A sour note for Egyptian elections

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CAIRO -- The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, shaping up as the government's one real political challenger, says a draft constitutional amendment allowing opponents to challenge Hosni Mubarak for president is so "ridiculous" that the group cannot decide how to respond.

Mohammed Habib, first deputy to the leader of the Brotherhood, told The Washington Times yesterday that the proposed changes, approved by the upper house of parliament yesterday, contain "ridiculous conditions that rob the amendment of its soul and take us back to square one."

"Things would remain as is," he said. "So there seems to be no light at the end of this dark tunnel. ...

"We can summarize the political life in Egypt by saying that there are two extremes -- the ruling party with all its agencies and all its institutions, and the Muslim Brotherhood," he said.

Mr. Habib maintained that the Brotherhood sought only gradual change and had taken care not to present itself as an alternative to a government that nevertheless remained "terrified" of it.

"We have even tried not to run a strong presence in the parliamentary elections, so that the regime does not become too concerned in order to avoid further oppression and harassment."

Even though the reforms will require candidates from religious groups to run as independents, the Brotherhood hastaken an increasingly public profile in the last week, with demonstrations it claims have resulted in the arrest of more than 2,000 people, most of whom remain in jail.

The demonstrations have drawn much larger crowds than those of the fledgling Kifaya (Enough) group, which is largely peopled by disaffected intellectuals and former 1960s radicals, or of the Tomorrow party led by Ayman Nour. The latter has received favorable coverage in the Western media but is not taken seriously by most Egyptians, regardless of their political persuasions.

Mohammad Mehdi Akef, the Brotherhood's leader, known as the supreme guide, charged at a 90-minute press conference in downtown Cairo yesterday that his group had talked with at least one of the country's officially sanctioned political parties about working together on a slate of candidates. But, he said, the government had "made a deal" with the party not to cooperate with the Brotherhood.

His deputy, Mr. Habib, said later in his cluttered office that the Brotherhood has not decided whether to support a presidential candidate or to sponsor some kind of protest vote in which ballots might be left unmarked or an unlisted candidate written in.