Clinton’s loss a major blow for Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian parliament members say

by WorldTribune Staff, November 11, 2016

Egyptian parliament members said Donald Trump’s election victory is a positive development for Egypt and a major setback for the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood was “eager to see Clinton become the new ‎president to use it as a tool for exerting ‎pressure on Egypt, but their hopes were ‎seriously dashed,” said Alaa Abed, chairman of the Egyptian parliament’s Human Rights Committee.

Egyptian parliament. /AFP
Egyptian parliament. /AFP

Mostafa Bakri, an independent parliament member and high-‎profile journalist, said on his Twitter account ‎that Trump’s victory means “very bad times for the Muslim ‎Brotherhood and its television mouthpiece ‎‎Al-Jazeera.”

Most of the members of parliament who spoke with reporters on Nov. 9 also agreed that the ‎election of Trump should be considered good ‎news for Egyptian President Abdul Fatah Sisi.‎

Margaret Azer, a Coptic parliament member, said in a ‎statement that the election of Trump will lead to a positive new beginning for the world and ‎the Middle East.

“Trump’s victory represents a ‎radical departure from the Obama-Clinton clan ‎who supported the Muslim Brotherhood and other ‎political Islam movements,” said Azer, adding ‎that “in fact Hillary Clinton was the candidate ‎of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. presidential ‎election.”

Azer said that she hopes Trump will move ‎quickly to restore old strategic relations ‎between Egypt and the United States. “This ‎strategic relationship is necessary for America to ‎win the fight against terrorism in the Middle ‎East,” she said.

Abed accused Obama and Clinton of spending ‎billions of dollars on support for Islamist ‎movements in the Middle East. “They were ‎under false convictions that these movements ‎are moderate and democratic, and in this way ‎they gave them cover to spread their ‎terrorism and poisonous ideology in the ‎Middle East,” said Abed.‎

Trump adviser ‎Walid Fares told reporters that Trump, in a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September, assured ‎Sisi that he looks forward to restoring ‎strategic relations with Egypt.

Phares also told ‎Egyptian MPs who were visiting America at ‎the time that Trump considers the Muslim ‎Brotherhood a radical movement.”There is ‎no problem at all with Trump’s administration, in that the Muslim Brotherhood would be designated ‎a terrorist organization,” said Phares.‎

Ali Ezz, deputy chairman of Egypt’s ‎Information Technology and ‎Telecommunication Committee, told reporters ‎that Trump’s victory was a big surprise to him. ‎‎”I was deceived by the American media, but ‎now we see that there was a broad-based ‎rejection of Obama and Clinton in America,” ‎said Ezz, adding that “if Trump is serious about ‎fighting terrorism in the Middle East, he ‎should cooperate with strong leaders like ‎Sisi and Vladimir Putin to ‎stem the tide of political Islam.”‎

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