Muslim Brotherhood leaders will go down in history as contributing to the loss of the 25 January revolution, which Egyptians paid dearly for, a former member has said.
Haitham Abu Khalil wrote on his Facebook page that history will find that "the group's leaders insisted on fielding a presidential candidate despite a pledge they had made earlier not to compete for the presidency in the interim period."
"As a result of that, votes were splintered to favor candidates from the former regime," he said, adding that this could allow the rigging of the election for a Mubarak regime candidate.
Abu Khalil is a former Brotherhood member who resigned from the group last year in objection to what he viewed as its non-revolutionary stances. He is also the head of the Dahaya Human Rights Center.
He said the group was reckless in pouring its anger on Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh, once a key member, instead of leveling its criticism against Amr Moussa, who he described as a Mubarak regime remnant.
The Brotherhood decided to dismiss Abouel Fotouh after he decided to run for president even though the group's position at the time was to not field a candidate.
Abu Khalil said Egypt is in "a deep state of frustration due to the loss of the dream of the revolution" and a reversion to suppressed freedoms.
The Brotherhood will struggle to shunt responsibility for the loss of the revolution and persuade people that its failure was the result of “some Zionist-American scheme to abort the development project adopted by Khairat al-Shater and his replacement, Mohamed Morsy," Abu Khalil said.
