PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES WOO THE RELIGIOUS VOTE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CAIRO 006370

SIPDIS

NSC STAFF FOR POUNDS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/15/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL SOCI KISL KDEM EG
SUBJECT: PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES WOO THE RELIGIOUS VOTE


Classified by A/DCM Michael Corbin for reasons 1.4 (b) and
(d).

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Summary
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1. (C) As the presidential candidates jockey for votes,
religion is playing a prominent role. Cairo salons are abuzz
with rumors that the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) appears to be
considering overtures from the NDP, the Ghad, and the Wafd
parties. The MB leadership has not yet said if it will
support a candidate or boycott the presidential poll, as some
MB activists have urged. On the other side of Egypt's
religious divide, Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda III generated
significant controversy when he affirmed the Church's support
for Mubarak's reelection. Christian and Muslim critics have
attacked the Pope for his stance, decrying it as an
unacceptable interference by a religious leader in politics.
The Church's decision to suspend a priest who supports Ayman
Nour's Ghad party has raised more questions about the bias of
the Coptic Orthodox leadership towards Mubarak. The
September 7 presidential election offers both the MB and the
Coptic Church a chance to showcase their putative political
power, but it is more likely to showcase the divides that
characterize Egyptian politics and society. End summary.

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If not a King, Perhaps a King-Maker
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2. (SBU) A spate of recent press speculation on the MB's
possible role in the September 7 elections suggests that the
NDP, as well as the two leading opposition parties, the Ghad
and the Wafd, are courting Egypt's banned but tolerated
Islamist opposition. Although the MB leadership has not yet
announced its course of action, it does appear that the group
is carefully considering its options. The NDP has not made
any public statements about an alliance with the MB, but both
Ghad and Wafd have indicated that they seek MB support for
their presidential candidates, Ayman Nour and No'man Gom'a
respectively, and that, if victorious, they would seek to
integrate the MB more completely, and legally, into Egyptian
political life.


3. (SBU) The NDP needs to be circumspect in any courting of
the MB since the government-ruling party apparatus has been
at pains over the years to portray the MB as a dire threat to
national security. Some press reports--and the Cairo rumor
mill--suggest that the ruling party is considering how it
might make common cause with the outlawed Islamists in a move
that would secure Mubarak's democratic election. In return,
the MB could expect a relaxation of GOE restrictions on its
activities, perhaps permitting the MB in the upcoming
parliamentary elections to win more than the 17 "independent"
seats it currently holds.


4. (C) The MB's total membership numbers, as well as the
willingness of this membership to adhere in lockstep to
directives on voting from the MB leadership, are unknown.
The widespread conventional wisdom, however, is that the MB
represents the single-largest bloc of the "opposition," and
that this bloc would be a major prize for whichever
presidential candidate managed to win its allegiance. Also
likely to be discussed in any MB negotiations with the NDP
would be the issue of MB detainees, currently estimated to be
in the low hundreds after many of the activists detained in
connection with spring 2005 demonstrations were released
earlier in the summer. One final option for the MB in the
presidential contest would be to boycott, in protest of its
exclusion from the process, as it did with the May 25
referendum.


5. (C) Comment: The likelihood of an alliance between the
NDP and the MB strains credulity, especially given the long
history of charges and counter-charges that the ruling party
and its rival have traded over the years. As recently as
August 14, more than one thousand MB demonstrators held a
rally, contained by a similar number of riot police, in which
they denounced Mubarak as a corrupt dictator who used the
security services to subjugate the nation. Despite this bad
blood, there have been persistent rumors of the "politics
makes strange bedfellows" variety that the release of several
hundred MB detainees in June and July was part of a deal to
secure MB support for Mubarak's presidential bid in exchange
for "permission" for the MB to field a significantly
increased slate of candidates for the parliamentary
elections. The MB has said it will announce its position on
the presidential election on August 21. This may provide
more clarity. End comment.

