Rifts hitting hard at Brotherhood as rival camps lock horns

Mustafa Kamel

Rifts rocked the Muslim Brotherhood, following the downfall of its regime in Egypt in 2013 and the escape of its leaders and senior members to other countries.

In 2016, Muhammad Montasser, a spokesman for the Brotherhood’s Youth Front, defected from the movement and formed a parallel group.

He sought independence from the senior members of the movement, including then acting supreme guide Mahmud Ezzat who was arrested by Egyptian authorities in August 2020.

Rifts

Despite the Brotherhood’s unity for many decades in the past, the movement is finally breaking up into two groups.

Each of these groups wants to control the other as well as the organization’s leadership.

Divisions within the Brotherhood were sparked by divergent views on developments outside the organization.

Muhammad Kamal, who took over responsibility for the administrative offices of the Brotherhood, following the imprisonment of its leaders and the founder of its armed wing, wanted to steer the organization into a course of violence.

He wanted the movement’s members to attack state institutions and maintain protests on the streets.

This pitted him against Ezzat who wanted the organization to pursue his ideology.

Ezzat believed that the Brotherhood should take a step backwards to prepare itself well for confrontation with the state.

Taking a step back, he said, does not mean that the Brotherhood would abdicate its violent tools.

However, Kamal rejected any going back. His followers, mostly junior Brotherhood members, also rejected this.