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The weekend’s Islamic holiday, which centres on sacrifice and feeding the poor, offered the Muslim Brotherhood a golden opportunity.
For the first time, Egypt’s Islamist powerhouse is able to campaign openly under a new party banner, and it is using its long-standing charity networks to gain an edge over more liberal and secular candidates before parliamentary elections scheduled to begin in two weeks.
Across the country last week, the movement’s political and charitable machine was selling discounted meat and vegetables to families who otherwise could not afford the traditional rituals for Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice.
Critics call it vote-buying, but the Brotherhood says social services are its historic conduit to the people.
In a poor district of Cairo on Friday, families crowded outside the neighbourhood mosque as volunteers for the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party yelled out prices on discounted potatoes, lemons, green beans and other vegetables. Sewage ran through potholed streets, and garbage was piled high. Many families in the neighbourhood share one-room dwellings that serve as their kitchen, bedroom and living room.
Nawal Sleem, 40, pushed through the crowd to order vegetables. Potatoes were about half price compared with the regular market she goes to.
Ms Sleem’s husband makes just $US50 a month to support her and her two sons, who cannot find jobs as Egypt’s economy limps along. Eid al-Adha usually includes the sacrifice of a sheep, but the family would have to settle for vegetables.
Unemployment has risen since the winter protests that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak and empowered the nation’s military. Food prices have doubled, she said.
Mr Mubarak had banned the Muslim Brotherhood but allowed it to field candidates as independents. Now, members are eagerly campaigning under the Freedom and Justice party banner.
Because of the discounted produce, Ms Sleem said she was likely to vote for the party.
”They seem good,” she said of the Brotherhood. ”They help with expensive things.”
Maha Abdel Salem, 30, questioned the Brotherhood’s motives as she also left the stall with only vegetables.
She walked back to her haphazardly built apartment, where her son slept on the bed she shares with her four children and husband. Flies buzzed around her sleeping child’s face. When it rains, the roof leaks.
”What is a kilo of vegetables going to do for me when I live like this?” she asked. ”We live with sewage in broken-down houses. We’ll vote for someone who can solve this.”
The Brotherhood’s party has also been trying to address the issues of the poor, selling lower-priced notebooks, pens and other stationery before the school year started, for example. It has also set up mobile health clinics in areas without hospitals and deployed tens of thousands of volunteers to mobilise their programs.
Via Washington Post
In a calm and cool Sunday morning, millions of Tunisians queued outside 6,734 voting stations throughout the northmost country of Africa, waiting to cast their vote with their own will for the first time since the toppling of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali early this year.
"I got up at 5 a.m. and arrived at the station one hour later, I am very proud of being the first Tunisian to cast my vote," said Dr. Imed Dababi, with excitement in his eyes.
"After more than 40 years, the Tunisian people finally have the freedom to choose their own representatives," said Dababi, who had never voted in the Ben Ali era.
An unprecedented voter turnout marked the launch of the elections with long queues already formed prior to the opening of polling stations at 7 a.m. (0600 GMT). Thousands of people were lined up in the country’s polling stations waiting for their turn to cast their ballots.
In a poll station of Mutuelle Ville near downtown Tunis, capital city of Tunisia, hundreds of voters stood in a queue of more than 100 meters at 6:30 a.m..
Tunisian voters both at home and abroad are supposed to elect 217 representatives to the National Constituent Assembly, among whom 199 are in Tunisia and 18 representing Tunisian expatriates in Europe and North America.
Then, the 217-member body will rewrite the constitution and chart the country’s transition after the toppling of its veteran leader, paving the way for legislative and presidential elections in 12 month’s time.
Among the voters waiting for ballot, there are Muslims and Christians, youths and elders, men and women.
"We haven’t seen such kind of queues for a long time. After so many chaos and unrest, Tunisian people finally can vote with freedom," said Beehir Tovohei, one in the queue, "All Tunisians are equal today, it’s a historical moment for all of us."
