WHY IS EL BARADEI NOT ACCEPTED BY THE ISLAMIST GROUPS IN EGYPT?

 

photo: Getty

Islamist groups have rejected the suggestion of El Baradei as the new Prime Minister of Egypt just one day after the announcement.  Why do Islamists reject a Nobel Prize winner and probably the best chance at democracy since the revolution?

The answer might lie in El Baradei's past at the IAEA, a position which saw him embroiled in the prewar wranglings that preceded the invasion of Iraq.  Although El Baradei was contrary to the U.S. administration's position that Hussein still possessed weapons forbidden by the UN and the IAEA, his voice had been all but suppressed in the runaway train wreck that was the decision to invade Iraq. 

The Nour party, the second largest fundamentalist group after the Muslim Brotherhood spearheaded the attack against El Baradei.  They refuse to see him as an inclusive politicians.  To some he if the face of the West.

El Baradei is a man of the world. There is no denying that.  He is also a known secularist.  Those two things do not jive with any of the demands of either fundamentalist Islamist party or group in Egypt.  

But is it wise to oppose a man who almost won the candidacy of Prime Ministership in the last elections - elections shadowed furthermore by accusations of unfairness and rigging - when the alternative is a continued regime of military rule? 

Baradei's problem however, is the fact that he has always opposed rule by the Muslim Brotherhood party.  Sharing power with them, if he were appointed Prime Minister would only deepens divisions, scholars say. 

In the meantime, the men eligible for such a difficult post are fewer and fewer.  If there is no consensus on the premiership, there will not be one in the streets of Egypt either.

Source : NPR/ 7.7.13