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Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian political activist Abdel-Halim Qandil, which aired on Al-Mehwar TV on August 4, 2011:
Abdel-Halim Qandil: Amr Moussa was a senior official. For 10 years, he served as the foreign minister of the deposed president, and then he served for another 10 years, under the deposed president, as secretary-general of the Arab League, representing the deposed regime. He has made endless contradictory statements, and the most recent contradiction that we heard… [Shaaban Abdul Rahim] sings: "I love Amr Moussa and hate Israel," but now it turns out that since 1990, Moussa wanted to supply Israel with gas. In other words, he loves Israel more than others.
Interviewer: If Amr Moussa wins the elections, will you rebuild the Kefaya movement?
Abdel-Halim Qandil: I don't think that Amr Moussa will win. If he does, it will be a real disgrace for the people of this country. They will receive a carbon copy of Mubarak.
Interviewer: A disgrace?
Abdel-Halim Qandil: A disgrace for people's consciousness. They rebelled against Mubarak and then voted for a carbon copy of Mubarak.
Interviewer: Amr Moussa is a carbon copy of the former president?
Abdel-Halim Qandil: He is his shadow.
Interviewer: And Dr. ElBaradei?
Abdel-Halim Qandil: Dr. ElBaradei is a good man, who says nice things. Most of what he says seems reasonable to me. But his lengthy stay abroad… Nothing compares to seeing things for oneself. There is a difference between describing Egypt in abstract terms, and knowing that the population is 85 million…
Interviewer: But Dr. ElBaradei supports normalization with Israel.
Abdel-Halim Qandil: I'm getting to that. Let's say that I lived in a distant capital for most of my life, and then I came to Egypt as a foreign expert… ElBaradei is alien to Egyptian reality. His inclination toward normalization with Israel is connected to this too. There is a great difference between looking at Egypt from the outside, and saying that it must have peace with Israel, and that all the people agree to peace with Israel, and so on, and between living in an Egyptian ambience, [absorbing] their motives for hating Israel – from the motives of Pharaonic times to the Islamic motives – in order to know that this is unacceptable in Egypt.
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Interviewer: Tell me what you think about the Muslim Brotherhood in one sentence.
Abdel-Halim Qandil: The Muslim Brotherhood's time in history has come.
Interviewer: Do you mean to say that you would agree to them being in power?
Abdel-Halim Qandil: Not only would I agree to this, but I call upon the Muslim Brotherhood to compete for all the seats in parliament, and to stop making do with the quotas. They should run for president and assume power, because I am sure that once the Muslim Brotherhood are in power, their popularity would decline drastically. The reason is that their economic and social platform is identical to that of Hosni Mubarak, who bequeathed this crisis to us.
I would like [the Muslim Brotherhood] to rule, so that it will become clear that their platform does not resolve any of this country's problems. I do not have a religious problem with the Muslim Brotherhood. The crux of the problem is that they are the main right-wing party in the country, and we are sick and tired of right-wing thieves. The political right is capitalist by nature, but in a country like ours, it is about theft.
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