At an iftar hosted by the Muslim Brotherhood Monday in Beni Suef, Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie downplayed the leadership’s ability to affect politics and warned against what he described as a “theft of the revolution.”
“The cabinet formation is an inherent right for the president and prime minister. The Brotherhood doesn’t intervene in this,” Badie said. “The Brothers are not alternatives for the authorities. However, they are oppressed in the current political scene.”
Badie said that those who claim that the supreme guide is the actual ruler of Egypt are mistaken.
“I can order no one other than my wife and sons,” he said.
Badie also criticized those who “circulate rumors and false news among people,” such as claims that he provided Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, LE1 billion in weapons as well as fuel needed for Egyptian power plants, causing power outages.
“When we visited [President] Morsy in the presidential palace, we prayed in a group and then met with some leaders of the presidential guard who assured that they felt Islam for the first time,” Badie said. “The tyrant used to push them out of prayers to see who they are loyal to: God or Mubarak.” Badie added that Egypt doesn’t need a scientific, economic, touristic or cultural renaissance, but a moral one.
“The success of the revolution is not the end,” he said.
“We will stand for the next local councils’ elections through Freedom and Justice Party,” Badie said, adding that the group doesn’t interfere in policy or the selection of nominees, and that they don’t impose anything on President Mohamed Morsy.
“While heading from my home in the fifth settlement for prayers during the elections, I met some women distributing flyers for Morsy. I stood with them, when someone in a luxurious car passed by and said, 'Your leaders live in palaces, while you canvass for them in the sun.' I told him that I’m the Brotherhood’s supreme guide and that I live in an apartment composed of two rooms and a hall. If this hadn’t happen, this person would have thought that the Brotherhood’s leaders live on isolated islands,” Badie recalled.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
