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The most recent manifestation of the prevalence of this outlook was the election of Mahdi Akef as the supreme guide in 2004. Akef epitomised the desire to perpetuate the internal concord between the two basic trends. At the time he was elected -- at the age of 76 -- he stood in the middle of the two generations in the leadership bureau. On one side there was the old guard who were mostly over 80, on the other the generation that had become Islamist activists in the universities in the 1970s and who were mainly in their 50s. Akef represents a convergence between the two trends and age groups in other ways. Barely 12 when he joined the Muslim Brotherhood, he was trained by the organisation's founder, Hassan El-Banna. In addition to belonging to the generation of founders, he early joined the organisation's underground paramilitary wing. At the same time he enjoys considerable credibility and popularity among the younger and more open- minded MB generations involved in public affairs. He was the spiritual father of the project to found the Wasat (Centre) Party, which was to represent the MB in the public domain before the leadership crisis ended with the dismissal or resignation of most of the party's founders. As supreme guide, Mahdi Akef sought to preserve the concord between the two trends. However, various developments, some brought on by Akef himself, diminished the possibility of sustaining a workable formula for mutually complementary coexistence.

Under Akef the MB experienced an onrush of pressures and changes that was perhaps too fast for an octogenarian leadership and too heavy of a strain upon the bond between the two major trends. During this period, Akef proved instrumental in promoting MB involvement in participatory politics, which brought the MB face to face with difficult questions it has failed to answer with the necessary clarity. The shift towards political involvement, which favours pragmatism and flexibility over ambiguity, tenacity and rigidity, worked to expose inherent discrepancies.

The most critical setback occurred in 2007, when the proposed MB political party, which no one expected to see the light of day, unveiled its platform. That the reformists laid out their vision against the backdrop of a political clampdown gave the conservatives the opening they needed to oust the reformists from their positions of influence within the organisation, uproot their bases of legitimacy, and to introduce crucial changes into the political party platform. The most notorious amendments the conservatives added prohibited Copts and women from running for public office and subordinated the legislature to religious supervision. These two changes alone were sufficient to decimate the reformist character and aims of the platform.

A second critical juncture arrived with the MB's internal council elections in 2008. The conservatives swept the board after having introduced constitutional changes in the council's makeup. The victory enabled them to elevate five hardliners to the organisation's Guidance Bureau. Perhaps this was the first and only occasion in which the supreme guide departed from his role as keel and mediator to put his full weight behind the reformists in the hope of pre-empting the almost total hegemony of hardliners. It was a race for time, and his first card was to bring Essam El-Erian onto the Guidance Bureau in order to shift the weight, if only a little, away from the hardliners who had been a dominating force since Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh and Mohamed Ali Bashr, two leading reformists, were detained. Akef failed in his bid. He had attempted to appoint El-Erian as his deputy, which he believed was his right under the regulations governing the Guidance Bureau; however, the move met with the opposition of all the other members of the bureau.

His second step was to attempt to influence the selection of his successor before leaving office, hoping at least to keep the post from the hardliners even if they monopolised the selection process. If we assume that Mahmoud Ezzat, the leading symbol of the conservatives, still sees himself as a supreme guide-maker, as opposed to the supreme guide himself, then he is certain to back a candidate from within the hardline camp. Currently, conjectures are wavering between Mahmoud Badie and Gomaa Amin, although of the two the latter seems to stand the better chance, judging by recent leaks to the media.

Meanwhile, First Deputy Mohamed Habib seems to have positioned himself closer to the hardliners. He sided with them in their opposition to El-Erian and has openly criticised Akef's leadership, especially during the latest crisis. Yet on closer inspection Habib is nearer to Akef than he appears and could well be the supreme guide's choice as successor. In fact, the two may have even reached an understanding or an arrangement to leverage Habib into the post of supreme guide which will become free at the beginning of 2010. One indication of the existence of such an understanding is that Akef has ceded some of his powers to Habib. The supreme guide's first deputy wasted no time in publicising this mandate outside the organisational structures of the MB, most notably via a carefully worded message broadcast on Al-Jazeera, as well as through interviews and statements to the press. The hardliners, for their part, hastened to minimise the significance of this mandate, which they insisted had no bearing on the selection of the successor to the supreme guide. In fact, one member of the Guidance Bureau went so far as to question whether the delegation of powers actually took place at all.

In the absence of any arbitrating authority to which the parties could turn to resolve disputes -- traditionally, the supreme guide served as such an authority -- the conflict will escalate. Mahdi Akef can no longer act as mediator, not only because he is a party to the dispute -- some would say the subject of the controversy -- but also because over the past five years he has managed to dispel the halo that once surrounded the office of the supreme guide. Nor is there anyone else in the Guidance Bureau capable of performing the role. Some -- Lasheen Abu Shanab and Mohamed Abdallah El-Khatib -- have been too ill to be actively involved and command the necessary sway while others lack the prestige and moderation to act in such a way. Gomaa Amin, for one, is known for his volatile temper.

The deeper effect of the crisis will be seen in greater organisational and ideological rigidity. The hardliners will probably engage in sweeping disciplinary measures, introduce stricter criteria for promotion, and continue their campaign to isolate and permanently sideline the reformist trend. The MB is thus on the threshold of another of its McCarthyist phases, such as that in 1996 targeting the sponsors of the Wasat Party, when a systematic campaign was launched to purge liberal-minded thinkers from the MB's rank and file.