Egypt’s
Election All About Image, Almost
Mariz Tadros
September
6, 2005
(Mariz
Tadros is an assistant professor of political science at the American
University in Cairo.)
The skies
of Cairo are cluttered with strips of cloth daubed in red, blue
and green. Hanging in crowded squares and stretching across streets
before traffic lights, almost all of the banners proclaim the
enthusiastic support of “So-and-So and his family” or “such-and-such
shop or hospital” for Husni Mubarak in his quest for a fifth term
as president of Egypt.
As the national
media seems determined to remind Egyptians every day, the banners
are part of the first multi-candidate presidential election campaign
in Egypt’s entire history. Article 76 of the country’s constitution,
which had stipulated that Egyptians could vote yes or no on the
candidacy of one person for president, was amended in the spring
so that Egyptians have a choice among several hopefuls, including
the nominees of “legal” opposition parties. Nine such nominees
are indeed running against Mubarak in the poll to be held on September
7, 2005.
Yet the amendment
pushed through by the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) automatically
excludes from the race candidates from the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood
-- the largest opposition force -- and makes it very difficult
for independent candidates to run. To be eligible, a candidate
not affiliated with a party must obtain the signatures of at least
65 members of the lower house of Parliament, 25 members of the
upper house and ten municipal council members from at least 14
provinces. Given that both houses of Parliament and most local
councils are dominated by the NDP, establishing eligibility would
be nearly impossible in practice. The amended Article 76 may have
introduced the concept of free and fair elections, opposition
forces note, but it robbed the concept of all substance. Add the
amendment’s restrictions on candidacy to the mere three weeks
allotted by the government for the campaign, and Mubarak’s victory
at the polls is assured.
OPPOSITION
DILEMMA
The flaws
in the amended Article 76 posed a dilemma for Egypt’s opposition
parties. Only two prominent politicians, Numan Gumaa, head of
the Wafd, one of the oldest parties in Egypt, and Ayman Nour,
head of the recently founded, liberal Ghad [Tomorrow] Party, decided
to challenge Mubarak. The remaining seven candidates in the race
are obscure figures from parties unknown to the majority of Egyptians.
(A court has disqualified one such figure, Wahid al-Uqsuri of
the Egypt Arab Socialist Party, though the government’s Presidential
Election Commission says it will ignore the ruling.)
The leftist
Tagammu Party and the Nasserist Party, two of the largest officially
recognized opposition parties, are boycotting the election on
the grounds that the rules of the game are unfair. These two parties,
in addition to the Wafd, Ghad and the Muslim Brotherhood, boycotted
the May 25 referendum upon the amendment to Article 76 because
its terms were so partial to the NDP. The Wafd’s nomination of
Gumaa for president therefore came as a surprise. Some critics
have suggested that the government struck a behind-the-scenes
deal with the Wafd whereby Gumaa would enter the race to undermine
Nour’s candidacy in return for an NDP promise that the Wafd will
gain seats in parliamentary elections scheduled for later in the
fall. The Wafd has vehemently denied the charge.
There has
also been much speculation about the Muslim Brotherhood’s position.
The NDP and its two main rival parties were all three rumored
to be wooing the Brotherhood’s electoral backing with promises
to release party members who are political detainees. On August
21, the Brotherhood issued an ambiguous statement: “All the brothers
should know that we could not support an oppressor or cooperate
with a corrupt person or with a tyrant,” a direct reference to
Mubarak, as interviews with spokesmen made explicit. “President
Husni Mubarak has been in office for 24 years and yet he didn’t
cancel the emergency legislation or implement any kind of true
reform,” said leading member Ali Abd al-Fattah. “We refuse to
let the status quo continue.”
On the other
hand, the August 21 statement called upon Egyptians to give their
vote to whomever they think will be a just and fair ruler. Has
the Brotherhood received anything from the government in return
for urging the public not to boycott the election, thereby conceivably
helping to produce the government’s desired high turnout? The
Brotherhood denies that there have been any negotiations. In rejecting
Mubarak, will they lend open support to an opposition candidate
a day or so before the election? Political analyst Wahid Abd al-Magid
of the al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies told
the magazine Ruz al-Yusuf that the ambiguity in the Brotherhood’s
statement seems like “a tactical exploit because it leaves the
option open for convening an auction between the three contestants
[on who can offer the Brotherhood more].” Fourteen Muslim Brothers
were released from prison in the closing days of August, but the
party continues to brush aside allegations of a deal with the
regime.
ENGINEERED
IMAGERY
In the meantime,
the government has gone to great lengths to give the impression
that the election is a genuinely suspenseful affair in which Mubarak
must actually work to secure a winning margin. Anxious to be seen
as mixing with the public, the normally aloof Mubarak has visited
industrial sites and rural villages where the quasi-official press
has pictured him accepting tea in a simple peasant household overlooking
the fields. His campaign has sought to project an image of a down-to-earth
person in touch with the needs and concerns of the average citizen,
particularly the poor. According to the World Bank’s World
Development Report 2005, 43.9 percent of Egyptians live on
less than $2 a day.
Mubarak’s
electoral program is ambitious -- too ambitious to be real, according
to some critics. The crux of his agenda is the creation of 600,000
new jobs in six years, which he proposes to do by extending loans
for the establishment of small businesses, as well as providing
loans for 900,000 new entrepreneurs in medium-sized enterprises.
