Anani [and Lynch] on the Muslim Brotherhood Succession

Khalil al-Anani, at the Al-Ahram Foundation and formerly at Brookings, has a blog called Al-Islamiyyun al-Yawm following political Islamist movements; he has a useful backgrounder (in Arabic) on the issue of succession to the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, which I've already alluded to in these two posts here and here. Anani also has an English version of his blog, but as of this writing it doesn't have an English version of the post on the Brotherhood. If it appears in English, I'll link to it.

In the meantime, he notes that discussion of holding elections for the new Supreme Guide instead of relying on the traditional Islamic method of bay‘a or declaring allegiance, would be something quite new for the Brotherhood. In the past, Supreme Guides have always either died in office or stepped aside due to illness, whereas Mahdi ‘Akef is voluntarily giving up the post though eligible for another term. He goes on to analyze the potential candidates and the various trends within the Brotherhood. It's worth a read.

UPDATE: No English of Anani up yet as of Friday afternoon, but Marc Lynch has a detailed analysis at The National, and also points us to an article there on the subject. These cover some of the same ground and if anything in even more detail.