Academics are finally learning why, at the present moment, the Muslim Brotherhood is in a good position to win a major political victory once the Mubarak regime collapses. In the latest issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, Daniel Byman, a professor in the Security Studies program at Georgetown University, writes: “In the short term at least, and perhaps for much longer, Egypt’s politics are tilted against the more liberal and democratic elements of Egyptian society and in favor of the country’s Islamists.”
The fruit of Mubarak’s government locking up genuine liberal opponents of the regime — so it could posit an either/or alternative of the MB or Mubarak — has resulted in leaving the Brotherhood as the only viable and organized political entity in Egypt. Moreover, he points out, capitalism “became associated with cronyism, not a true free market.” The result is that in 2005, the MB won two-fifths of the seats in parliament, a figure that Byman thinks would have been much higher had a truly free election taken place.
Read the rest at Pajamas Tatler blog
