Egypt's Islamists Set to Dominate New Constitution

By MATT BRADLEY

CAIRO—Islamist politicians are set to dominate a committee charged with drafting Egypt's first post-revolutionary constitution, sparking a revolt by secular-minded panel members whose role in the country's political future appears threatened.

Parliamentarians from the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and the hardline Salafi Nour Party could comprise at least two-thirds of the 100-member panel, according to results announced Sunday after a vote by both houses of Egypt's new parliament.

At least eight self-identified liberal members announced their withdrawal from the constituent assembly on Sunday in protest over the overwhelming presence of Islamist politicians who they fear will infuse the founding document with Islamic rules.

The parliament prepared to pick panel members to draft a constitution.

Sunday's development offers the most concrete evidence that the relatively moderate Islamists in the Muslim Brotherhood are willing to partner with the more conservative Salafi Islamist counterparts at the expense of liberal activists and politicians who sparked Egypt's revolution little more than one year ago.

On Sunday, some of those people said the Islamist dominance of the assembly belied the Brotherhood's reassurances that drafting a new founding document would be an inclusive process despite the Islamists' electoral preeminence.

Their withdrawal from the panel gives Islamists almost sole license to design Egypt's permanent political architecture—from the checks and balances between state bodies to statutes governing personal freedoms and rights for religious minorities.

The liberal opposition must now decide whether to remain within Egypt's elected democratic process or fall back on street protests to press their grievances. But that risks destabilizing the country and awarding Islamists even more clout.

"This is a turning point," said Bahey Al Din Hassan, the director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies and a secular-minded activist. "The pattern of relationship between, on one hand, the Islamists and on the other hand liberals and leftists, will be qualitatively changed in the coming period."

The new panel will meet Wednesday to begin deliberations on the constitution. While Egypt's interim military leadership has said that the document should be completed and submitted to a national referendum before the promised transfer of power to civilians at the end of June, many political analysts say the process is likely to take more than three months.

The Brotherhood's ascendant political role also could set the stage for a confrontation with the military, whose failed attempts over the past several months to place limits on the constitution-drafting process have enraged Islamists.

The exact guidelines for the panel's work—such as how it will approve the final constitutional draft or whether the military will have a say in the process—were not stipulated in a referendum last March that established a loose sequence for the transfer of power. Most of those crucial decisions appear to be left to the parliament and the panel they elected.

The delegates who withdrew from the assembly Sunday are expected to be replaced from among the 50 alternates who were also elected by the joint session of parliament on Saturday. Members of parliament make up half of the constitutional assembly, while noted academics, religious leaders, political figures and activists populate the other 50 seats, according to rules adopted at a separate joint session of parliament last week.

But liberal activists noted that even the second half of the assembly included a large number of Islamist religious leaders and political figures and a paucity of constitutional experts, judges and lawyers. The assembly includes only six women and six people from Egypt's Coptic Christian minority.

Gamal Heshmat, a member of parliament from the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party who is not a member of the constitutional assembly, defended the panel's membership on Sunday, saying it is made up of representatives elected to parliament by the Egyptian public. The transitional process itself, said Brotherhood leaders, was approved by an overwhelming majority of Egyptians in the referendum last March.

"There's a part from the opposition that wants to stand in front of the majority," Mr. Heshmat said. "We want to agree and they want to disagree."

The Brotherhood's strong showing in the constituent assembly dovetails with their increasingly assertive political posture since their sweeping victory in parliamentary elections that began late last year.

In the period after street protests felled former President Hosni Mubarak last February, the Brotherhood and other Islamists took pains to project a cooperative, benign image.

Throughout 2011, Brotherhood leaders pledged to run for only a limited number of seats in parliament, assured the Egyptian public that they wouldn't field a presidential candidate and opted out of most of the continuing protests against military rule.

But the Brotherhood ultimately fielded candidates in most parliamentary districts last year. Since winning a nearly 50% plurality in the legislature, its leaders have stepped up their criticism of the military. And last week, the Brotherhood announced that it may nominate one of its own for president.

The reversals have given many liberals cause to suspect that the group will use its seats on the constituent assembly to craft a theocratic constitution despite the Brotherhood's assurances to the contrary.

Egypt's 1971 constitution, which Islamist leaders and other politicians have said would likely form the basis for the new document, already stipulates that Islamic law should form the basis of all legislation. Mr. Mubarak's regime interpreted the article loosely during his 30 years in power.

But Nader Bakr, the Nour spokesman and a constituent assembly member, told an Egyptian newspaper last week that the Nour Party would seek to alter the wording to make legislation conform to Sharia "judgments."

"That goes a long way toward something that looks theocratic," said Michael Hanna, an Egypt expert and fellow at the New York-based Century Foundation.

Write to Matt Bradley at matt.bradley@dowjones.com

A version of this article appeared Mar. 26, 2012, on page A9 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Egypt's Islamists Set to Dominate New Constitution.