If the ousted Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) was Egypt’s consensus number one after last year’s elections, the Salafist al-Nour movement was the number two, coming up with solid showings in both parliamentary votes.
hat made al-Nour a huge power in the post-coup situation, as the Egyptian military was desperate to keep them on board with the coup, and even ditched Mohamed ElBaradei as prime minister because al-Nour objected, selecting a somewhat more palatable option instead.
But after today’s massacre there’s no keeping them on board, and al-Nour has announced that it is withdrawing support from the junta, and will not support the “roadmap” plan.
Losing al-Nour might make the junta more palatable to the West, as it will have lost all support from all Islamist factions at this point, but internally the loss weakens their position markedly, and sets them up against influential clerics who are growing less contented with the junta as time passes.
Morsi gained ~50% of the voters, al Nour another ~25%. That means the coup is now running on the last 25% assembled from fragments of various losers.
Those fragments are all from "liberals," but the sort of liberals that want a coup if they can't win. That is not liberal in most places, just non-Muslim in a Muslim country. And now they have shot an entire crowd as it was praying during a sit in.
This is a disaster of the first order, as Egyptian politics.