Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood elects new leader

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood named on January 16 a new leader, who vowed to promote moderation and respect of pluralism in the country.
"Mohamed Badei has been chosen by majority vote by the Shura Council as the new leader," former Brotherhood leader Mohammed Mahdi Akef announced at a press conference cited by Reuters.
The 67-year-old a veterinary professor at a Beni Sueif University was also approved by the 30-member international council. Badie, the group’s eighth supreme guide, will replace Akef who refused to run for a second six-year term. The election of the new Brotherhood leader came after a dispute between Conservatives, who place an emphasis on strengthening the group’s ideological outreach and reformists who advocate a more active public role.
In an internal election last month, conservatives won the majority of seats in the 18-member executive body, in which the group's deputy chief Mohammed Habib and reformist leader Abdel Moneim Abul-Futuh lost their seats.

Born in 1943 in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla el-Kubra, Badie was jailed for nine years in the 1960s after being accused of membership of the Brotherhood paramilitary cell. In 1994, Badie became responsible for ideological education inside the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1999, he was sentenced to nearly four years in prison together with several group members on charges of membership in an outlawed movement. Badie was elected a member of the 18-member Guidance Bureau in 1996 and 2009. He is also a member of the Brotherhood’s international Shura Council since 2007.
In his acceptance statement, Badie also pledged to promote a moderate understanding of Islam that “respects pluralism in the whole world”.