Egypt

Egypt: vote Muslim Brotherhood?

On the face of it, there is some force to the SWP line that voting for the Freedom and Justice Party — the Muslim Brotherhood — in the final round of the Egyptian presidential election is preferable to allowing Ahmed Shafiq, the candidate of the old Mubarak regime, to win (Phil Marfleet, Socialist Worker 2 June). The argument is that a victory for the oldest and best organised opposition group would represent the continued forward movement of the revolution. Or at least a victory for Shafiq would be the opposite. The Brotherhood is unlikely immediately to crush all democratic forces. Over the...

Egypt: not Shafiq, not Mursi!

In the run-off vote for the Egyptian presidency on 16-17 June, Ahmed Shafiq, a former prime minister and a long-time ally of ousted former president Hosni Mubarak, is facing the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Mursi. In the first round both got about a quarter of the vote. Many Egyptians have already decided not to vote in the run-off, as they find the choice — between illiberal Islamists or backers of the former regime — repulsive. The Brothers took an overtly Islamist stance during the campaign for the first round of elections, held last month. They were trying to head off competition from a...

Brotherhood splits behind Egyptian poll

In Egypt’s 2011-12 parliamentary elections reactionary religious parties swept the board. The Muslim Brotherhood (standing as the Freedom and Justice Party) won 47.2% of the vote and 235 seats out of 498. Salafist candidates won 123 seats with 30% of the vote (with the al-Nur party winning 107 seats). A depressing result for socialists, secularists and democrats. But what will happen in Egypt’s Presidential election on 23-24 May? Under Egypt’s provisional constitution the President appoints the Prime Minister and has a lot of power. Last month the Constitutional Assembly, dominated by...

Egyptian workers' leader sentenced to six months in prison

A "misdemeanour court" in Helwan, near Cairo, has sentenced Kamal Abbas, general coordinator of the Centre for Trade Union and Workers' Services (CTUWS), to six months in prison for "insulting a public officer". That would be bad enough. But the public officer in question is one of the leaders of Egypt's pre-revolutionary, government-controlled "unions"! At a session of the International Labour Organisation last June, representatives of the CTUWS and the new independent unions clashed with representatives of the state-run "Egyptian Trade Union Federation". Abbas is supposed to have "insulted"...

Egypt: what political voice?

Pete Radcliff visited Cairo earlier this month. He reports on the political situation facing democracy and trade union activists. The massacre at the football stadium in Port Said on 1 February is widely believed to have been consciously planned by the Egyptian Security forces — an attempt to divide the democracy movement by a brutal attack on a more socially isolated but physically militant section. But it has produced the opposite effect. The massacre of over 70 Al-Ahly fans, or Ultras, first led to huge street protests in Cairo and other cities and then spread far wider, involving students...

Kamal al-Fayoumi arrested as Egyptian regime retaliates to strikes

Update: According to AhramOnline Kamal has been released. We are awaiting confirmation of that from other sources. As a general strike takes off across Egypt, the military government SCAF responds aggressively, arresting journalists, activists and even prominent trade union organisers. A full breakdown of the crackdown is not yet available but internationally the trade union movement will need to respond. So far the most prominent arrest is that of Kamal al-Fayoumi, legendary leader of the Mahalla strikes of 2006 onwards and an inspirational figure for the Egyptian trade union and democracy...

Eyewitness in Cairo

Yesterday (6 February) the atmosphere in Tahrir Square was more relaxed and somewhat confident. News of the general strike called by CTUWS for 11 February had got round. Some hadn’t heard of it and didn’t understand the significance. They are young and probably unemployed, and as they see it, they will stay there until they win or die. They are very brave young men, and women. There seemed to be more women this time. The people in Tahrir Square are mainly poor and not students, I would guess. This time there were fewer football flags, and no-one particularly identified themselves as an ultra...

Arab Spring impacts on Palestinians

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group which runs Gaza as a one-party religious state, has moved three quarters of its staff out of Syria. The Syrian regime has been the main external sponsor of Hamas and provides the group with a safe haven for key leaders. But Damascus is now in chaos, shaken by opposition protests. Hamas have now opened an office in Cairo where its political co-thinkers the Muslim Brotherhood are on the rise. Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas Prime Minister of Gaza, is on tour looking for regional political backing. He visited Tunisia on 5 January and has also been welcomed in...

Islamist victories in Egypt. What now?

The winners in Egypt’s first free election since World War Two are, in the words of prominent commentator Juan Cole, ‘the equivalent of the Tea Party’: conservative religious parties, of which the largest is the Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘front’, the Freedom and Justice Party. The even more conservative Nur Party, only recently set up by the Salafist movement (which hitherto has been opposed to political involvement, and opposed the January 2011 revolution), came second. Secular parties have done badly. Cole comments, rather dispiritingly, ‘But until [the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which...

Islamists gain in Egypt's poll

The second and third stages of elections to the lower house of Egypt's parliament are due on 14 December and 3 January. Elections to the upper house will start on 29 January, and the new parliament - whose powers are still uncertain - will meet in March. In the first stage of the lower-house elections, on 28 November, the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party won 36.6% of the party-list vote. The more devout and rigid "salafist" Islamists of Al-Nour got 24.4%, making an Islamist total of 61%. Anecdotal evidence is that many workers voted for the Islamists on grounds that they seemed...

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