Fighting Islamists with autocracy in Egypt

ISN - Almost three months after Egypt’s parliamentary elections that saw the Muslim Brotherhood win 88 seats, President Hosni Mubarak is attempting to reduce the impact of the unexpected outcome. To fight the Islamic trend and to secure the stability of his regime, Mubarak has postponed local elections, originally scheduled for this spring. At the same time, judges who have criticized alleged large-scale vote-rigging by the authorities are being questioned by state security officials.

However, parallel to the regime’s autocratic policies, Egypt has been experiencing an unexpected lively debate about crucial issues.

The 88 lawmakers from the Muslim Brotherhood, for instance, have ushered in a new climate of discussion, criticizing the government for poor education standards in public schools and miserable conditions in public hospitals.

Brotherhood parliamentarians also openly talk about government corruption. In one of the last sessions they asked why the head of the president’s office, Zakaria Azmi, had made the owner of the Al-Salam shipping company, Mamdouh Ismail, a senator in the upper house of parliament.

Ismail is the owner of the Salam 98 ferryboat, which sank in early February in the Red Sea, killing over 1,000 people.

The transport committee of the lower house of parliament blamed the disaster on “carelessness, indifference, and corruption”.

Asked about the new freedom of discussion, a member of one of the recently established new grassroots opposition groups, who wished to remain anonymous, told ISN Security Watch: “A regime that wants to establish a family dynasty in a country in which millions of people live in poverty has to leave a little psychological outlet for free expression - at least as long as this bit of freedom does not endanger the power of the ruling elite.”

In addition to reading about lively debates in parliament, Egyptians now seem to have the benefit of a largely uncensored press published by opposition parties and independent journalists.

A newspaper like the daily Masr el-Yom reports about corruption of government officials - a risk that most journalists have not taken for nearly half a century.

Hisham Kassem is one of the pioneers of the independent press. Kassem, director of Masr el-Yom, told California’s Mercury News: “Civil liberties, human rights , political reform - that is front page news. And I want 80 per cent of the front page news to be local.”

“Masr el-Yom” (which translates into “Egypt these days”) began publication two years ago with a circulation of 500. Today it has 40,000 readers in a country with over 40 per cent illiteracy - not a bad success as observers note. Many people have turned away from state-run newspapers and made Masr el-Yom their main source of information.

But the new freedom seems to be endangered.

Recently, three Masr el-Yom journalists were sentenced to prison terms for reporting that the home of the then-housing minister had been searched by police because he was under suspicion of corruption.

The independent newspaper Sot al-Umma reacted in a front page commentary, saying: “The game is over. The government has shot a bullet into reform.”

However, in order to prevent a broader public uproar, the former housing minister dropped the case against the three journalists and their fines and sentences were suspended.

Nevertheless, human rights advocates express fear that worse is on its way. Imprisoned opposition politician and former presidential candidate Aiman Nour was again questioned by prosecutors for allegedly having beaten a politician from the ruling National Democratic Party. The attack happened shortly before the presidential election in September last year.

As such, some commentators argue that the new freedom might be limited and does not necessarily extend to the freedom of founding new institutions or freeing existing institutions from government influence.

The Wassat moderate Islamic party, for instance, has not been given a license by the government in spite of an application that dates back to the late 1990s. A final decision, originally expected in February, has been postponed until April.

Furthermore, several judges who accused the government of vote-rigging during the parliamentary elections late last year are being questioned by state security officials.

Judge Mahmoud el-Khodeiri, chairman of the Alexandria Judges Club, told the Associated Press: “This is a kind of terrorism aimed at blocking our demands to halt vote fraud.”

In the elections for the board of trade unions two years ago, approximately 60 per cent of the vote went to candidates orientated to the left. However, in the board of the unions, no member of the left has been allowed to take a seat.

Commentators view the questioning of the judges as a breach of promise by the regime, which has, as they say, declared to continue what it called a process of democratization.

Commentator Ahmed Salama from the state-run newspaper Al-Ahram told the Associated Press: “It's not only that things are going very slowly, there is a kind of liquidation of all democratic stirrings, erasing the democratic spring that we have started to have.

However, unrest among intellectuals is rising. Ahmed al-Aidy, a Cairo-based novelist, told ISN Security Watch: “It is not Hosni Mubarak who gives me freedom. I am born with freedom, and I want it. Now.”

