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First Test of Egyptian Voting Power Sees Muslim Brotherhood Triumph over Youth Movement Leaders

COMMENT: In the first elec­toral con­tests fol­low­ing the ouster of Hos­ni Mubarak, the high­ly orga­nized Mus­lim Broth­er­hood has suc­cess­ful­ly shep­herd­ed into being con­sti­tu­tion­al  changes that were opposed by the young lead­ers of the youth move­ment.

In my edi­to­r­i­al obser­va­tions on the Pig­gy-Back Coup, I quot­ed for­mer Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives John McCor­ma­ck (D‑MA), who co-chaired the McCormack/Dickstein com­mit­tee that inves­ti­gat­ed the 1934 coup attempt in the Unit­ed States. “An orga­nized minor­i­ty can always defeat an unor­ga­nized major­i­ty.”

Are we wit­ness­ing the begin­ning of the ascen­sion of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Egypt?

“Fears Egypt Vote to Ben­e­fit Islamists” by Jailan Zayan [AFP]; Google News; 3/21/2011. [1]

Egyp­t’s first exer­cise in democ­ra­cy in decades was hailed as a suc­cess on Mon­day, but the result of a key ref­er­en­dum has raised fears in some quar­ters that Islamists will hijack loom­ing elec­tions.

Egyp­tians on Sat­ur­day vot­ed 77% in favour of pro­posed con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ments intend­ed to guide the Arab world’s most pop­u­lous nation through new pres­i­den­tial and par­lia­men­tary elec­tions with­in six months.

The Mus­lim Broth­er­hood threw its huge influ­ence and grass­roots organ­i­sa­tion behind a “yes” vote, although youth groups that spear­head­ed the protests that forced Hos­ni Mubarak to resign last month had called for a “no” vote.

They argued the timetable set by the mil­i­tary was too tight for them to orga­nize at grass­roots lev­el, that the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood would ben­e­fit and that the changes to the Mubarak-era con­sti­tu­tion were too lim­it­ed. . . .

. . . “The ref­er­en­dum, while it was free of fraud, was not free of ‘influ­ence’, espe­cial­ly by the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and the reli­gious trend in gen­er­al,” wrote Suleiman Gou­da in the inde­pen­dent dai­ly Al-Mas­ry Al-Youm.

“The mosques were used by these groups to influ­ence the vot­ers,” he said.

The Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, the largest oppo­si­tion move­ment in the coun­try and offi­cial­ly banned in the Mubarak era, used its new found free­dom — and organ­i­sa­tion­al skills — to cam­paign for a “yes” vote.

The group, and oth­er more fun­da­men­tal­ist reli­gious move­ments, pre­sent­ed the “yes” vote as a reli­gious duty, while many at polling sta­tions said they vot­ed “yes” for the sake of “sta­bil­i­ty” rather than reli­gious incli­na­tions. . . .