The Muslim Brotherhood’s decision to nominate its deputy supreme guide, Khairat al-Shater, for president will oblige other candidates — especially Islamists — to rearrange their priorities, presidential candidate Amr Moussa has said.
Moussa told state-run news agency MENA on Monday that if the Brotherhood seizes the presidency in addition to Parliament, in which it already holds a plurality, it will be as if there had never been a revolution, referring to the uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak last year.
The former Arab League secretary general said the Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest political group, seeks to gather power through its Freedom and Justice Party.
He said the FJP’s possession of a plurality of parliamentary seats and its domination of the constituent assembly are evidence of such a plot. The Brotherhood’s attempts to replace the current cabinet — and, recently, the group’s nomination of a presidential candidate — only further demonstrate such a drive.
Moussa also asked the group for an explanation of Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie’s recent statement, in which he said his post is higher than the country’s president. That means that if Shater is elected president, Moussa said, the supreme guide will be the country’s real leader.
Moussa maintained that the country’s next president should be independent from any higher authority. He did not foresee problems between a civilian president and an Islamist-dominated Parliament.
The candidate said he did not give credence to the suggestion that Shater’s nomination was the result of a deal between the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and the Brotherhood.
He said he trusts the army will step down from its rule by 30 June, after the new president is elected.
