US would be 'satisfied' with Brotherhood win in Egypt
By JPOST.COM STAFF, REUTERS
LAST UPDATED: 11/05/2011 04:28
The United States will judge elected parties in the MidEast based "on what they do and not what they're called," AFP reports.
![Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leaders [file]](../HttpHandlers/ShowImage.ashx?ID=163757 "Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leaders [file]")
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leaders [file] Photo: Amr Dalsh / Reuters
The
United States would be "satisfied" should free elections in Egypt
produce a victory for the Muslim Brotherhood, AFP reported Friday
according to the US's special coordinator for transitions in the Middle
East, William Taylor.
Taylor said the US would judge elected
parties in the Middle East based "on what they do, and not what they're
called," AFP quoted him as saying. He added that he did not meet with
Brotherhood officials in his latest visit to Cairo, but would have had
he been given the chance.
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transitions said that so-called Arab Spring revolutions and a desire for
democratic elections create an environment in which groups like the
Muslim Brotherhood are able to shed associations with terror.
Taylor's comments came the week after Tunisia - widely seen as the birthplace of Arab Spring revolutions - elected its own Islamist Ennahda party to form a governing coalition.
Ennahda emerged the victor in the nation's first ever free elections.
The
party, banned before the revolution that ousted President Zine
al-Abidine Ben Ali, won 90 of the 217 seats in the new assembly.
It was not, however, an outright win.
The party is expected to form a coalition with two of the secularist runners-up.
Ennahda's leader is pledging a new dawn for Tunisians.
Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of the Ennahda party, said, "We give our
promise to them to continue to realize the aims of the revolution in a
Tunisia that is free, independent, developing and prosperous, and where
the rights of God, the Prophet, women, men, the religious and
non-religious, are assured because Tunisia is for everybody."