| Global Insight Perspective | | | | Significance | Egypt's first direct multi-candidate presidential election has certainly spurred interest within the country and beyond over the prospect of greater political liberalisation in the Arab world. | | Implications | The run-up to today's ballot is a marked contrast to previous presidential 'referendums'. In fact, today marks the beginning of Egypt's tentative road towards representative democracy, although opponents of President Hosni Mubarak have slammed the election process as a sham intended simply to stifle international criticism. | | Outlook | Having ruled Egypt for over 24 years, Mubarak shows little appetite for giving up control just yet. The election result is therefore a foregone conclusion, although the regime will be hoping for a relatively high turnout in order to claim an added degree of legitimacy. With Egypt's most powerful opposition movement barred from the polls, the relatively powerless opposition candidates will prove ineffectual against the rais (leader). | 'The Last Pharaoh' Resurrected | Men Who Would Be President | | Candidate | Party | | Hosni Mubarak | National Democratic Party | | Ayman Nur | al-Ghad (Tomorrow) | | Numan Gumaa | al-Wafd | | Osama Shaltut | Taqaful (Solidarity) | | Mohammed Rifaat al-Agrudi | Wifaq al-Watani (National Accord) | | Mamduh Mohammed Ahmed al-Qenawi | Free Constitutional Social Party | | Wahid Fakhri al-Luxori | Egypt Arab Socialist Party | | Ibrahim Mohammed Turk | Democratic Unionist Party | | Fawzi Khalil Ghazal | Misr (Egypt) 2000 Party | | Ahmed al-Sabahi | Ummah Party | | Source: AFP | Almost 10,000 polling stations opened their doors at 8 a.m. local time (05:00 GMT) in what is being billed as a 'historic' and 'momentous' day. With a list of 10 presidential candidates to choose from, 32 million voters could be forgiven for thinking that the weight of destiny was on their shoulders. In fact, the majority of the public have become accustomed to the tawdry inadequacies of the election process, although - to give credit where it is due - the last few weeks have certainly witnessed an enterprising and somewhat open and critical campaign unseen in Egypt's recent political history. Despite the overwhelming influence of the state-controlled media, opposition opinion formers have even found the courage and space to slam Mubarak for his autocratic style as well as to deride the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) for stifling democratic debate. Still, in a sign of how little things may have changed, it was interesting to hear Egyptians giving radio interviews this morning under conditions of anonymity. The slow pace of reform is yet to impact on the state's strict security controls, it seems. The greatest challenge to Mubarak's rule may not necessarily come from his nine opponents. Mubarak is relatively secure in the knowledge that he will win his fifth six-year presidential tenure. Given the control that his NDP wields throughout the country as well as in parliament, there is little to suggest that the Mubarak elite would have endorsed the directly contested election if it felt that its main man would lose (see Egypt: 11 May 2005: Egyptian Parliament Approves Presidential Election Reform Plan). What Mubarak will be examining today is the election turnout; the lower the turnout, the lower the popular opinion of the political process. According to independent estimates of past presidential referendums - in which Mubarak was the sole candidate - turnout reached barely 10% on average, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. On a low turnout, Mubarak has still been able to claim over 90% of the vote, as evidenced in the last 1999 ballot. A victory remotely close to past percentages will reveal the hollowness of the new reform process. Mubarak and the NDP will therefore carefully weigh the extent to which the Egyptian public is behind the president's 'new' political platform. Transparency and openness at the ballot box would have been the surest way of proving Mubarak's intent, but the government has recently been caught short on demands for independent election monitoring. A lingering dispute between the Egyptian judiciary and the state over who exactly decides the rules of the election campaign threatened to mar today's ballot, after the NDP-backed presidential election commission (PEC) overrode the courts and decided that independent monitors would be barred form polling stations (see Egypt: 5 September 2005: Election 2005: Election Monitors' Ban to Remain as Egypt Prepares for Presidential Polls). Unwilling to succumb to governmental dictates, the judges' union this morning achieved a somewhat belated victory with the announcement that the PEC will permit independent local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to monitor the election from inside the polling stations. Having refused access to NGOs for over three weeks, the PEC claimed that its about-turn was aimed at 'proving that the vote was transparent', AFP reports. NDP officials have suggested that a 40% turnout would 'be good' for Mubarak, while opposition movements have argued that anything