the Muslim Brotherhood’s position

This is an excerpt from that same NY Times article.

“Mohamed el-Beltagui, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the outlawed Islamist group that had been the major opposition in Egypt until the secular youth revolt, said that the organization would not run a candidate in any election to succeed Mr. Mubarak as president.

He said his members wanted to rebut Mr. Mubarak’s argument to the West that his iron-fisted rule was a crucial bulwark against Islamic extremism. ‘It is not a retreat,’ he said in an interview at the group’s informal headquarters in the square. ‘It is to take away the scare tactics that Hosni Mubarak uses to deceive the people here and abroad that he should stay in power.’

Mr. Beltagui, who represents the Brotherhood on an opposition committee to negotiate a transitional government, said the group wanted a ‘civil state,’ not a religious one. ‘We are standing for a real democracy, with general freedom and a real sense of social justice.’

Like many others in the square, Mr. Beltagui said he was not worried that the military might back a new dictator to succeed Mr. Mubarak. He said the determination of the protesters would forestall that, and noted that a religious leader who appeared to back away from some of the protesters’ democratic demands was booed from a makeshift stage in Tahrir Square.”