I just want to bring to the attention of the dKos community an interesting article on the Mother Jones blog by Jaeah Lee titled "Meet Egypt's Power Brokers".
The title is somewhat misleading insofar as I would suggest that, alas, the leadership of Egypt's military and other security forces are still among the power brokers.
Nevertheless in the midst of the hysterics about Muslim Brotherhood or alternatively the sole focus on Mohamed ElBaradei, it is useful to have a little bit more background on the actual specific individual members of the "officially" designated oppositions' 10-person Negotiation Steering Committee.
Here's a a run-down of the committee members of the committee members (with fair use snips from each of the ten descriptions, please do read full original article):
- Mohamed ElBaradei: ...the most internationally prominent figure in the Egyptian opposition movement, heads the National Association for Change (NAC), a broad opposition coalition (which includes the Muslim Brotherhood) that emphasizes democratic constitutional reforms. ...a secular liberal, has emerged as the widely supported choice for Egypt's next president. ...support isn't unanimous: his time abroad has earned him criticisms that he lacks an understanding of Egypt's daily political life.
- Ayman Nour: As chair of the Ghad ("Tomorrow") Party, Nour leads the liberal-secular faction in Egypt.
I also suggest reading a fascinating Foreign Policy piece from "way" back in the pre-revolutionary days of November 2010 that has more on the trials and tribulations of Nour and the Ghad party, including how the Mubarak regime took over a version of Ghad party (when Nour was in jail) as one of their puppet opposition parties, though Nour's actual movement remains independent.
- Osama Al Ghazali Harb: ...a liberal intellectual and former member of the National Democratic Party (NDP), to co-found the Democratic Front Party and remains’ the party's chair. The DFP pushes for reforming the National Assembly to represent all of Egypt's political constituencies, reforms that guarantee an independent judiciary, cultural diversity, and abolishing the state of emergency and its special courts.
- Abdel Gelil Moustafa: ...an engineering professor and political activist, is the general coordinator of the National Association for Change and an ElBaradei supporter.
- George Ishak: ...once a trade union leader, founded the Kefaya ("Enough") movement in 2004, which draws support from Egypt's middle class professionals.
- Mohammed El Beltagui: ...a senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's heavily repressed and largest opposition bloc (taking up one-fifth of the legislature).
- Magdy Ahmed Hussein: ...a journalist and member of the (Socialist) Labor Party; initially socialist, but shifted to a more religious ideology in 1985.
- Abdel Halim Qandil: ...a leading member of the Nasserist Party, which is rooted in the Arab nationalist, socialist, and largely secular ideology. He is a spokesman for the Kefaya movement, and has called the Muslim Brotherhood as a "'dinosaur' weighed down by its aging leadership."
- Hamdeen Sabahi: ...an Arab nationalist politician who leads the Karama (or "Dignity") Party, a left-leaning Nasserist party.
- The Youth Movement: The tenth seat on the steering committee is reserved for a leader of Egypt's April 6 Youth Movement, which has yet to name a representative.
My take home from this is:
- Somewhat disappointing that the youth movement groups are not more represented
- A little surprised at the presence of more than one supposedly Nasserist left-nationalists movements.
- Of course the Islamists are represented but far from dominant or unilaterally in charge.
It is also important to remember that the Islamist parties including the Muslim Brotherhood are themselves internally heterogeneous and internally, and hold internal elections.
Instead of looking to 1979, to the extent that analogies have any use, we should also remember the Philippines, and especially Indonesia which is a Muslim majority country that has Islamist fundamentalist movements, but changed from military dictatorship to a semblance of democracy.
