The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has entered a whole new phase, in which the fate of its relationship to power as an Islamic party will be determined on one hand, and the nature of its participation in power will be defined on the other. The Egyptian group was not the first Islamic party to reach power or participate in it in the Arab region, as it was preceded – prior to the Arab spring – by the coup of the Islamic Front in Sudan and the rise of the Justice and Development Party through elections. In addition, the Yemeni Islamists participated in power on more than one level, while the Islamic Ennahda Party in Tunisia earned – with the Arab spring – a majority that led it to power and the command of the coalition. All these Islamic experiences in the authority were flawed by monopolization tendencies, the imposition of opinions and the attempts to Islamize laws and constitutional articles. Nonetheless, they remained the hostage of alliances with other parties, whether political, regional or tribal, as well as the hostage of the social and economic environment they dealt with. Hence, they were unable to impose the authority of the one party, even if some of them had infiltrated the military institution and subsequently enforced an absolute dictatorship. And in the midst of their conflicts and alliances, their Brotherhood character almost dissipated in favor of the necessities to remain in power. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, although it made some alliances to expand its electoral base, remained loyal to its ideology which calls for the imposition of its rule and absolute authority. In other words, its experience in power is that of Islamic party and not that of the party participating in power. The Egyptian Brotherhood was also loyal to the political climate in which it grew at the beginning of the 1930s, i.e. one of totalitarian and military parties, the rise of the Communist, Fascist and Nazi parties, the central command, and absolute power. The failure in which the Brotherhood experience ended through Mohamed Morsi's presidency was due to the group's sustainment of that climate and inability to grasp the major development seen in Egypt and around the world ever since the issuance of Hassan al-Banna's call and the structuring of the party he wanted around eight decades ago. In addition, it was due to the group's inability to understand the aspirations that had accumulated in Egyptian society, ever since Sayyed Qutb considered half a century ago that violence and power were the only way to impose the group's authority. These shortcomings pushed millions of Egyptians to the street to reject the Brotherhood rule, i.e. the use of obsolete ideas to handle modern and emerging problems, and to refuse to succumb to an absolute central command represented by the guide. Morsi's exclusion and the launching of a transitional phase were the result of this wide-scale popular rejection. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has known many stages at the level of political action, thus going from working underground to being tolerated, to being public then legitimate, before reaching power. However, none of the latter stages was appropriate for the Brotherhood to read into the changes and adapt to them as a political party. This intellectual and political stalemate was behind the group's failure to be an inherent part of a normal political life in Egypt, especially when this possibility became a reality with the departure of the former regime and the assumption of the presidency by one of its members. This last failure might be its greatest and exposes the nature of the great flaw it suffers. But the failure did not only affect the management of the country, its complicated problems and foreign affairs, but also the integration of the Egyptian fabric, as the group continued to consider itself one with a special message to be imposed on all, whether parties, committees or institutions. The question today surrounds the group's political project. Can it still reconsider all its previous experiences – especially its short term in power – in order to redraft its course and organizational structure in a way going in line with the current circumstances? Or will it hold on to its history of repeated failures? The answer to that will be revealed by its position in the few coming days. Hence, if it accepts the new constitutional declaration and engages in political action in its context, it might be able to regain its status among the Egyptian parties. However, if it insists on the approach launched by its guide following Morsi's exclusion, one could expect the repetition of what happened inside the quarters of the presidential guards, reaching the spread of violence in the country. If it does so, it would have decided to exit the Egyptian fabric once and for all.
