After Muhammad Ali retired from politics ... What are the options for the Egyptian opposition?

Abdel Rahman Mohamed - Cairo

Over the course of five months, the appearance of the contractor and actor Mohamed Ali in the Egyptian scene created a wide momentum and a great impact, with which all parties interacted, by revealing corruption files, and calling on him to rally against President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, and demanding his departure.

The story started with a video clip in Barcelona, ​​Spain, in which he presented stories of corruption to Sisi, his family and some army leaders, but soon it developed into calls for rallying, which led to the September 20 demonstrations that confused the regime, then prepared a document to reconcile the opposition forces, and announce A plan to remove Sisi, but it finally ended with the political contractor completely retiring.

Muhammad Ali announced his retirement from political work and the closure of his Facebook page, after his failure to invite him to protest and protest against the Sisi regime on the ninth anniversary of the January 25, 2011 revolution, considering that not leaving means either the people's satisfaction with the regime or fear of repression.

According to observers, this retirement left a trail in the ditch of opponents of the regime, and raised questions about the options of the opposition forces in the post-commemoration of the revolution, especially since some of them were content to make Muhammad Ali the symbol of the stage, and presented it to the public in this capacity, the same audience that demanded symbols The opposition to retire, similar to that of the contractor.

Has not changed
The leader of the Revolution Tomorrow Party, Ayman Nour, believes that Muhammad Ali was not an integral part of the opposition movement, which built its positions for years in a cumulative and clear manner, but considered it a suggestive and promising case, as it achieved a degree of communication with sectors that were not closely related to the opposition.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Nour (the former presidential candidate) goes that the options of the forces opposing the regime after Muhammad Ali's retirement have not changed, refusing to reduce them to specific tasks that lead to the perception of their failure in the event that they did not materialize, so the opposition is required to exert effort and work to accumulate the causes of victory.

He believes that the opposition has made progress in several roles, including raising awareness through media outlets, but also called on them to re-evaluate their positions, without this leading to withdrawal from the scene.

Nour strongly condemned the demands of the opposition forces to step down and withdraw following the example of Muhammad Ali, stressing that the only beneficiary of this withdrawal if it occurred was Sisi and his regime.

Useful experience

In turn, Muhammad Sudan, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and Secretary of External Relations of the Freedom and Justice Party, saw that Muhammad Ali's failure to achieve his goal of mobilizing people was the result of his deviation from the populist line and his entry into the political sphere.

Sudan considered that the crisis of the opposition forces is previous and subsequent to the case of Muhammad Ali, and is represented in its fragmentation, after the regime succeeded in spreading the spirit of division between them, and demolished the alliance supporting the legitimacy, which he saw as the greatest gain of the revolutionary power and the military, according to his description.

But the Brotherhood leader believes that Muhammad Ali’s experience can be built upon and taken advantage of by the opposition, by investing the information he provided that helped raise many doubts among sectors that were supportive of Sisi, which helps widening the circle of those who reject him.

Sudan did not agree with those who see a blockage of the horizon in the path of efforts to resolve the crisis, considering that the decision to withdraw Mohamed Ali from the political scene is correct, but he must continue to disclose information of corruption, and the opposition abroad must continue in its efforts to bring down the coup.

The big mistake

As for Amr Adel, head of the political bureau of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council, he considers that what Muhammad Ali's experience has ended is natural in light of the big mistake of visualizing opposition sectors that hoped for any solution at any cost, even if it was a cinematic as Muhammad Ali called for.

In his talk to Al-Jazeera Net, Adel favors the fact that the groups - who depend in their movement against the regime on the existence of a model like Muhammad Ali - seek to find someone to succeed him in the scene, and whoever calls for the struggle, organizes and frames him will remain as well.

He believes that the question about the options is not in order, as reality imposes inevitations on those in the scene, which are based on the sincere work to make a profound change in the Egyptian system.

He pointed out that the council was not affected or dealt with the experience of Muhammad Ali and the similar experiences that preceded it, and that it continues in its path, expected to push the contractor's withdrawal from the scene to realize what is the real viable project, even if it was more cruel and more precious sacrifice.

Revolution goals

For his part, the academic and the dissident thinker Nader Al-Farajani saw that the mistake in who tried to make from Muhammad Ali a revolutionary leader for utilitarian political purposes, considering what the contractor had provided contributed to moving the stagnant political pools, and that he could not accomplish more than what was presented.

Al-Ferjani stressed - in a Facebook post - that the revolution, whose first wave took place on January 25, will remain "burning until it attains its lofty goals of freedom, decent living, social justice and human dignity for all on the land of Egypt."

The goals of the revolution were also present in opposition statements at home, which issued several statements on the ninth anniversary confirming that the demands of the revolution are still far from the people.

The statements included demands submitted to the existing authority, including opening the doors to peaceful political action, ending the blockade of opposition parties, ending media censorship, independence of the national decision, the immediate release of all prisoners of opinion, and the closure of all political issues.