News Analysis: Egypt's new parliament reflects declining popularity of Islamists

Results of Egypt's first parliamentary elections under military-oriented President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi reflects the declining popularity of Islamists in the country, Egyptian political experts said.

Egypt's Salafist ultraconservative Al-Nour Party, which supported the ouster of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, was shocked by the poll results. They wished supporting Sisi would make them firmly seated in the new pro-regime parliament, but only won twelve out of 596 parliament seats.

The first session of the new parliament is expected to be held later in December.

GROWING "ISLAMIST" MILITANTS

After Morsi's removal and the massive crackdown on his supporters, terrorist activities represent one of the main reasons for the declining popularity of Islamists in the most populous Arab country, especially when most militant anti-government attacks were claimed by self-proclaimed "Islamist" groups.

Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group was eventually labeled by the new leadership as "a terrorist organization." Even mentioning the group without the word "terrorist" or showing any kind of sympathy towards its prisoners or deaths could cause trouble.

"The general atmosphere and the growing terrorism of so-called Islamist groups like the Sinai-based branch of the Islamic State (IS) have minimized the popularity of Islamists and caused general reluctance towards them in the Egyptian streets," said Hoda Raouf, a researcher at the Regional Center for Strategic Studies.

She added that the rising terrorism, both regionally and internationally, has created a kind of suspicion towards whatever is related to Islamist groups, including those like Al-Nour Party which has supported the Egyptian government and denounced terrorism.

"The horrible experience of the Muslim Brotherhood rule and their violent response to Morsi's removal led to the decline of Islamists," she told Xinhua, arguing that the new parliament in such a sensitive stage needs national alignment and agreement among members rather than division and conflict.

ANTI-ISLAMIST CAMPAIGNS

Besides the leadership's anti-terror war that has cornered Islamists in Egypt after Morsi, "No for Religious Parties" is a campaign that has been launched by civil and liberal forces ahead of the recently concluded parliamentary polls to warn voters against Al-Nour Party, the only permissible Islamist political group in the country.

"Islamists have no political presence in the Egyptian streets now and I expected beforehand that Al-Nour Party would hardly secure ten seats in the new parliament," said Gamal Zahran, a political science professor at the Suez Canal University.

Zahran told Xinhua that Article 74 of Egypt's new constitution also bans the establishment of a political party based on religion, which makes the presence of Al-Nour Party "unconstitutional."

He added that some Brotherhood loyalists supported former members of ex-President Hosni Mubarak's dismantled ruling party during the polls in an attempt to portray the current regime and its parliament as a reproduction of those of Mubarak, which also added to the defeat of Al-Nour Party.

DECLINE ONLY POLITICALLY

In 2005, during Mubarak's time, Islamists mostly from the "banned" Muslim Brotherhood secured about 20 percent of parliament seats. Later in 2012, a year after Mubarak's ouster, they dominated the whole parliament with a leading Brotherhood member as its speaker.

"The Islamists have vanished only politically, yet they still have their followers and loyalists on the ground," said Ali Bakr, a researcher of Islamist groups' affairs at state-run Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

"Political decline does not mean weakness," the expert told Xinhua, agreeing that the self-proclaimed "Islamist" groups adopting violence and terrorism have added to their declining popularity in general, including those moderate ones.

"Practically, the engagement of peaceful and pro-state Islamists in politics is much better than alienating them, because their political participation is an indirect ideological review and reform against the thoughts of violent so-called Islamists," Bakr explained. Endit