Muslim Brotherhood: We are on every street

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The Muslim Brotherhood has been Egypt's largest opposition group for years. Now, with the regime of President Hosni Mubarak wobbling, the organization could find its way into power -- and is doing its best to look legitimate.

A Koran, two crossed swords and a message: "Prepare yourselves." The crest of the Islamist Egyptian group Muslim Brotherhood is nothing if not martial. Perhaps even a bit too martial for the international press.

On the first floor of a shabby apartment building on El-Malek El-Saleh street in downtown Cairo, the group -- which for years has been Egypt's largest opposition movement -- is receiving a gaggle of scribes from abroad. And the official symbol is nowhere to be seen.

Even verses from the Koran or photographs of the holy Kaaba in Mecca, of the kind that hang in living rooms across Egypt, are absent. Instead, visitors are confronted with desks piled high with fliers, packed bookcases and cabinets full of file folders. The message is clear: The Muslim Brotherhood is but a normal political party, right down to the business cards, water fountain and chalk board.

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Just how the Muslim Brotherhood will position itself should Mubarak's regime fall is, for the moment, a matter of speculation. The group's participation in the week-old demonstrations, however, has been largely inconspicuous. There have been few Islamist banners to be seen, almost no Islamists chants to be heard on the streets of Cairo. Is the group taking a wait-and-see approach in case the demonstrations fail in the end?

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The group enjoys widespread support in Egypt, with some estimates putting support at roughly 30 percent. ElBaradei told ABC he thought some 20 percent of Egyptians supported the Muslim Brotherhood.

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Members of the group campaign for parliament as independents and form an unofficial bloc. And the Muslim Brotherhood itself professes not to know the true extent of its support in the country. "We don't know how many members we have," Bayoumi said. "The government says three to 4 million. But we don't count. We just know that we are everywhere, in every city, every village and in every street."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,742940,00.html