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Meet the Brotherhood’s enforcer: Khairat El-Shater
CAIRO (Al Ahram) – Like many dissidents El-Shater left Egypt in 1981 before Sadat’s clampdown on the opposition. He reportedly lived in England for several years before resurfacing in Egypt as a Brotherhood member in the mid 1980’s.
Although Mashour initially didn’t trust him with organisational responsibilities, El-Shater seems to have gained his confidence. He bonded with Brotherhood figures Mahmoud Ezzat and Mahmoud Ghozlan, both members of the Guidance Bureau. Khairat El-Shater then became in-laws with Ghozlan when the latter married his sister.
The trio, as some insiders refer to Shater, Ezzat and Ghozlan, forms the heart of the Guidance Bureau.
In 1995 El-Shater became head of the Brotherhood’s Greater Cairo sector, an administrative but important position that saw him overseeing organization and communication across a large area. In the Brotherhood’s structure Greater Cairo includes Giza, north, east, south and central Cairo.
He quickly devised what a Brotherhood ex-member who requested anonymity describes as a “parallel” organisational structure to that laid out by Mashour, creating opportunities for talented members who don’t meet the ancien regime criteria of religiosity, historical legitimacy or knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence.
By then El-Shater had built a personal fortune, some of it in partnership with Hassan Malek, a businessman from a Brotherhood family. The two formed a computer information systems company, Salsabeel, which Mubarak’s security apparatus raided in 1991.
El-Shater’s interest in upgrading the performance of the group drove him to form a unit for administrative development, which provided training in time and strategic management. As his businesses flourished across diverse sectors – furniture, fabrics, tractors, car manufacturing, chemicals and management consultancy – El-Shater’s leverage in the group also grew.
In the words of a young Brotherhood member who was close to him, the “engineer” had, over the years, formed an “organization within the organization”, gaining the loyality of many members by employing them in his various companies.
His profile, which combines wealth with power never existed before in the Brotherhood’s history and as one insider put it: seems fitting the Gamal Mubarak era.
Following the deaths of Supreme Guide Mashour (2002), and his successor Ma’moun El-Hodeibi (2004), both powerful leaders who exercised strict control, Mahdi Akef took over.
According to El-Zafarani, Akef showed less interest in administrative and organizational matters and allowed El-Shater to assume greater responsibility, including control of the Brotherhood’s finances.
It is no secret that El-Shater successfully invested the group’s funds. To avoid security monitoring he devised creative ways to expand his own wealth and that of the group, leading to ever greater overlap between his own business interests and the Brotherhood’s finances.
Egyptians Rally Against President Morsi’s Power Grab
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President Morsi did not discuss political coup d’etat with his government loyalists, the MB decided!
More below the fold …
The Morsi “coup”: Coup d’etat, coup de grace or coup de theatre?
Before addressing the complicated and opaque politics of Morsi’s decision it is worth spending a bit of time on Morsi’s own situation. Morsi was nominated for the presidency by the Freedom and Justice party when it became clear that its preferred candidate, Khairat Shater, would be ineligible to run. Morsi had long been in Shater’s shadow and, despite his doctoral degree from the University of Southern California and his appointment at Cal State Northridge, has usually been presented in the media as an unimaginative drudge. Perhaps he is, but political history is littered with “spare tires” such as Morsi who by a train of accidents came to power and turned out to be surprisingly more effective than the more qualified person whose place they were holding. Lyndon Johnson accomplished more for social equity and civil rights than John F. Kennedy ever would or could have; Stalin outmaneuvered Trotsky at nearly every turn; and Anwar Sadat was widely derided in the days after Nasser’s death as an ineffective place-holder who would be easily managed.
If it is a mistake to underestimate Morsi’s abilities and equally wrong to overestimate him and the Muslim Brothers, it may be an even larger mistake to underestimate the effect of being president. I doubt being president magically turns political leaders into pragmatic liberals. On the contrary I suspect it magnifies whatever sense they have of their own importance. Days after assuming office Morsi indicated he wanted to pray at the Azhar mosque. Six months or six years ago he would, at best, have been an inconspicuous figure in the back of the hall, but in June he was whisked with a special presidential security entourage to pray in the front row with senior Azhari shaykhs. I doubt he would have had the Saudi Embassy’s email address on his computer when he was a professor at Northridge; now he is the guest of King Abdullah at a summit. No doubt, Professor Morsi remains (in his heart) a good Brother and a devout Muslim, but President Morsi does not seem to have invited either Brother Shater or Supreme Guide Badi’ to the presidential palace for strategy discussions. From here on out if he disagrees with them or anyone else I’m sure there will be an ample supply of sycophants to tell him exactly how smart he is. One of them, in fact, appears to have been re-appointed editor of a state-owned newspaper after spending a time in professional purgatory for having been as effusive about Mubarak as he has recently become about Morsi. None of this is Morsi’s choice, but neither politicians nor professors are known for their modesty.
At the time of his election Morsi created a website (in English as well as Arabic) called the Morsi Meter. It’s been ticking since he took the oath of office and it lists 64 promises he planned to keep by the end of his first 100 days in office. The promises are all good government promises designed to affect ordinary Egyptians’ access to food, fuel, transportation, security, and cleanliness. As of today, 47 days after his inauguration, he has by his own estimate unambiguously achieved one goal: raising public awareness about the need for public cleanliness and why it’s sinful to throw garbage in the street.
