Islamists: The Biggest Winners in Egypt’s Elections

[RedZero]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/revolution-in-cairo-foreign-affairs-defense/islamists-behind-the-biggest-winners-in-egypts-elections/

[piet11111]

If this was a fraud free election i will eat my shoes.

The muslim brotherhood was the sanctioned "opposition" under mubarak and the election rules where set up to heavily favour the incumbent party's.

[Jose Gracchus]

Pretty sure under Mubarak there were no seats to the Brotherhood, which was not allowed to stand for election.

[RedSonRising]

If this was a fraud free election i will eat my shoes.

The muslim brotherhood was the sanctioned "opposition" under mubarak and the election rules where set up to heavily favour the incumbent party's.

The Muslim Brotherhood have always propagated under a platform of social promotion of Islamic tradition, rather than vying for state power. In fact, they've previously rejected representative seats, setting a cap on their allowed number of elected officials in government in order to preserve their status as a grassroots organization. During the initial Egyptian uprising, they made it clear that they were merely participating in conjunction with protestors, and not leading them.

If the Brotherhood decides to take State Power, I'm not saying we can necessarily depend on them to represent the working class, but in their present form, they are far from the scary hierarchical Islamist that western imperialists like to fear-monger about. I too am skeptical of electoral honesty in Egypt, but I'm not sure how centralized the process was; perhaps the establishment had no choice but to recognize their victory. After all, despite a few union-based workers' parties emerging after Mubarak's fall, the Brotherhood are the best organized and mobilized already, and gained mass support by establishing defense militias among different communities under the threat of violence from military and police.

We'll see where this goes and what kind of political platform develops as the most popular among Egyptians soon enough.

[piet11111]

Except the MB bends over backwards in supporting the SCAF.

[Belleraphone]

Redson has it right. We have to remember that Egypt is a devout Muslim country, parties that promote democracy and leftist ideas aren't going to win seats by posing as secularists. We also need to keep in mind that Egypt is already a pretty religious government, beat downs on homosexuals and tons of female circumcisions. I think we're going to see an improvement in human rights and a secularization of the government, although not by much. I am worried about the ultra-conservative salafis getting so many seats though.

[Os Cangaceiros]

The moderate Islamists gaining a lot of seats didn't suprise me, the same thing happened in Tunisia recently too. The whole thing about the hardliners was unexpected, though.

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

The moderate Islamists gaining a lot of seats didn't suprise me, the same thing happened in Tunisia recently too. The whole thing about the hardliners was unexpected, though.

Exactly my thoughts. We should have no illusions that the Mb is likely to come out the winner of these elections, due to having a functioning mass organization prior to the revolution. Don't count on them to defend the revolution though, as they have taken every opportunity to give the SCAF what they want. What did surprise me about the elections was that the Salafists appear to have won about a quarter of the vote.