(Globe and Mail-Canada) Patrick Martin - Egypt's election, which is to start Monday, is also a referendum on the Muslim Brotherhood. Until this past weekend, it was assumed that the election was the Muslim Brotherhood's to lose. The Islamist movement's recent political strategy to cooperate with the country's interim military leadership rather than to criticize it is effectively splitting the organization, and may well cost its Freedom and Justice Party the victory. The movement's leaders believe the party, with the whole Muslim Brotherhood organization behind it, can come out on top in this election. The longer the vote is delayed, however, the better the chance that other parties will close the gap, they say. Today's leaders "are reluctant to be drawn into the unrest so close to the elections that they are likely to do well in," said Karim Alrawi, an Egyptian political analyst at Simon Fraser University in British Colombia.
2011-11-24 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive