‘Egyptian Brotherhood will hand power over to clerics’

A group of ultraconservative Muslim clerics on Wednesday said the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential hopeful has promised to give clerics power to oversee legislation in Egypt.

The promise came when Brotherhood candidate Khairat el-Shater met a panel of hard-line Salafi scholars and clerics, trying to win support in next month’s presidential election. El-Shater wants to avert a rift in the Islamist ranks between multiple candidates and unite them behind himself.

The panel, called the Jurisprudence Commission for Rights and Reform, says in a Wednesday posting on its Facebook page that el-Shater said that, if elected, he would form a council of clerics to review legislation to ensure it adheres to Islamic Shariah law. A Brotherhood spokesman could not immediately confirm the offer.

On Tuesday, a senior Defense Ministry official questioned the seriousness of recent statements by members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood that they are committed to the peace treaty with Israel.

In an interview with Army Radio, Director of Policy and Political-Military Affairs Amos Gilad said that “although the Muslim Brotherhood claims to be committed to the treaty, I’m not sure that it’s true.”

Last week, Amr Darrag, a founding member of the Freedom and Justice party — the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm — said in London that Egypt will uphold its peace treaty with Israel, but that Israel would have to face a new reality, whereby it is accountable to the entire Egyptian people and not to one man alone, its former ally Hosni Mubarak.

On Tuesday, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate for Egypt’s presidency, Khairat Shater, told a United States Republican Party delegation that he was committed to the peace agreement with Israel.