Muslim Brotherhood Win in Egypt is Disastrous for Women and Democracy

Impact

In my life, I've had the privilege of meeting people from different countries, religions and cultures. One of them is my Egyptian friend, currently living in Dubai, who lived during the Mubarak regime and saw its downfall. Like many Egyptians, he is glad this has happened. The efforts of the whole Egyptian population has lead to the end of a corrupted regime, which kept the society divided into two: the very rich, also known as, the regime people, and the poor, also known as, the rest of the people.

Lets back up a bit and see how the election process went. There were as many as 13 candidates running for the Egyptian elections, but the four most voted were:

Mohamed Morsi, member of the Muslim Brotherhood, running for the Freedom and Justice Party. He won around 25% of the votes.

Ahmed Shafik: won 24% of the votes. He is the last Prime Minister appointed by Hosni Mubarak after the beginning of the revolution in 2011.

Hamadin Sabbahi: he was one of the revolutionary candidates, and was supported by many people for representing similar concept as Gamal Abdel Nasser. He got 21% of the votes.

Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh: another revolutionary leader and former member of the Muslims Brotherhood He was supported by most well educated people and youngsters, winning him 19% of the votes

Sabbahi and Fotouh shared similar liberal views and there were rumors of them joining into one party and putting one of them forth as a candidate. This never happened, meaning they were both out in the first round and thus making young and revolutionary people lose their only representatives.

The scattering of votes of Fotouh and Sabahi turned the matter positively for Morsi. Together, the two revolutionary leaders would have gotten almost 40% of all votes, leaving them as clear winners of the first round, but because they didn't join together, Morsi and Shafik won easily. Some of the reasons why Morsi passed to the second round could also be, due to high illiteracy and ignorance. This is because as mentioned before, the education system, in the Mubarak regime was not updated and not many people had access to it either. Also, the big impact religion has on the Egyptian population, turned the votes towards Morsi. It seemed as if there was a competition between Muslims and Christians.

So on June 24, 2012, Morsi won the presidential elections, but not everybody is happy with these results. Some reasons to not support the Muslim Brotherhood and the Freedom and Justice Party are that many people do not agree with the Muslim Brotherhood's mix of politics and religion. The votes on the first round have shown that most people are not pro-Morsi, but because of the scattering of those votes into two different parties, this view was not represented. Religion and politics should not be mixed because it will not unify the country and it would be unfair to other religious minorities. It would not be democratic.

Also, an Islamic state does not represent every Egyptian. Not all people in Egypt are Muslim, but there are also Christians, Jewsand other religions that form a minority. Even though it is very hard to do, a democratic government should be able to represent all the people of a country to a certain extent and not leave out minorities, specially because of religious issues. An Islamic law will always favor Muslims, just as a Christian ruling will favor Christians.

Even though the Muslim Brotherhood has made clear that they will not have any intolerance towards Christians, this is typical propaganda from a candidate running for elections. And this is the reason why Shafik got second place in the voting.

The FJP does not offer a better status for women either. Female genital mutilation was forbidden in 2007 in Egypt despite pressure from many Islamist groups, but now, the Muslim Brotherhood is encouraging the FGM, taking away years of work to make women equal to men in rights. If this particular point gets working, it will just show that Egypt is going backwards, and not forwards as it should be doing. Also, what is ironic and sad at the same times is that this particular issue has been on the hands of a woman, member of the Muslim Brotherhood,Azza al-Jarf. She is trying to abolish many laws that favor women, including divorce, and teaching English in school, as it is an "infidel" language.

Also, while the military council was in power, there was an attempt to reshuffle the National Women's Council, in order to promote female participation in society, which, the FJP opposed completely. This just brings uncertainty to how women's status is going to be now that Morsi is getting into power.

The Election Program of the FJP contemplates almost all rights and freedoms within the moral law of Islam (Sharia). Now that Egyptian people have spoken, we can only sit down and watch, but probably, the view, will not be very beautiful. There has never been an Islamic democracy, and by what I've heard it is probably not going to start now. Could we be contemplating the rise of a new regime or the start of the Second Egyptian Revolution, or it could just turn into the democratic state so many Egyptians fought for?