Mubarak's dirty tricks

The Egyptian parliamentary election has exposed the authoritarian core of the regime of President Hosni Mubarak, despite his earnest efforts to portray the exercise as a step forward on the road to democracy. Having initially allowed the banned Muslim Brotherhood (MB) more leeway than in the past, the regime took fright after the first of the three rounds and used a range of crude tactics to limit the advances of the Islamist group. These measures, according to observers, included physically preventing MB voters from gaining access to polling stations. The final run-off polls were the most violent in the three-stage election, with at least seven people killed.

Despite the harassment, the MB managed to add 12 seats to its tally during the third-round run-offs, bringing its total to 88 of the 444 elected members of the People's Assembly. This represents an impressive strike rate, as the MB only put forward 160 candidates. Mr Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) ended up with about 330 seats decided (12 will be subject to re-runs) and the remainder went to recognised opposition parties and independents.

The Real NDP

The crushing NDP "victory" is not all that it seems. As in 2000, the party's official declared candidates failed to secure a majority, but its number of seats was boosted by candidates who won seats as independents and then declared themselves for the NDP. This represents a humiliating setback for the efforts of Gamal Mubarak, the president's son, to reform the party's structures and impose discipline on its electoral machine and on its policy-making structures. The Gamal Mubarak tendency fared poorly in the election, mainly because of effective blocking tactics by the party's old guard.

For the Mubarak regime, the main achievement of the election has been to hit the target of winning at least two-thirds of the seats in parliament. This means that it will continue to exercise control over constitutional questions in the lead up to the next presidential election, which will be held in 2011, assuming Mr Mubarak serves the entirety of his fifth term.

The MB and the official opposition parties are likely to intensify their push for far-reaching changes to the political system. The MB's priority will be to secure recognition as a political party. Brotherhood leaders have made clear that they wish this to be effected through the passage of a new law on political parties, rather than having recognition conferred upon the movement according to the existing system. The opposition parties, having been swept aside by the surge of popular support for the MB and by the machine politics of the NDP old guard, will most likely press for an urgent review of the electoral system.

The size of the MB bloc in parliament means that the government will find it hard to ignore the movement. Based on previous practice, the most likely response will be harassment of prominent MB figures, detention of Islamist activists, efforts to provoke splits in the movement's ranks--and selective concessions, for example licensing one or two parties set up by Brotherhood sympathisers.

Islamic democracy

The burden of creating effective democratic institutions does not fall entirely on the shoulders of the Mubarak regime. The MB, like its counterparts in many other countries of the Middle East, needs to establish that it is prepared to subscribe to a pluralistic system in which other sects, religions and ethnic groups--as well as secularists--are entitled to engage freely in political activity. However, this can only be put to the test when the regime is prepared to concede that the MB has a legitimate role to play in Egyptian political life.




SOURCE: ViewsWire Middle East