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Egypt's Revolution Part II
(New York Times) Thomas L. Friedman - Morsi narrowly won the presidency by 51% because he managed to persuade many secular and pious but non-Islamist Egyptians that he would govern from the center, focus on the economy and be inclusive. The Muslim Brotherhood never could have won with just its base alone. Many centrist Egyptian urban elites chose to vote for Morsi because they could not bring themselves to vote for his opponent, Ahmed Shafik, a holdover from the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Then the Muslim Brotherhood became much more focused on locking themselves and their cronies in power than fixing Egypt's economy and making its government more representative. The rural and urban poor resented the fact that instead of delivering jobs and bread, as promised, Morsi delivered gas lines and electricity cuts. Egypt's Coptic Christians, some of whom were key supporters of the revolution against Mubarak, never trusted Morsi, who seemed to turn a blind eye to attacks on Christians. The Muslim Brotherhood has always been a Leninist-like party, with a very strict hierarchy and a conspiratorial view of political life honed from long years in the underground. The very characteristics that enabled it to survive repeated arrests for 80 years worked against any spirit of inclusiveness once it was in power. Egypt will never be stable unless it has a government that represents all the main political forces in the country - and that still includes the Muslim Brotherhood, which probably still enjoys support from at least 25% of the voting public.