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Egypt's Cosmetic Democracy

Angelique van Engelen - 5/29/2005

The Egyptian referendum on a constitutional amendment paving the way for a more convincing democracy has turned out as expected - a "yes" vote with 82.9% approval, making the French Pro-Constitution "Yes" camp envious. The event has strongly been rejected by the country's handful of opposition parties, who claim that the change is biased in favor of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and could be facilitating the takeover of the presidency by Hosni Mubarak's son, Gamal.

The Egyptian Interior Minister Habib el-Adli announced a turnout of 53.6% of registered voters. Opposition parties contested this and some put their estimates of turnout as low as 4%. Most of the parties called for a boycott of the referendum. Yet, despite the very likely manufactured figures, this might reveal an error of judgement on behalf of the Egyptian opposition.

The reason for the opposition to call for a boycott is mostly the claim that the change to rule 76 is biased in favor of the NDP. Even if this is a fair accusation, it is a dubious ground to call a boycott on. It is also not clear if any of the parties are also retreating from the upcoming elections for the Egyptian presidency in September. It would be a real shame if they did, because the vote will likely turn out pretty much the same as the vote for the referendum turned out. Over the last decades, the Egyptian president has changed the constitution and other rules in order to ensure his rule for four consecutive four year terms in office.

In theory, the change in the constitution that the referendum entails, does open a gap for possible opposition, even though it is not immediately a full blown invitation on a level playing field. Yet, self-inflicted shock therapy is not something that Mr Mubarak can conceivably be expected to manifest ever. It would be too surreal, nay, Alien.

The new measure of democracy, described by the opposition as 'cosmetic' only, entails the right for anyone wishing to run for the presidency to be able run so long as their candidacy is approved of by at least 250 elected members of the parliament or of local councils (of which there are many). It will still be tough to achieve this because these are dominated by the ruling NDP. Anyone running for president needs to be a member of a legally established party. For the 2011 elections, only parties with five percent representation in the 454-seat parliament and which have existed for five years will be allowed to field candidates.

However, by not taking part in the numb-stricken politics, the opposition has let go of a vital opportunity to rise up against Mubarak, who has been measuring his popularity in recent decades' polls in ratios of hundredst, rather than percentage points for the past decades. "In a state where the difference between the support for the ruling party and president are measured [..]- between 99 percent and 99.9 percent - the turnout for the referendum [is] the first indication of the overall support the president can expect in September and the ruling party in November", one newspaper reports.



By not establishing any kind of legitimate foothold, the opposition has let the incumbent rulers get away with fixturing the figures yet again, without crushing this straight away when they were given only a tiny chance to do so for real. Experience teaches that the longer an autocrat is given free reign without even a semblance of competition, the more difficult it will be to get rid of him.



The pressures to create more democracy have not only come from outside countries, most notably the current US administration, but reports indicate that the domestic population in Egypt is increasingly impatient to be granted greater democratic rights has started to develop some real clout. The problem in Egypt is that many of the people who think their government a fallacy are so sophisticated, they don't take anything less than the 'real thing' in terms of politics. The amendment to article 76 of the constitution has been said to be a mere first step toward greater democracy. Yet, theoretically it could end the almost Pharaonic rule of President Mubarak, who's been in power for a quarter of a Century and who might announce any day soon he is re-running for an obscene fifth term in office, possibly unopposed.



Whatever the referendum will effect in the long run, the way it was conducted has been the kind of surreal these things go in Egypt in that the very excesses that one always fears go on behind the scenes of most elections were reported really rather openly in a confused manner. Local reports indicated that vote rigging just about did not take place, but there have been campaigns that pretty much amounted to vote buying and influencing the populace in ways less than healthy. Government employees were put on buses by the thousands to go and vote and some people say they were beaten by security forces when they protested.



Adding to the surreal circus, some opposition parties called for a boycott as close as one day before the event, indicating that their own circus was likely riddled with confusion as to exactly what the change would amount to for parties other than the incumbent ruling NDP.

The state run media, not really sure what take to put on this story, took a giant leap into the dark and sprang out with stories that will offer abundant material for later media experts to research, highlighting the fits and bouts that no doubt are part of a democratization process from a highly authoritarian society to a truly democratic one. The media, normally strictly controlled, completely flipped, mistaking the new freedom for outright stupidity and reporting stories about vote buying by industrialists trying to win over people in a euphoric way. Apparently, contractors were offering free meals, bottles of cola, even Viagra and cash for people to participate. It was kingdom come, apparently.

At the same time the open calls for a boycott and the Egyptian government's relative moderate stance on the issue reflect a certain freedom that's not been seen in Egypt so far. In this sense, if any Arab people can be entrusted with the task of prancing around the birth of a conceived Westernized version of democracy, the Egyptians can be relied on to manifest perfect puppet-on-a-string behavior. Witnessing it is like going to a live art show. Voting for what could to some degree be openly dismissed as trumped-up nonsense, nobody really stood to lose or gain anything, least of all the dominating NDP.



But it remains to be seen which parties will continue their stubborn refusal to take part in the charade they are taking part in even by calling for a boycott. The Nasserists, one of Egypt's oldest opposition parties, has already indicated it won't run in the September polls. But other parties could be enjoying the rights that the change facilitates in order to gain a legitimate political foothold this September. It would not necessarily be illogical. It would be great if there were some politicans to liven up the show and fill the political vacuum that makes ordinary life in Egypt so often similarly contrarily surreal, Kafkaesque even.








Technically, not that much changes. Principally an undemocratic anomaly has been shifted from the system now that slight openings have been created that could end up in the president's decision to allow for more than just one candidate to run in future elections. But the celebratory surroundings, deflecting a scala of political psychological complexes, indicate the magnitude of the change even if it is only in perception. Most Arab societies are tied in undemocratic governing systems which more or less encorporate the judiciary, and change like the one in Egypt has been unheard of, perhaps with the exception of Morokko and Lebanon.

The opposition, which pushed Mubarak to accept the amendments, now says they are not enough and are merely cosmetic steps to appease the West. Yet even the US does not stand to gain all that much from the change in Egypt, apart from credibility for the Bush ideology of spreading democracy. If he fails in Iraq, Egypt's a nice back up for the history writers to revert to.



The major opposition parties in Egypt opposing the vote were the liberal Al Wafd, the leftist Tagamua, the Nasserists (who have vowed not to field a candidate in September), the Ghad (Tomorrow) Party (liberal), the Muslim Brotherhood and the most recently established Kefaya, which, as its name which translates as Enough, is a protest party.

In the absence of the possibility for the Muslim Brotherhood to ever become legal, two attempts have been made to set up alternative Islamist (read: Jihad) political parties over the last five years. But these efforts are said to have been quelled. In the run up to the polling, the power struggle that is always going on to some extent in the background in Egyptian public life between the ruling class and the Muslim Brotherhood came to a head again. Scores of Brotherhood activists were rounded up even as close as one day before the polling. Reasons the officials give for the repression of the Brotherhood and banning it as a political entity involve Egypt's status as a secular country. Apparently the Egyptian constitution does not allow for political parties on the basis of any religion, and say the Copts also pay a price here. Egypt has a population of 6 million Coptic Christians, who form a 10% minority of the total population. On other occasions, the Copts are happily suppressed by the same officials however for their religious ideas.