Leading Muslim Brotherhood officials on Friday said that the group is forming civil organizations to replace the municipal councils that stopped working, by and large, following the overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak last year.
The municipal councils provided key services and supplies to communitites, trash pick-up, sanitation and road matenance.
Mohamed Abdullah Sayyaf, a Shura council member for the Muslim Brotherhood and head of the administrative office in Beni Suef, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the group has launched 70 civil organizations in different governorates so far. He said they will help supply bread, butane gas, and educational services for children.
"The party and the group will depend heavily on the civil organizations,” he said.
Since the local councils became inactive, he said “it was necessary to find alternatives.”
The local groups are likely to be the frontlines of the group’s “Nahda,” or renaiissance project, which leaders say will revive the economy, education, and other social services.
One young Muslim Brotherhood member and civil organization participant, who declined to be named, said the aim of the groups is to provide services to citizens, and to train the youth to prepare for the managing roles in the coming period, in addition to start planning the municipal elections, scheduled to take place this summer.
Another goal, he said, was “to remove from the leadership of municipal councils the leaders of the disbanded National Party.”
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
