US embassy cable - 05CAIRO6370

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, Elections 
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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JONES