Wrong Address meant to impress will backfire

Gamal Mubarak, the son of the President, said that “Egypt must find ways to deal with the illegal and "negative" participation of the Muslim Brotherhood in the country's political life.”

He believes "The question of how we should deal at the political and legal levels with attempts to circumvent the national consensus banning religious parties is on the table."

It is very obvious that he wants to impress the US, knowing that the growing threat of having Islamists in power in the Middle East, and in an important ally to US as Egypt.

I believe that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a threat at all. The fact that they won 88 seats in the Egyptian Parliament does not make them a threat, simply because Egyptian citizens did not participate in elections, not to mention the long list of irregularities. Egyptians did not buy the regime’s National Democratic Party’s false promises and manipulations to the constitution or the Muslim Brotherhoods agenda. If the regime is serious about the democracy process, international observers for the elections would have been invited and the article that makes the president terms limitless would have been amended to two terms. But this did not happen.

The son of the president is calling for marking the borders for the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities. If he believes that they are in power by mistake, then his party is there by mistake too. They are both in power because of the last parliamentary elections.

The European Union, the US and the Quartet funded the Palestinian legislative elections. Fatah and Hamas competed in a fair elections, monitored by international observers led by former US President Carter. If the son of the President’s logic is acceptable to the west, they would have set their conditions, being the donors, by banning Hamas or limiting its participation.

I am afraid that the Egyptian regime’s National Democratic Party is not realizing that they do not speak the language of the western democratic world. They are using the wrong address, believing that they will impress. Hamas’s victory is another lesson, regardless of its implications. The west’s intention is not control or disincluding groups in favor of others when they have the authority to control being the financiers. The reason is that they are keen on democracy.

The statements are definitely another sign for the NDP’s failure to grasp the core of democracy. If it is meant to impress the US, I guess they used the wrong language. Apparently, there is no keenness on the democratic process that needs to be in place first.

Photo: Secretary General of the National Democratic Party (NDP) Policies Committee, Gamal Mubarak, in Cairo, in May 2005. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's son Gamal denied rumours he was being groomed for succession in an interview published and insisted he had no desire to run in the next presidential poll.(AFP/File/Khaled Desouki)