Cairo, January 17: Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest opposition group, named Saturday, January 16, a new leader, who vowed to promote moderation and respect of pluralism in the country.
“Mohamed Badei has been chosen by majority vote by the Shura Council as the new leader,” former Brotherhood leader Mohammed Mahdi Akef announced at a press conference cited.
The 67-year-old a veterinary professor at a Beni Sueif University was also approved by the 30-member international council.
Badie, the group’s eighth supreme guide, will replace Akef who refused to run for a second six-year term.
The election of the new Brotherhood leader came after a dispute between Conservatives, who place an emphasis on strengthening the group’s ideological outreach and reformists who advocate a more active public role.
In an internal election last month, conservatives won the majority of seats in the 18-member executive body, in which the group’s deputy chief Mohammed Habib and reformist leader Abdel Moneim Abul-Futuh lost their seats.
The Muslim Brotherhood, outlawed since 1954, made a stunning breakthrough in the legislative elections of November and December 2005.
Running as independents, its candidates won one fifth of seats in the 454-member People’s Assembly (the lower house of parliament).
Since then, a fierce government crackdown has left many prominent members behind bars, a move seen as aiming to distance them from political life.
Uniting Figure
Seen by Brotherhood members as a uniting figure, Badie vowed to promote moderation and respect of pluralism in the country.
“We believe that Shura (consultation) means respecting stances and views of others,” he said in an acceptance statement posted on the group’s website.
Born in 1943 in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla el-Kubra, Badie was jailed for nine years in the 1960s after being accused of membership of the Brotherhood paramilitary cell.
In 1994, Badie became responsible for ideological education inside the Muslim Brotherhood.
In 1999, he was sentenced to nearly four years in prison together with several group members on charges of membership in an outlawed movement.
Badie was elected a member of the 18-member Guidance Bureau in 1996 and 2009.
He is also a member of the Brotherhood’s international Shura Council since 2007.
In his acceptance statement, Badie also pledged to promote a moderate understanding of Islam that “respects pluralism in the whole world”.
“We believe in incremental reform, and that takes places in a peaceful and constitutional way,” the new leader said.
“We reject violence and denounce it in all its forms.”
The new supreme leader also stressed his respect of pluralism and democracy.
“Democracy is our main tool and we strive to establish it,” Badie said.
“We are against the exclusion or marginalization of anybody. We respect pluralism and call for power rotation through democratic means.”
Badie also denied that the Muslim Brotherhood is in confrontation with the regime.
“The regime has never been our enemy,” he said. “We support them when they are right and oppose them when they are wrong.”
Badei said that the Muslim Brotherhood sees non-Muslim Egyptians as citizens who have the same rights as Muslims.
“They are our partners in building our country and defending it,” he said.
“We support citizenship that implies equality in both rights and duties.”
-Agencies