Muslim Brotherhood cool to the IMF

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is not quite ready to endorse an International Monetary Fund package to help the country through its cash crunch. AFP reports: The Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party said it met with an IMF delegation in Cairo to discuss the loan which is aimed at relieving Egypt’s economy, in crisis since a popular ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is not quite ready to endorse an International Monetary Fund package to help the country through its cash crunch. AFP reports:

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is not quite ready to endorse an International Monetary Fund package to help the country through its cash crunch. AFP reports:

The Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party said it met with an IMF delegation in Cairo to discuss the loan which is aimed at relieving Egypt’s economy, in crisis since a popular uprising last year.

The FJP "does not have any reservations against dealing with the IMF or any other international institution where Egypt is a member," its head Mohammed Mursi said in a statement.

The party "would certainly accept any help from these institutions in any way that would serve public interests," he said.

However, the Islamist party, which dominates parliament, said the government "has not yet submitted a plan of economic measures relating to the loan" and did not say "how this loan will be used, or how it will be paid off."

"The loan will be a burden on the shoulders of Egyptian people, who have the right to know how it will be spent and how it will be paid off," Mursi said.

The IMF appears to be soliciting the approval of all major Egyptian political parties for a loan package. And there’s likely more than just the IMF cash–about $3.2 billion–riding on whether a deal can be struck. The European Union has reportedly made its own offer of assistance conditional on an agreement between the Egyptian authorities and the Fund. 

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

Tags: Egypt, IMF

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