Hegazy: MB and Mubarak regimes don’t belong to Egypt’s future

“The Muslim Brotherhood has to decide whether they can join [the roadmap], and start taking actual steps, the first of which is to make a public apology for all they’ve done,” said Mostafa Hegazy, the presidential advisor for strategic affairs, during a press conference held late Tuesday.

The press conference started with a fifteen-minute short film about Egypt after June 30, according to journalist Nadine Marroushi, which called ousted President Mohamed Morsi’s government “the worst regime in Egyptian history.”

According to Hegazy’s opening statement, the conference was not merely held to clarify the details of the current political situation in Egypt, but to put them within a wider context, which he said is the quest for freedom, adding that Egyptians know their enemies — religious fascism and corruption.

Hegazy said that the results of the constitutional referendum confirm that the reason Egyptians took to the streets was for freedom, and that “they will not allow the toppled regime to force them to settle for either freedom or bread, as there’s no contradiction between the two.”

He maintained that there's no place for extremism in Egypt’s future, whether in the name of religion, the state, or corruption, and asserted that attempts were made to reconnect with the Brotherhood before they were officially declared a terrorist organization.

He added that they refused any dialogue and declined to take part in the constitutional committee. “How can you initiate dialogue with someone refusing the very idea?” he asked. 

“We have no intention of excluding anyone from the political spectrum,” however, “whoever commits criminal or acts of terror will be investigated and punished,” he clarified.

Meanwhile, regarding future policy in dealing with the Brotherhood, Hegazy said that the government would not resort to the former regime’s methods of banning them in public and dealing with them behind closed doors, adding that “if the law bans the Brotherhood, the regime would however be forbidden from dealing with them.”

He continued, “Both Mubarak-era and Brotherhood regimes don’t belong to the future in Egypt, as we won’t forget that there are Egyptians who revolted against the situation pre-January 25. We can’t twist facts, and whoever says January 25 was not a revolution, is just as delusional as the Brotherhood who say the June 30 revolution was Photoshopped.”

Hegazy, who had hoped that participation rates in the referendum would reach 80 percent, said “most democratic states never exceed a 73 percent participation rate.”

“With participation reaching 40 percent, 98 percent of which was ‘yes’ in comparison to the Brotherhood’s 2012 constitutional referendum, which received 31 percent ‘yes,’ it seems the results now are twice as much as back then,” he added.

In line with recent accusations of excluding young people from the political process, which manifested itself in reports of low turnout by citizens between the ages of 18 and 30 in the 2014 constitutional referendum, Hegazy addressed Egypt’s youth, saying, “the government will protect Egyptians from any violence or attempts to restore a regime Egyptians revolted against. This is a promise the government made and will abide by in the future.”

However, when asked about the imprisonment of January 25 activists, Hegazy said that they “broke the law and are being tried according to it. The cases have nothing to do with their activism.” He maintained that the same rule applies for detained journalists, “who are detained because they also broke the law and not because of their profession.”

A presidential decree regarding parliamentary and presidential elections will be issued within a month, according to Hegazy, who was asked about the possibility of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi running for president.

Hegazy said, “Egyptians don’t have to justify anything but to themselves. As a free country having its own will, we don’t have to justify the right of a candidate to run for presidency,” fuelling recent speculations that the army general is planning to stand.