Egypt politics: Muslim Brotherhood gain ground

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has made major advances in the first round of Egypt’s three-phase parliamentary election, at the main expense of established opposition parties. The MB has been allowed to field independent candidates under its slogan, “Islam is the Solution”, although the organisation is technically banned.

Following run-off elections on November 14th for 133 of the 164 seats contested in the first round, the MB has emerged with 34 seats, double its tally for the previous election in 2000. Most of the remaining seats have gone to the National Democratic Party (NDP), which is headed by President Hosni Mubarak, or else to independents, most of whom are likely to pledge allegiance to the NDP. Fewer than ten seats have gone to the opposition parties.

The MB’s gains have not come as great surprise, given that the government has allowed the Islamist movement more leeway to mobilise its supporters than has been the case in previous elections. The MB seems to have every chance of winning sufficient seats to satisfy one of the conditions for putting forward a candidate in the next presidential election, which is to be held in 2011 at the latest. An independent candidate for the presidency must secure the support of at least 65 MPs (some of the other conditions will be harder for the MB to achieve, however). The threshold for candidates from established parties is 5% of the total number of parliamentary deputies. The MB is putting forward 110 candidates for the remaining 280 seats, with the final round of voting scheduled to take place on December 7th.

Based on its first-round performance, in which some two-thirds of the 52 MB candidates that were fielded won seats, the group has an excellent chance of securing more 20-25% of the total seats--the next round will include Alexandria, where the MB has a strong base of support. However, this will still be too few to have a major impact on government policy. The MB has not articulated a detailed policy programme; its priorities tend to lie in the cultural and social fields rather than in the economy.

Votes for sale

The government refused to allow international supervision of the election, but was obliged by the courts to allow monitoring by local organisations, which have documented widespread abuses. Remarkably, the leading state-run newspaper, Al Ahram, published a front-page story on November 16th detailing some of the more flagrant abuses observed by its reporters--six days earlier the newspaper had trumpeted the elections as the “cleanest in 50 years”. In one Cairo district, Al-Ahram reported that the market price for a vote had soared during the day of the run-offs, starting at E£100 (US$17) and reaching £E1,000 towards the end of the day. Some voters received vouchers for the purchase of household goods, rather than cash. One innovation entailed giving voters mobile phones equipped with cameras so that they could photograph their filled-out ballot papers so as to certify that they had supported the right candidate before receiving their reward.

Old guard

The early stages of the current parliamentary election have been marked by strong showings from the veteran wing of the NDP, with comfortable victories for pillars of the party establishment, including Zakaria Azmi and Kamal el-Shazli (who have served for many years as effective parliamentary fixers for Mr Mubarak) and Ahmed Ezz, a businessman who has achieved a commanding position in Egypt’s steel industry over the past decade. There has so far been little sign of any major advances by the supposed new guard of the NDP, promoted by the president’s son, Gamal, who heads the NDP policy secretariat but is not standing for election.



SOURCE: ViewsWire Middle East