CAIRO (AP) — There is a gaping hole in the center of next
week’s presidential election in Egypt: The space once filled by the
Muslim Brotherhood.
The former political powerhouse that won
election after election the past three years has been decimated by a
crackdown since the military last summer ousted President Mohammed
Morsi, a veteran Brotherhood figure. The Islamist group has been
declared a terrorist organization, hundreds of its supporters have been
killed and thousands arrested.
And the man who removed Morsi — the
now retired army chief, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi — is a near certainty to
win the election, taking place Monday and Tuesday.
The election
could seal the group’s expulsion from political life: If turnout is
strong among Egypt’s 53 million voters, authorities could present that
as a solid evidence that the public rejects the Brotherhood and supports
Morsi’s ouster, which Islamists brand a coup against the popular will.
The
Brotherhood’s only tool now has been to declare a boycott of the
election, branding it a farce, and try to escalate the street protests
it has been holding since Morsi’s July 3 ouster.
The goal is to
dent the legitimacy of the election and keep Islamists’ voice alive,
hoping to draw supporters if el-Sissi’s popularity collapses.
"The
street movement may have thinned, but everyone is still charged up and
that will be manifested in the future," Ashraf Abdel-Wahab, a doctoral
student from the Brotherhood, told The Associated Press.
Diaa
el-Sawy, a spokesman for the Islamist-led Youths Against the Coup, said
he expects the crackdown after the election will "become bloodier
because el-Sissi will want to establish his regime."
But, he said,
people will turn against the retired field marshal when he fails to
resolve the country’s many problems. "We are betting that we will be
joined by others," he said. "They will abandon their support for
el-Sissi. They will not necessarily be with us, but they will be against
el-Sissi."
So far, 10 months of protests have failed to rally
non-Islamists to the cause amid public resentment over Morsi’s year in
office and a media-fueled perception that the group is behind a wave of
terror attacks. The group denies the claim, but some members warn that
young Islamists are turning to militancy — a trend that would deepen
public opposition to it.
In 2012, Morsi became Egypt’s first
democratically elected president after the toppling of longtime autocrat
Hosni Mubarak. But by last summer, he faced massive protests by
millions demanding he step down, prompting the military’s move.
A
Brotherhood-led alliance of Islamists last week called for the "third
revolutionary wave" of protests against the presidential election.
"Step
up your efforts to win over new sectors of society for the boycott of
the sham elections, so we may regain our freedom," the alliance said
Wednesday.
This week saw a marked escalation in protests by
university students loyal to Morsi in Cairo, the southern city of Assiut
and a string of other localities north of the capital.
The
crackdown is the worst trauma the 85-year-old Brotherhood has suffered.
Still, its members pride themselves on enduring suppression. For most of
its existence, it was a banned underground organization. Still, it
built up a grassroots network of charities, businesses and mosques that
generated public support, and it ran candidates in parliamentary
elections.
After Mubarak’s fall, it formed a political party and
burst openly onto the scene. It and its ultraconservative allies won
every election that followed — parliamentary elections in the winter of
2011-2012, the June 2012 presidential election, and a December 2012
referendum that passed a constitution drafted largely by Islamists.
Brotherhood
supporters said the votes proved Egypt wants Islamists in power. But
its detractors insist the wins spoke more of the weakness of its
opponents and the allure of its charity networks for poor voters.
In the end, both sides will count turnout and raw numbers of voters as a gauge of popularity.
In
the 2011-2012 parliamentary elections, around 18.4 million Egyptians
voted for candidates from the Brotherhood party and its Islamist allies,
largely competing against newly formed and little known liberal
parties.
Morsi garnered 13.2 million votes in the 2012
presidential election — including many who backed him to prevent victory
by his rival, Mubarak’s last prime minister Ahmed Shafiq. Turnout was
just under 52 percent.
In the following referendum, 10.7 million
Egyptians voted in favor of the constitution, considered a vote for
Islamists. Turnout was a lowly 32 percent.
El-Sissi’s camp is
looking to decisively top those numbers. One early sign was a referendum
in December 2013 for a new, post-Morsi constitution in which a yes vote
was seen as support for el-Sissi. It received 19.9 million yes votes —
but with Islamists boycotting, turnout was a low 39 percent.
No
matter the outcome, the Brotherhood has been transformed by the
crackdown. Its networks have been devastated, though it has retained a
low level of organization and moved what it can abroad. A generation of
its leadership — including Morsi — are in prison and facing trials that
could imprison them for years or lead to their execution.
El-Sawy,
the youth organizer, said young people keeping the cause alive will
play a greater role for now on in the Islamist movement, long dominated
by the Brotherhood’s aged leaders.
"The young people are now convinced that leadership must be in the hands of the youth," he
said.
He
insisted the movement’s strategy is peaceful protest. But provincial
Brotherhood leaders warn of rising militancy among younger members in
response to killings by police, random arrests and abuse of detainees.
"They
see what happened as a war against Islam that needs to be countered
with jihad," said one leader in Assiut, who spoke on condition of
anonymity because he feared arrest.
"They have given up on peaceful protests and want to avenge the martyrs and those in jail."