less than 50% would de-legitimise today's election. Who's Who? The list of 10 candidates can easily be reduced to just three; the majority of presidential hopefuls do not stand any realistic chance of striking electoral gold. The incumbent president requires little introduction. With Mubarak at the helm of Egyptian politics since the assassination of his predecessor Anwar Sadat in 1981, his election make-over has capitalised on his strong leadership credentials at a time of national and regional uncertainty. Mubarak's opponents are unforgiving over his use of emergency laws to suppress political and social dissent, although promises for an end to the state of emergency have been a prime feature of the Mubarak campaign. Twenty-four years of leadership are also not easily re-invented, so the NDP has expended all of its energy in promoting Mubarak's 'new' economic platform, which foresees huge economic expansion and a boost to Egypt's employment rate. The latter is - given the country's increasing young population - a major concern among the electorate. A spate of bomb attacks against the Egyptian tourism industry has also highlighted the country's vulnerability to violence - something that the former air-force commander has vowed to tackle (see Egypt: 25 July 2005: Devastating Bombings Against Top Egyptian Resort May Deal Blow to Crucial Tourism Industry). The candidate most likely to come second is the young and charismatic leader of the liberal al-Ghad (Tomorrow) party, Ayman Nur. It is partly due to Nur's fiery speeches against Mubarak that Egyptians have of late revealed a strong interest in the election. 'We want freedom, we want to end 24 years of oppression, economic crisis and joblessness', Nur said recently. His popularity is also partly due to his anti-establishment credentials. His impending trial against what Nur claims are fabricated fraud charges has certainly done little harm to his election campaign, with many Egyptians sympathising with the lawyer candidate, but his grass-roots support remains relatively weak (see Egypt: 7 July 2005: Forgery Trial of Prominent Egyptian Opposition Leader Suspended Until After Presidential Elections). Promising greater tax cuts and economic accountability, Nur is somewhat reserved about his foreign policy programme. The government has played on US calls for Nur's recent release from prison and accused him of being an American lackey. Given that Egypt is the US's second-largest military and civilian aid recipient, those charges appear to have little substance. However, the US intervention appears to have had an impact on Nur's campaign, with Ghad party vice president Hisham Kassem even admitting that 'He [Nur] is even not dealing with foreign policy; he knows it's not his forte'. The one remaining candidate who may offer a strong challenge to Nur for second spot is the leader of the liberal Wafd party, Numan Gumaa. Although he has offered little by way of the enthusiasm displayed by Nur, many opposition figures suspect that Gumaa was encouraged to run in the elections by Mubarak's supporters in the hope of splitting Nur's vote. There is little doubt that neither Nur or Gumaa will match Mubarak's electoral appeal (however suspect and controversial it may appear). Outlook and Implications Today's poll is certainly a 'defining moment' in Egypt's history. Barring accusations of voting irregularities, electoral restrictions and heavy-handed security control, the run-up to the ballot has revealed an impressive break from Egypt's oppressive political past. However, we doubt that the situation is enough of a departure for Mubarak to claim any 'democratic' success. Many weaknesses still remain with the political process - the most notable being the absence of Egypt's most powerful opposition movement from the polls. The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is estimated to have the support of at least one-third of the electorate, yet is constitutionally barred from participating in the 'free and fair' vote. Mubarak has made the most of national as well as international fears over the rise of Islamist movements, and the threats that these pose to the status quo in the Middle East, as a ploy to ban the MB. Although the MB absence will most likely be overlooked in today's election, the longer-term exclusion of the movement will not prove feasible. Now that Egyptians have tasted a narrowly defined mix of direct electioneering and competitive politics, the popular zeal for greater and deeper political liberalisation will be hard to suppress (see Egypt: 6 September 2005: Election 2005: Egypt Prepares for Presidential Election amid Legal Wrangle over Poll Monitoring). Egypt is also a standard bearer for the rest of the Middle East. It is precisely for this reason that today's images will garner stronger 'democratic' interest in the wider Arab world and enable opponents of dictatorship to demand further openings in their own countries. By its very nature, liberalisation momentum remains very slow in the Middle East. However, with Egypt setting a partial standard, at least the region-wide future may be slightly brighter than hitherto anticipated. | |