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Render therefore unto Caesar?
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6. (SBU) On July 29, Pope Shenouda III, in a statement
undersigned by 71 of the 115 bishops in the Coptic Orthodox
Church, endorsed Mubarak's reelection and urged Egypt's
estimated seven million Copts to support their president.
Mubarak's "wisdom, tolerance, (and) deep experience in
managing the county's affairs," as well as his strong
relations with world leaders, make him, in the eyes of
Shenouda and his bishops, the best qualified candidate.
Shenouda issued his statement from the United States, where
he was undergoing an eye operation. Just before departing
Cairo, the Pope had met with Zakaria Azmy, the presidential
chief of staff. It is not clear why more than 30 percent of
the bishops did not sign the Pope's statement.


7. (SBU) Shenouda's statement, coming on the heels of a
pronouncement earlier in the summer when he had noted his
belief that it was "natural" for Egypt's president to be
drawn from Egypt's Muslim majority, sparked a flurry of
criticism. Most Coptic critics, as well as those supporting
the opposition, focused on the fact that Shenouda's statement
served to diminish the ability of individual Copts to play
independent roles in the multi-party election. Islamist
critics of Shenouda gleefully pointed out that Shenouda's
move effectively undermined the separation of Church and
State that has largely characterized modern Christianity. In
support of Shenouda, his backers argued that his statement
simply reflected an acknowledgment of Egypt's political
realities, and would serve to insure Mubarak's support and
protection of the sometimes beleaguered Coptic minority.


8. (SBU) Independent Coptic Orthodox analyst and publisher
Yousef Sidhom, who himself endorses Mubarak for reelection,
summed up the views of many critics when he wrote on August
14 in Watani newspaper (which serves the Coptic community)
that the Pope's call for Copts to support Mubarak was
"inconsistent with democratic practice. It confiscates the
Copts' rights to free political inclination and commitment,
and bypasses their Egyptian identity in favor of their Coptic
one, reducing them to mere subjects of the Church."


9. (SBU) One subject of the Church who has not fared well
in recent days is Father Philopater Gamil, parish priest of
Giza's Virgin Mary Church, whose association with Ayman
Nour's Ghad Party has, the priest claims, led to his
suspension from his priestly duties. In comments to the
press, the priest lashed out at the GOE, saying that his
suspension had been engineered by the security services who
were worried about his ability to mobilize Coptic voters for
Nour. If confirmed, Gamil's suspension would provide
additional evidence of the Coptic leadership's close
relations with the ruling party.

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Comment
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10. (C) The impact of the presidential campaigns vying for
the religious vote remains uncertain. In the case of the
overtures to the MB, the impact will be determined first by
the MB leadership's decision on which candidate, if any, to
support. Secondarily, if the leadership decides to back a
particular candidate, the impact will depend on the
willingness of the membership, whose total numbers are
clouded in mystery, to act on the leadership's decision. It
is a commonplace view held by Egypt watchers that the MB is
the largest opposition bloc (officially banned, but tolerated
within limits) in the country, and that the MB would win
significant votes in a truly free and fair election. It
remains to be seen if the MB will seize upon the opportunity
of the September 7 presidential election to prove that it can
be a major player in Egypt's evolving democracy. If the MB
opts to support one candidate in the election, and
demonstrably boosts the votes for that candidate, this event
would mark a major show of the MB's power. If the MB opts to
boycott the presidential election, however, we will be no
closer to understanding the organization's much vaunted but
unproven power.


11. (C) In the case of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Christian
community, which is widely believed to number about 12
percent of the population (about seven-eight million people,
although there are no reliable figures to support this),the
value of Shenouda's gesture, in terms of votes delivered to
the Mubarak campaign, is debatable. It is not at all clear
that Copts will vote as a bloc. Cynicism and apathy towards
the Egyptian political scene, and even hostility towards the
long-standing Mubarak-Shenouda alliance, which some Copts
decry as a key cause of continued discrimination against
Copts in Egypt, may all combine to lessen the benefits to
Mubarak of Shenouda's support. End comment.

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