Egypt's opposition groups have varied, conflicting agendas

reform based on democracy and social justice. This organization was set up by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed el Baradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who returned to Egypt on 27 January to lead the protests.

 

El Baradei has been calling for democratic reforms in Egypt for quite some time and keeps declaring his wish not to rule Egypt but to be a “tool for reform” — or, in other words, lead the transition government when or if Mubarak resigns.

Because the NAC includes parties like the religious Muslim Brotherhood, on one hand, and Liberal political parties like Al-Ghad, on the other hand, it has so far found it impossible to agree on a cohesive strategy. The only thing they various member groups do agree on is the removal of Mubarak from power.

El Baradei currently enjoys the support of the majority of the opposition groups in Egypt, including the Muslim Brotherhood — and he also appears to enjoy the tacit support of the United States — but it is hard to tell whether he could get elected beyond that.

6 April Youth movement

Fox News notes that this is a left-wing socialist Facebook group — or at least it started on Facebook — and moved to the real world. They were the main organizing force behind the original demonstration on 25 January.

 

The group was established in 2008 in support of a workers’ strike in an industrial Egyptian town, but continued its activities well past that strike. The group’s Facebook page today includes almost 90,000 supporters, predominantly young and educated members, most of whom had not been politically active before.

Ahmed Maher, one of the founders of the group, was arrested by the Egyptian authorities several times in the past years. The group’s main ideology is free speech and anti-nepotism.

WAFD party

The WAFD party is a nationalist liberal party. It is the extension of one of the oldest and historically most active political parties in Egypt (the original WAFD movement was created in the wake of the First World War). It supports political, economic and social reforms, promoting democracy, ensuring basic freedoms and human rights, and maintaining national unity. It has led the official opposition in parliament, but it chose to boycott the 2010 elections because of widespread voting fraud.

AL GHAD Party

This is another active political party established in 2004. It is a centrist liberal secular party.

 

Its founder, Ayman Nour, was imprisoned by the Mubarak government for three years after the 2005 elections, in which he garnered 7 percent of the vote, coming in second to Mubarak. His imprisonment received harsh criticism in Egypt and by European and American leaders.

Nour has been taking part in the demonstrations that started last week, but he does not seem to enjoy the same high profile he had in the past.

Prospects

The Brotherhood enjoys the broadest popular support among Egypt’s poor (and the vast majority of Egyptians are poor), and the best organization. To prevent the Brotherhood from coming to power, the WAFD and AL GHAD parties, with the support of el Baradei and some of the smaller members of the NAC, should consider cooperation with Ahmed Shafik, Omar Suleiman, and Sami Annan — the troika set to succeed Mubarak