Future of Brotherhood in North Africa: Popular challenges outweigh political competition

The international organization of the Brotherhood is facing a difficult situation in North Africa against the backdrop of the successive losses that the group has received, which may threaten its popularity for years to come and affect its political ambitions towards the Libyan elections as its most prominent file after its decline in the rest of the countries in the region.

The decline that the group is experiencing in North Africa threatens its political future because it stems from a popular desire to exclude the current from power amid accusations of working for non-national private organizational agendas, which makes the current challenge the most dangerous in the group’s history.

Scenes of retreat threaten the Brotherhood

The Brotherhood has experienced difficult periods in its organizational history in the past, but what distinguishes this stage is the existence of a popular consensus about the group’s danger to the concepts of the national state and respect for geographical borders. In the previous scenes, the group faced authoritarian currents that reject its existence and fear its stances towards violence and the bearing of arms. As for the current situation, the group’s ideas and behavior are exposed in front of peoples, with the presence of a popular sect not to be underestimated that has closely watched the group’s crimes.

The loss of the Brotherhood in Tunisia comes as one of the most important losses suffered by the group, following the decision of President Kais Saied on July 25, 2021 to dissolve parliament and lift the immunity of all its members. The group represented a majority in the parliament, which constituted a great loss for the Ennahda party, its political representative in the country. The most notable aspect in this file is that Saied’s decisions were the result of popular protests against the group for their failure in domestic as well as foreign files.

Tunisia’s popular protests against the Brotherhood witnessed accusations of the group raising the interest of the organization at the expense of the interest of the country, in addition to involving the leaders of foreign countries loyal to them in their stances towards the homeland, as well as border files, especially Libya, which threatens the group’s reputation and creates a public awareness of its strategy towards the national authorities.

The group’s loss of the parliamentary elections in Algeria held in May 2021 represents a massive popular decline for its political representative, the Movement of Society for Peace, which adds to its popular losses in the region and highlights the importance of the loss in Algeria in being one of the Arab Spring countries that is experiencing a political transitional phase that the group was looking forward to obtain on a major political center within it.

As for Libya, the group fears the upcoming presidential elections, which makes its leadership in a state of successive threat to this measure. The group’s fears about the elections are due to their popular losses in society, a loss that will affect them greatly, as the Libyan people lived the extent of the group’s acceptance of violence, carrying arms and sponsoring armed militias. In Egypt, the group lost power completely after the June 30 revolution and the Egyptian people's rejection of the Brotherhood's orientations.

Diaspora of the Brotherhood and their political future

The loss of North Africa is huge geographically and strategically for the group, as the region represents the southern maritime borders of the European Union countries, as well as the riches it has in terms of natural gas and vital ports.

The losses of the Brotherhood in North Africa are not organized without discussing the impact of the group’s leadership differences on its future in the region. The divisions between the Mahmoud Hussein front and Ibrahim Munir front express the low scene in the group, as well as affect the unity of its behavior towards important files, which leads to the exacerbation of its losses in Africa and internationally.