Message #19369

[Psalm 51:17]

http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-brotherhood-under-fire-over-president-bid-204044516.html

4/2/12

CAIRO (AP) — The Muslim Brotherhood's surprise decision to field a presidential candidate is stirring fears that the two biggest powers to emerge from the ouster of Hosni Mubarak — the Islamists and the military — are maneuvering to put in place a new rule in Egypt not much different from the old, authoritarian one.

If they succeed in divvying up the most important positions in government, the new leadership could be a blow to the hopes for an inclusive democracy that drove last year's uprising against Mubarak. Opponents of the Brotherhood and military warn that the maneuvering could lead to a repeat of the Mubarak-era domination by a single party of all executive and legislative powers — only now with an Islamist tinge.

The Brotherhood controls nearly 50 percent of parliament and dominates the constituent assembly that is in charge of writing Egypt's new constitution. Given its electoral strength, its candidate — Khairat el-Shater, the Brotherhood's deputy head but in reality its strongest figure — instantly leaps to front-runner status for the presidency in the May 23-24 election.

"We didn't have a revolution to end up with a dictatorship of the one party," said the head of the liberal Free Egyptians Party, Ahmed Said. "If el-Shater is president, will he rule in the name of the people or according to the orders of the Brotherhood?"

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