriate body to determine the extent to which legislation is consistent with Islamic jurisprudence. This camp also argued that employing a Copt or women as president would not contradict Sharia. Each camp sought to support their arguments with fatwas from prominent Muslim scholars. For instance, Abul Fattouh referred to a media interview withYoussef Al-Qaradawi and Muhammad Selim El-Awwa, in which both prominent scholars argued that Sharia does not prohibit women and Copts from reaching the office of the president. Aboul Fottouh also relied on Quaradawi’s position that the Supreme Constitutional Court maybe charged with determining the suitability of the legislation under article 2, thus dispensing the need for a council of religious scholars. On the other hand, Supreme Guide Mahdy Akef refrained from direct involvement in the controversy and attempted to narrow the gap between the two camps. For example, he noted that the position toward women and copts is the Brotherhood’s interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence, but it does not bind others from having their own interpretation on the issue. Currently, the Brotherhood maintains that they object to a woman or Copt reaching the office of the presidency, but they also stressed that they respect the popular choice and would not object to other parties running a Copt for the office of the presidency. In a 2011 interview by Asharq Al-Awsat, Vice President of the Justice and Equality Party, Rafik Habib argued that the rejection of the Brotherhood to a rule by a Copt or a woman does not concern them much as the presidency is not a priority for Christians. The party’s Coptic Vice President argued that social custom in Egypt will not allow a Christian to succeed in a presidential race given that anyone who holds the office will be confronted by issues of religious nature. The question of a woman or a Copt being eligible for the Presidency still remains a legal one, if not a lineering issue of political concern. The Brrotherhood platform of 2007 included no clear reference to opening the party membership to all Egyptians regardless of their religion, and this will likely be another issue of interest as the Brotherhood continues its quest to gain influence in the Post-Mubarak era (Brown and Hamzawy, 2008).
Posted on: Tue, 09 Jul 2013 09:58:59 +0000
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