Brotherhood trying to fill leadership vacuum after Ezzat’s arrest

Doaa Emam

The de facto leader of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood Mahmud Ezzat was arrested recently after years of hiding.

His arrest has caused confusion within his movement. It gave rise to anger among junior members at movement hawks or those senior leaders who favor violence in dealing with the movement’s opponents.

The same junior members opposed the appointment of Ibrahim Muneer, Ezzat’s deputy, as the new supreme guide of the movement. They demanded an end to the control imposed on the movement by its senior members. The same junior members called for giving the chance for younger movement leaders to be on the driving seat.

In a letter to its offices in the different Egyptian provinces, the Muslim Brotherhood purportedly asked its office heads to contain the anger of junior members at Muneer’s appointment as the supreme guide of the Brotherhood.

However, the official pages of the Muslim Brotherhood on social media did not announce Muneer’s appointment. Foreign media did not report any news about this development either.

This is why some people believe that news about Muneer’s appointment as the new supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood is only a test balloon or an attempt to deflect attention from the real new leader of the movement.

Differences between Muneer and the junior members of the Muslim Brotherhood are far from new.

The junior members accused Muneer previously of embezzling $200 million of the Muslim Brotherhood’s money. The gap between him and these junior members also increased after he said in an interview with the Qatari news channel al-Jazeera that his movement cannot bear the moral responsibility for the presence of some of its members in the jails in some countries, including in Egypt.

Muneer has been appearing repeatedly on TV channels affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood and Qatar since 2018. He always used this appearance to criticize Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

This gave rise to reports about the possible appointment of Muneer as Ezzat’s successor, especially given the fact that Ezzat was hiding at the time.

Nonetheless, the same reports provoked the ire of junior members inside the Muslim Brotherhood.

Ahmed Rabie al-Ghazali, a leading researcher in Islamist movements, said some of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood remain in the dark all the time.

“This is why I think the new supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood will be a person not known to everybody,” al-Ghazali told The Reference.

Hesham al-Naggar, another researcher in Islamist movements, cited difficulties in selecting a new supreme guide of the movement from its old guards.

Some of the old guards, he said, are ill-reputed, including Mahmud Hussein.

“If selected, these old guards will cause anger to spread among the junior members of the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said.

He said Turkey, where most of the senior and junior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood are based, can support some of the new faces inside the movement.

“Announcing Muneer’s appointment as the new supreme guide aimed primarily to prevent the junior members from taking any moves, including the appointment of one of them as the new leader,” al-Ghazali said.