Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

Intelligence sources in the Middle East have given us the following assessment of the state of play in Egypt following the constitutional referendum.  They say:

1.  The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) would not have been able to overturn the yes vote in the referendum even if it hadn’t boycotted the poll due to the decision by Salafi elements, particularly the al-Nour party, to support the proposal.  The best guess is that the MB would have garnered between 20% and 25% of the vote.

2.  However, the MB has a very powerful case for arguing that the referendum was a fix, and it is making it well.  In a statement issued following the yes vote, the MB said unequivocally that the “putchists’ illegitimate referendum” had been rigged and that “the coup commanders and collaborators trampled the people’s will”.

The MB has backed up its case with some plausible statistics.  For instance, it says that with most youths boycotting the vote the regime’s claim of a 38.6% turnout is not believable as youth represent 60% of the electorate.

Furthermore, the MB has pointed out that the percentage of expatriate Egyptians voting was 15%, and traditionally the expatriate turnout is higher than the total percentage turnout.  In the 2012 referendum, 42% of expatriates voted while the overall turnout was 33%.

Perhaps most persuasive is the fact that the 33% turnout in 2012 was achieved without any calls for a boycott, making it unlikely that with the MB and youth boycott a turnout of 38.6% was reached this time, as claimed.  The MB has cited the Arab Observatory of Rights and Freedom as estimating a turnout of 11.3% and the Egyptian Centre for Media Studies and Public Opinion as putting the turnout at just 8%.

3.  General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is now in a very strong position and is almost certain to continue as Egypt’s leader.  The military will work to consolidate its power.

4.  The US will seek over time to return relations with Egypt back to where they were under President Hosni Mubarak and to facilitate a rapprochement between Egypt and Israel.

Sisi, however, will be cautious because he is himself a devout Muslim and however sidelined the MB may be, the Islamic trend in Egypt remains a strong one and Sisi will be reluctant to alienate it any further than he has to through his crushing of the MB.

5.  Although the Muslim Brotherhood is calling for peaceful resistance to the “fascist putschists”, further radicalization of at least a portion of the MB’s support base is inevitable.  Already, the MB is building an underground infrastructure in response to its categorization as a terrorist organization.

6.  Regardless of the degree to which MB supporters become radicalized, al-Qaeda will benefit from the way in which the MB has been ousted from power and now anathematized.  It reinforces the group’s longstanding message that electoral politics are a dead-end.

This boost comes at a time when al-Qaeda has already staged a remarkable recovery in Iraq, is capitalizing on the Syrian civil war, and is expanding its presence in Libya after being pushed out of Mali by French forces.

NOTE:  The latest World Report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) reveals that violent deaths in Iraq doubled to 8,000 in 2013.

On 19 January, Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki put the blame in large measure on “diabolical and treacherous” Arab states, by which he mostly meant Saudi Arabia and Qatar which have provided support to disaffected Sunni Arabs in western Iraq.

Al-Maliki said: “Iraq is the target for some countries that are backing terrorism and backing evil.”  He warned: “This evil has started to expand, and it will reach those same countries as it reached others previously.”

In a speech in the southern city of Nasiriyah, al-Maliki said: “Our battle firstly is to beat and eliminate terrorism.  Though we welcome any solution, any proposal and any political meeting should realise the priority of destroying terrorism, al-Qaeda, its formations, and its allies.”