The Wall Street Journal has published useful background on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the run-up to today’s elections. The report begins:
Though Subhi Saleh is a prominent Muslim Brotherhood lawmaker and candidate for re-election here Sunday, his campaign consists largely of evading a police crackdown on his organization. After securing some 20% of seats in 2005 parliamentary polls, the Brotherhood—which is officially banned by a law against religion-based parties, but allowed to field nominally independent candidates—has been subjected to a campaign of arrests and harassment. The ruling National Democratic Party, with a well-funded machine that controls all the state levers of power, is expected to win a healthy majority in the polls.
Read the rest here.
The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood can be considered to be the “mother” organization of what is referred to in these pages as the Global Muslim Brotherhood which developed as Muslim Brothers fleeing Egypt settled in Europe and the United States, as well as other places, throughout the years. The global network has since eclipsed the Egyptian organization as evidenced by global Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi’s decision to turn down the leadership of the Egyptian organization when it was offered to him in 2004.