Re: In today's news...
When the Egyptians were allowed to vote, they voted for the strictest muslim party they had available. Somehow, the people there want this stuff. At least enough to get a majority going.
The Muslim Brotherhood managed to mobilize a lot of the lower classes, as they've been doing extensive outreach work; handing out food, funding schools, renovating public areas, etc. They also promised a sack of rice for every vote, I think, or something along those lines.
It might sound ludicrous to us (or perhaps not), but when you're dirt poor and all the other alternatives are doing squat for you, little things like that mean a lot.
The same happens in a lot of Latin-American countries, I recently read a book about how it works in the highlands of Equador. There, the different parties promise jobs in the public sector for prominent party recruiters once they come into powers, or promise various local borough councils to fix roads or repair schools, to gain the public support of council leaders. It's called
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, and is common in a lot of countries where normal people expect very little from the government. I mean, they all
know the politicians are crooked and corrupt as shit, but at least during election times they can get
something from them.
The problem was mainly that the Muslim Brotherhood was going to put all sorts of strictly religious stuff into the new constitution, something most of the other parties opposed for various reasons. Part of it was that by giving religious officials more power, they'd undermine the authority of the secular governments, and sharing power is always tricky in nation-building. Others were afraid of losing support from the US, and yet others were afraid that it would scare away foreign investors. And then there were the religious minorities, like the few Shias and the Coptic Christians (and probably others I don't know too much about) that were
really not keen on the idea.
