Moderate Egyptians haunted by rising prospect of Islamist rule

Niccolo and Donkey Sunday 25 Dec 2011

Angocachi President Camacho

Egypt Islamists take two-thirds of 2nd-round vote

(Reuters) - Egypt's two leading Islamist parties won about two-thirds of votes for party lists in the second round of polling for a parliament that will help draft a new constitution after decades of autocratic rule, the election committee said Saturday.

The party list led by the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) won 36.3 percent of the list vote, while the ultra-conservative Salafi al-Nour Party took 28.8 percent, pushing the liberal Wafd party into third place.

The vote, staged over six weeks, is the first free election Egypt has held after the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak, who routinely rigged polls before he was overthrown by a popular uprising in February.

The West long looked to Mubarak and other strongmen in the region to help combat Islamist militants, and has watched warily as Islamist parties have topped votes in Tunisia , Morocco and now Egypt.

Parliament's prime job will be appointing a 100-strong assembly to write a new constitution which will define the president's powers and parliament's clout in the new Egypt.

Second-round results for party lists gave the liberal Wafd Party 9.6 percent of the vote. The Egyptian Bloc of mostly liberal and leftist parties won 7 percent of the list vote.

Angocachi Monday 26 Dec 2011

Change the thread title. A moderate in Egypt is an Islamist. It should be "Christian and Secular Minority Terrified by Imminent Majority Rule".

Niccolo and Donkey Thursday 5 Jan 2012

Angocachi Dionysian President Camacho

Egypt's Salafi Surge

MANSOURA, Egypt — It's the morning of the third and final round of Egypt's parliamentary elections and Ammar Fayed, an activist for the Muslim Brotherhood's political party, is nervous as hell.

The 28-year-old marketing manager, who sits on the executive board of the youth branch of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) in the governorate of Dakahlia, sports a tiny FJP pin on the lapel of his gray blazer and a thumb stained blue from voting. He explains the situation: Thirty-six seats are up for grabs in this province in the fertile Nile Delta. The conservative region is in the Brotherhood's heartland -- it should have been a cakewalk.
There's just one problem, Fayed admits: "We made a fundamental miscalculation."

The Brotherhood has found itself outflanked on the right by the Salafi al-Nour Party, which has challenged the movement's religious credentials and gained a surprising degree of traction in the process. The Salafis appear poised to claim between 25 and 30 percent of the vote, though the Brotherhood could still win an outright majority and will certainly become the largest party in the new parliament.

Who could have predicted that the Salafis -- adherents to a fundamentalist version of Islam that until Egypt's revolution eschewed politics as un-Islamic -- would morph into an electoral powerhouse? Even the Brotherhood, whose vote-counting abilities would impress the likes of Karl Rove, never saw it coming, and the Salafis' success threatens to upend the movement's carefully laid plans for dominating Egypt's post-revolutionary political scene.

click the link above to read the rest......

Bob Dylan Roof Thursday 5 Jan 2012

The Egyptian military's recent action against American NGOs supports Nic's hypothesis that America and Israel want Salafist rule.

Angocachi Friday 6 Jan 2012

False. The US has calculated that it can no longer keep the secular junta in power, and so unlike in Iran where it closed its eyes to the growing Islamist revolt until it was shut out of Tehran, it has decided to back Ikhwan against al Nour. Ikhwan can keep the country friendly to DC & Jerusalem while feigning Sharia at home. What remains of Ikhwan's sincere Islamists, in terms of membership and public supporters, will move to Nour.

The US has never supported Salafis and never will. If Salafis take over in Cairo it will be imminent war on Israel (over Gaza) and cancelation of all defense contracts with the US.

Niccolo and Donkey Thursday 12 Jan 2012

That's odd. The USA supported Salafis in Afghanistan against the USSR, it supported the Taliban against Iran, it also supported them in Bosnia and in Kosovo.

Angocachi Thursday 12 Jan 2012

The Taliban wasn't/isn't Salafi. Even still, it supported elements within the Taliban in hopes that they'd roll back enough of their Islamism to sign contracts with American firms interested in Afghanistan, these pro-American Taliban justified to the rest that they need a strong ally against Iran.
The US supported the 'Seven Party Mujahideen Alliance in Afghanistan', which intentionally excluded zealous Islamists. The dissident faction of Saudi Arabia's elite supported Salafis like MAK, and this was in struggle against DC and the Saudi Royalty.

The United States doesn't support real Islamists, neither does the Saudi government, and they never have. It defeats the entire purpose of American intervention in the Muslim world, which is to keep Islamist government from ever happening.

