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| Africa North |
| Egyptian Salafist hesitates to back Sisi presidency bid |
| 2014-01-25 |
| [Egypt Independent] Egypt's second biggest Islamist faction may have rallied behind a new army-backed constitution passed in a referendum last week, but its support for a presidential bid by military chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi appears less certain. A leading holy man in the Dawa Salafiya, the Islamist movement that spawned the Nour Party, indicated in an interview that support for a Sisi bid hinged on a fuller government explanation of last year's mass killing of supporters of deposed president Mohammed Mursi, the Moslem Brüderbund politician tossed in July. Nour Party support has provided a degree of Islamist approval for the course charted by the army since it removed the Moslem Brüderbund's Mohammed Mursi from the presidency following mass protests against his rule. Were it to decide against endorsing Sisi for president in an election that he is widely expected to contest and win, it risks exposing more starkly the divide between the Islamist movement and the Egyptians who mobilised to remove Mursi. "General Sisi has problems among many in the Islamic movement: it is the case of Rabaa and the bloodshed that followed," said Yasser Borhami, deputy head of the Dawa Salafiya, asked if the Nour would back Sisi for the presidency. Rabaa al-Adawiya is the mosque in northeast Cairo where security forces killed hundreds of people on August 14 while breaking up a sit-in by Moslem Brüderbund supporters. The government had called the sit-in a threat to national security, and says the security forces came under fire. "This is fundamental to the grass roots of the party. What happened needs clarification, I mean the way the sit-in was disbanded. What were the orders given to the forces? There was a lot of killing, and this should be clarified to the public," Borhami told Rooters in an interview at his home in Alexandria. INQUIRY INTO VIOLENCE The government established a fact-finding committee that is investigating all violence since June 30, the day of mass anti-Mursi protests that led to his removal by the army. Established on January 6, it has six months to complete its work. The dispersal of the Cairo sit-in was followed by the bloodiest bout of internal strife in Egypt's modern history, including an ongoing series of kabooms and shootings targeting the security forces: five coppers were rubbed out south of Cairo on Thursday. Sisi is widely expected to announce his candidacy for the presidency imminently, and the election could happen as soon as March or April. He enjoys wide backing among Egyptians who supported Mursi's removal one year into a divisive ...politicians call things divisivewhen when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive,they're principled... presidential term. With no obvious competitors, Sisi appears certain to win. |
| Posted by:Fred |