Al-Aidy criticised a plan by the president and his wife, Suzanne Mubarak, to establish a family dynasty and make their son, Gamal Mubarak, the successor to the head of the regime.

“Gamal Mubarak”, al-Aidy said, “does not know the problems of the people. He never was forced to use a public bus”.

Observers see the cancellation of elections for local councils as connected to plans to promote Gamal Mubarak.

They argue that a substantial number of council members must support the nomination of a candidate for president in order for it to be approved. With the advance of the Muslim Brotherhood, the approval of Gamal Mubarak’s succession may be jeopardized, they argue.

The engagement of the 42-year-old Gamal to Khadiga al-Gamal, a 24-year-old graduate of the American University in Cairo and the daughter of a rich businessman, is seen by many as a further preparation of the president’s younger son for succession.

“In watching the engagement […] you will get to know the future first lady,” one observer told ISN Security Watch on condition of anonymity.

“Despite all outward signs of democratic opening, the regime is firm to stay in power,” the observer said.
A quasi dynasty?

But some obstacles remain. Since the overthrow of the monarchy by the Free Officers Movement in 1952, all presidents from Gamal Abdel Nasser to Anwar el-Sadat and Hosni Mubarak have been members of the military.

The military, the large security apparatus, and perhaps in the future the Muslim Brotherhood, are the main institutions the regime must convince in order to establish a family dynasty, analysts say. And no one seems to be sure to what extent the military and security apparatus have been infiltrated by Islamists. However, a majority of analysts believe that the military would agree to a takeover by Gamal Mubarak if it was allowed to retain its large-scale economic privileges.

Although President Mubarak never wears a uniform and attempts to lend a civilian character to his rule, the origin of his rule is military. A takeover by Gamal Mubarak, a banker by profession, would be an important change in the political paradigm of the country.

The army, analysts say, has been preparing itself for such a change.

Commentators point out that in the government formed after the parliamentary elections last December, there are four newly appointed businessmen. All of them, it is said, are supporters of Gamal Mubarak.

The development towards a quasi dynastic system in Egypt contradicts a development in which many people had placed their hopes two years ago. In March 2004, delegates from many Arab countries gathered in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria to vote for the so-called Alexandria Declaration.

The 15-page document urges for the democratization of Arab societies, saying that “democracy is based on all rights for all people, including freedom of thoughts and expression and the right to organize under the umbrella of effective political institutions with an elected legislature, an independent judiciary, a government which is subject to both constitutional and public accountability and political parties of different intellectual and ideological orientations”.

Human rights activists - like Bahey Eddin Hassan from the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies - see the end of the reform period approaching before it has really begun.

During an Arab League forum called the “Outcome of Two Years of Reform in the Arab World” recently held in Rabat, Hassan connected the issue of the Egyptian judges with Arab reform.

“What is happening to the judges is the biggest proof of the total bankruptcy of the will to reform politically,” he said.

When US-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Egypt in late February, she met with representatives of the civil society and expressed disappointment about the progress of democracy in Egypt.

However, according to Reuters news agency, President Muabarak, returning from a trip to Gulf countries, told leaders there he had won over Rice to the Egyptian point of view that democracy would take more than a generation to take hold in Egypt.

Mubarak said that at their first meeting, Rice admitted that she knew did not know much about the Middle East. But according to Reuters, after listening to Mubarak, “she understood the truth about the situation in the Arab region”.

In the meantime, critics are growing increasingly cynical. Last week, Osama el-Baz, Mubarak’s closest adviser, told Reuters that the president would welcome retirement if he could find a successor.

Denying that Mubarak, who is now 78 and has been ruling the country since 1981, was preparing a takeover of power by his son Gamal, el-Baz said Mubarak would like to pass his duties to a successor if he could find someone who could “carry the torch” .

To that, critics say the president should have nominated a vice president, as dictated by the country’s constitution.

Heiko Flottau is ISN Security Watch’s senior correspondent in Egypt. He wrote for many years for Sueddeutsche Zeitung in Belgrade, Warsaw and Cairo. He is author of the book “From the Nile to the Hindukush - The Middle East and the New World Order” (German 2004, Arabic 2006)