Mohammed Mard, a ninety-year-old doctor, have balloted many times in his life. "In the time of Ben Ali, there would be someone giving me the voting card and telling me who I should vote," said Mard, who stood out among the voters.
"Now I come into my 90s, and finally get the right to choose by myself," Mard said, with joy on his heavily wrinkled face. "I got up very early in the morning because I was too excited."
On Sunday, around 7.3 million eligible voters will choose their representatives among 77 political parties, two coalitions and hundreds of independent lists. Some 11,000 candidates are vying for a seat in the constituent assembly.
"Tunisians need to be united," the veteran underlined, saying " separation is no good for our country. We can’t stand turbulence any more."
For a nation that is freshly coming out of unrest, it requires time to achieve peace and order, said Anis Rabhi, holding her voting card joyfully and hopefully. "We still have a long way to go, but with this election, we have made the first step."
As the land that launched the Arab Spring heads into historic elections next week, all eyes are on the long-repressed Islamists — and whether a big victory for them will irrevocably change this North African nation and inspire similar conservative movements around the region.
Many fear that despite vows to uphold democracy, Tunisia‘s Islamist Ennahda Party is bent on imposing a theocracy that would roll back hard-won secularism and women’s rights. Others see an opportunity to bring a moderate form of political Islam into the Arab world — one styled after the successful ruling party in thriving Turkey.
The Ennahda Party was brutally crushed by overthrown dictator Ben Ali in the 1990s, a policy tacitly approved by Western powers wary of militant Islam. Now, in the Oct. 23 election, it is set to become the largest party in the assembly that will write the nation’s new constitution — largely because it is the best-organized force in the country.
Unlike many Islamist groups in the region, Ennahda has explicitly pledged to champion democratic values and women’s rights, but its secular critics warn the party has a secret agenda to impose hardline Islam.
These fears have been inflamed by the appearance of new ultraconservative groups known as Salafists that have attacked movie theaters and TV stations for showing material they say denigrates Islam.
Once in power, many warn, Ennahda would swiftly seek to put its Islamist stamp on this tourist-friendly nation of 10 million. Tunisia’s post-independence 1956 personal status code was unique in the Middle East and outlawed polygamy, mandated the woman’s approval to get married and set limits on the man’s power to divorce. It also declared men and women to be equal in terms of rights and citizenship.
In January, Tunisians stunned the world with a month long popular uprising that overthrew a seemingly entrenched dictator, inspiring similar revolutions across the Middle East.
How the country’s nearly 100 political parties compete in elections and then work together afterward will be key for Tunisia and other countries such as Egypt and Libya, which followed Tunisian protesters’ lead and overthrew their own dictators.
Image via Wikipedia
At a time when al-Qaida seems to be faltering, the recruitment of such an educated, somewhat mainstream following is raising fears that Hizbut Tahrir, an enigmatic global movement, could prove more effective at radicalizing the Islamic world than outright terrorist groups.
Active in 45 countries, Hizbut is now expanding in Asia, spreading its radical message from Indonesia to China. It wants to unite all Muslim countries in a globe-spanning bloc ruled by strict sharia law. It targets university students and professionals, working within countries to try to persuade people to overthrow their governments.
The movement’s appeal to an often influential part of society worries experts. Its goal of an Islamic state may be far-fetched, but it could still undercut efforts to control extremism and develop democracy in countries such as Indonesia, which the U.S. hopes will be a vital regional partner and a global model for moderate Islam.
"Our grand plan over the next five to 10 years is to reinforce the people’s lack of trust and hope in the regime," said Rochmat Labib, the group’s Indonesia chairman in a rare interview with a Western reporter. "That’s what we are doing now: converting people from democracy, secularism and capitalism to Islamic ideology."
Hizbut Tahrir, which means The Party of Liberation, is also raising its profile in the U.S. after operating largely underground since the 1990s. Its first major event was a 2009 conference, followed by another one in Chicago this June.
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