Niccolo and Donkey Thursday 12 Jan 2012

Angocachi said: ↑

The Taliban wasn't/isn't Salafi. Even still, it supported elements within the Taliban in hopes that they'd roll back enough of their Islamism to sign contracts with American firms interested in Afghanistan, these pro-American Taliban justified to the rest that they need a strong ally against Iran.
The US supported the 'Seven Party Mujahideen Alliance in Afghanistan', which intentionally excluded zealous Islamists. The dissident faction of Saudi Arabia's elite supported Salafis like MAK, and this was in struggle against DC and the Saudi Royalty.

The United States doesn't support real Islamists, neither does the Saudi government, and they never have. It defeats the entire purpose of American intervention in the Muslim world, which is to keep Islamist government from ever happening.

Of course the USA supported the Taliban against Iran, going so far as to side with them in the case of an Iranian invasion back in 1998.

The Mujahideen were full of "Arab Afghanis" who were to a man Salafi.

The USA forced us to allow the foreign Mujahideen into Bosnia and also forced the Albanians to allow this same group into Kosovo despite Albanian objections. Same goes for Macedonia.

The USA backed the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan when it rebelled in the Fergana Valley against Karimov's rule, it also covertly backed the Chechen Mujahideen through its Georgian proxy, allowing them bases in the Pankisi Gorge.

The USA is now backing Salafist elements in Syria to overthrow Assad.

I could continue to go on.

The notion that the USA is opposed to Islamist states simply is laughable in spite of the evidence. It is opposed to Islamist states that don't do its bidding nor provide a strategic advantage against other states.

Angocachi Friday 13 Jan 2012

They supported elements within the Taliban against the rest. It was an attempt to subvert and deislamize them from within.

That's true.
But the US backed the SPMA, who were neither Salafi or Arab. It did not back the Salafis or MAK.

You've told me this before. Educate me further, please.

The US helped the Georgians to force the Jihadis out of Pankisi Gorge. They were not sheltering them, what in the world are you talking about?
The US designated the IMU as a terrorist organization in 2000, and have been fighting them in Afghanistan since 9/11. I don't know where you get that the US backed them in the Fergana Valley.

The US has backed the secularist wings of the revolts in Libya and Syria, which rely on the Islamist wings and will need the US to back them post-regime collapse so that the Islamists don't takeover. It is the same as how DC is supporting the pro-Western dissidents in Russia, though the bulk of the opposition is Communist and Nationalist and it is not DC's intention that the neo-Soviets & Slavists come out on top. To say the US backs the Jihadis or the Islamists in these Arab Chimpin's would require the same reasoning that'd conclude the US is supporting a Red Revolution in Moscow.

The problem is that for a government to do the US's bidding it mustn't be a Sharia state. America finds itself trying to put down Islamism for the same reason it tried to put down Communism; when a Green or a Red government comes to power.. if it is true to its ideology, it can no longer remain a proxy to the White House. Nationalization and the abolition of usury & speculation alone are severely detrimental if not barring to the American firms that are or would like to operate in a country abroad. Also, if a regime follows an Islamist foreign policy they must come to the aid of Muslims wherever they're under embargo or military attack (why Egypt will roll into Gaza if Noor has its way).
Backing the GCC monarchies is not an example of the US supporting Islamist governments either. These governments are as secular as they can be without crossing the line so far that the clerics and their affluent sympathetics prompt the masses to chimp against the royalty.

The only Islamic states in the world today are unrecognized by the UN; As Shabaab, the Taliban, Boko Haram, etc. Even Iran's Islamists are only striving to have a Sharia state.

Niccolo and Donkey Tuesday 17 Jan 2012

President Camacho IT Wizard Angocachi Dionysian

Egypt's next parliament to be led by Islamist

CAIRO — Liberals and Islamists in Egypt announced a temporary agreement Monday on a power-sharing plan that would install a Muslim Brotherhood leader as speaker of the country’s newly elected parliament.

The agreement among six political parties all but guarantees that the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party will lead Egypt’s first elected parliament since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak in February, with the Islamist party expected to control as many as half the seats.

Under the power-sharing agreement, the ultraconservative Salafist Nour party and the liberal al-Wafd party would also claim top positions, with their representatives serving as deputy speakers, the parties announced during a news conference Monday at the Freedom and Justice Party’s headquarters.

With a week left until the lower house of the parliament meets, the Freedom and Justice Party said its nominee for speaker would be Mohamed Saad Katatny , the party’s secretary general.

During the announcement, the party heads said the agreement would be a temporary alliance to put their voting weight behind agreed-upon candidates for the parliament’s leadership positions.

“This is a one-day agreement for the day the parliament opens,” Mohamed Abou el-Ghar, the head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party said in an interview. “We have to cooperate so the main posts in the parliament are distributed fairly to all parties, including the people who won the elections.”

Moderate Egyptians haunted by rising prospect of Islamist rule

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