New Republic
In the run-up to the first round of Egypt's presidential elections,
which concluded on Thursday, the Muslim Brotherhood's downfall was
widely anticipated. Only four months after winning a 47-percent
plurality in the parliamentary elections, the Washington Post reported that the Brotherhood's stock was "plunging," while the Wall Street Journal
insisted that the Brotherhood's fortunes had "faded" due to "mounting
public criticism" and "internal defections." Pre-elections polls
bolstered this storyline, pegging support for notoriously uncharismatic
Brotherhood nominee Mohamed Morsi at a paltry three to nine percent, and
it was widely expected that many Muslim Brothers would buck their
parent organization and support ex-Brotherhood leader Abdel Monem Abouel
Fotouh.
Yet reports of the Muslim Brotherhood's demise, it seems, were greatly
exaggerated: Morsi won a first-round plurality with roughly 26 percent
of the vote, and will face former Mubarak regime figure Ahmed Shafik in
the second round, which begins on June 16. Morsi's strong performance,
which comes despite his many deficiencies as a candidate, is a testament
to the Muslim Brotherhood's unmatched mobilizing capabilities, which
have made the organization's political dominance practically inevitable
since the moment that Hosni Mubarak resigned.
It is not merely that the Muslim Brotherhood is Egypt's "best organized"
group, as many commentators frequently note. It is the only organized
group, with a nationwide hierarchy that can quickly transmit commands
from its Cairo-based Guidance Office (maktab al-irshad) to its
600,000 members scattered throughout Egypt. The hierarchy works as
follows: The twenty-member Guidance Office sends its marching orders to
deputies in each governorate (muhafaza), who communicate with their deputies in each "sector" (quita), who communicate with their deputies in each "area" (muhafaza), who communicate with their deputies in each "populace" (shoaba), who finally communicate with the leaders of each Brotherhood "family" (usra),
which is comprised of five Muslim Brothers and represents the
organization's most basic unit. This chain of command is used for
executing all Guidance Office decisions, including commanding Muslim
Brothers to participate in protests, organize social services, and --
during the most recent elections -- campaign and vote for Mohamed Morsi.
There are two additional elements of the Muslim Brotherhood's internal
structure that ensure that the Brotherhood leadership's commands are
followed. First, the social lives of members are deeply embedded within
the organization. Muslim Brothers meet with their five-person
Brotherhood "families" at least weekly, where they study religious
texts, discuss politics, organize local Brotherhood activities, and
share their private lives with one another. Muslim Brothers' deepest
personal relationships thus emerge within the organization, and there is
a great disincentive to buck the Brotherhood leadership's commands,
since doing so risks alienation from their closest friends and mentors.
Second, the very process of becoming a Muslim Brother ensures that only
those who are deeply committed to the organization and its principles
become full-fledged members. Indeed, becoming a Muslim Brother is an
intricate five-to-eight-year process, during which each member is
gradually promoted through four tiers of memberships before finally
becoming a "working Brother" (ach amal). (In order to attain
the third level, a rising Muslim Brother's supervisors must affirm that
he has studied the works of Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna;
memorized specific chapters of the Qur'an; and shown himself to be "a
good follower of the Muslim Brotherhood organization's decisions," as
one young Muslim Brother engaged in this process told me last March.)
Those who become Muslim Brothers are highly unlikely to turn their backs
on an organization in which they have invested so much time and energy
in joining.
Morsi's victory in the first round of the presidential elections
demonstrates the importance of these structures in determining Egypt's
political future. While other constituencies -- including Egyptian
Christians and Salafists -- are significantly larger than the
Brotherhood, none can mobilize similarly committed supporters as
consistently or cohesively. In this vein, while some of the major
Salafist organizations endorsed ex-Brotherhood candidate Abouel Fotouh
for president, many prominent Salafists backed Morsi -- including
leaders from Salafist organizations that had officially supported Abouel
Fotouh. By contrast, the Brotherhood could count on its membership to
vote en masse for Morsi -- even despite pre-elections reports that many
Brothers might support Abouel Fotouh.
The Brotherhood's unmatched mobilizing capabilities suggest that, in a
certain sense, it hardly matters whom they nominate for office. The
gruff, uncharismatic Morsi was, after all, the Brotherhood's "spare
tire" -- a reluctant understudy forced to perform after the group's
initial nominee, Khairat al-Shater, was disqualified from the elections
due to a technicality. Moreover, Morsi made little attempt at reaching
out to the non-Islamist public, whereas the eloquent Abouel Fotouh drew
support from a broad coalition that included Salafists on the far right
and socialists on the far left. But in a presidential contest featuring
five major candidates, Abouel Fotouh's broad coalition was no match for
the Brotherhood's reliable legions of foot-soldiers, who could mobilize
superior get-out-the-vote efforts in every Egyptian governorate.
The Brotherhood's disciplined infrastructure has thus put Mohamed Morsi
one election away from Egypt's presidency, and -- barring massive fraud
-- he stands an excellent chance against former prime minister Shafik.
While Shafik can count on support from Egyptian Christians and many of
the rural clans that previously backed Mubarak's ruling party, Morsi is
already drawing support from many non-Islamists who fear a return to the
old regime more than a Brotherhood-dominated Egypt. Moreover, early
reports indicate that, faced with the choice between the autocratic
Shafik and theocratic Morsi, many voters will stay home -- a decision
that will bolster Morsi, since low turnouts benefit well organized
parties.
Of course, the importance of strong organizations in securing political
victories is hardly unique to Egypt. But when only one group can
organize effectively in a newly competitive political environment,
single-party domination becomes practically inevitable -- with
potentially devastating consequences. After all, the dominant party can
nominate just about anyone, and win. And if it uses its power to prevent
potential competitors from emerging, it can also get away with just
about anything.
Eric Trager is the Next Generation fellow at The Washington Institute.
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