Otherwise, his platform does not differ substantially from those
of the Wafd and Ghad. All three talk about reform of the education
and health sectors and sweeping changes to the political system,
with very little detail about how they would actually deliver
on their promises. One element that is conspicuously absent from
Mubarak’s agenda but features prominently in the agendas of both
Nour and Gumaa is a pledge to fight widespread official corruption,
an issue that hits home with Egyptians. Transparency International
gives Egypt one of its lowest rankings. Another message that has
resonated among average Egyptians is “itkhanna’na” [We
have suffocated], the tagline of a Gumaa campaign ad showing people
huffing and puffing in frustration after 24 years under the same
ruler. Rumor has it that state television refused to broadcast
the ad.
The widely
disseminated NDP-sponsored ad shows Mubarak sitting with pen in
hand dressed in a simple shirt and tie. Critics scoff at what
they have dubbed “Mubarak’s new look,” which is intended to make
the normally buttoned-down president appear more approachable
and certainly much younger than his 77 years. Yet the pro-Mubarak
banners in the streets have sparked more criticism than the ads.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a prominent NDP member from
one of Cairo’s densely populated low-income areas said that his
office was told to contact the parliamentary representative of
the area, in order to engineer the draping of the streets. Where
the district MP is not an NDP member, he said, the party offices
were to approach the leadership of the municipality. The MPs and
municipal officials were then to instruct businesses, shops and
wealthy families in their districts to put up banners supporting
Mubarak. So as not to violate the 10 million Egyptian pound ceiling
on party financing of the election, under no circumstances were
people allowed to make donations instead. Those who do not know
how to go about putting up banners could donate the cloth, which
was then decorated and hung by the local party branch. The irony,
the NDP official confided, is that most of those told to hang
pro-Mubarak banners do not even have voting cards.
There is
little evidence that the ubiquitous banners are enhancing Mubarak’s
profile among the population. As one taxi driver snorted, “You
wouldn’t expect any poor person to be putting up these banners,
would you? It is those who have money, and God knows why they
put them up anyway, since none of them are likely to go to vote
in the first place.”
Opposition
candidates have pointed to several violations of the election
law by the NDP. The Wafd and Ghad parties have filed complaints
that they have not had equal access to television time for paid
advertisements. Nonetheless, independent watchdogs such as the
Cairo Institute for Human Rights (CIHRS) have noted that the time
allocated on state-run television to candidates other than Mubarak
has been surprisingly large. By comparison with certain national
newspapers, observes CIHRS, television coverage has not been blatantly
biased in favor of Mubarak.
BREATHING
SPACE
Particularly
striking, as well, is the degree of freedom of expression tolerated
in the opposition and independent newspapers. Subjects that were
once completely off limits, such as the Mubarak family, are now
covered on an almost daily basis in newspapers such as al-Dustur
and Sawt al-Umma, both published by the writer Ibrahim
Eissa, and al-Fajr, headed by the highly controversial
Adel Hammouda. The role of Mubarak’s wife Suzanne in the country’s
political life, the widely suspected grooming of his son Gamal
to inherit power and regime corruption are now being discussed
in the non-official press. The president himself is under scrutiny
not only for his policies, but also for his health, finances and
personal values. This greater freedom extends to broader issues
as well. Just months ago, for instance, newspapers would scarcely
have alluded to the political role of the Coptic Church or the
idea that the Coptic minority might have distinct political beliefs.
The norm is to reiterate the nationalist theme that Copts are
part of the Egyptian fabric and that any distinct identity is
expressed strictly within the confines of places of worship, in
no way influencing Copts’ political concerns and choices as Egyptian
citizens. Now various independent newspapers are publishing far
more nuanced articles on these sensitive topics. The significance
of this general breaking of taboos cannot be underestimated.
It is not
only the press that has taken advantage of the greater political
space allowed by the regime. Citizen initiatives have also made
themselves heard. The most well-known such initiative is Kifaya,
a non-partisan movement comprised of intellectuals, activists,
journalists and others, all from a broad range of political backgrounds,
which rejects Mubarak’s nomination for a fifth term. The movement
also opposes the idea that Gamal inherit power and calls for the
abolition of the draconian emergency law in place since the assassination
of President Anwar al-Sadat in 1981. Kifaya organizers have staged
numerous demonstrations since their first protest on December
12, 2004. Although the demonstrations have been peaceful, many
Kifaya activists have been arrested, since the emergency law prohibits
demonstrations that do not have a permit from the Ministry of
Interior, a clearance that is all but impossible to obtain. Kifaya
has called for a boycott of the election, which it feels is nothing
more than a window dressing for a highly oppressive regime. Along
with other movements like Writers for Change and Journalists for
Change, Kifaya challenges the idea that the spirit of political
activism in Egypt is dead after 50 years of government monopoly
over the public sphere.
Another group
of activists has established a new website, shayfeen.com, to monitor
election law violations during the campaign. The text on the website
is written in simple and clever colloquial language, and its very
name is a play on words (“shayfeencom” means “we can see you”
in Egyptian Arabic). The activists intend to monitor the balloting
on election day as well.
MONITORS
During her
highly touted speech about Arab democracy at the American University
in Cairo on June 20, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice laid
down a clear marker that in Egypt’s forthcoming presidential contest
“international election monitors and observers must have unrestricted
access to do their jobs.” State Department spokespersons periodically
“encourage” the Mubarak regime to take Rice’s advice, though usually
at the end of disquisitions about how the multi-candidate election
is itself an encouraging “step in the right direction.” The regime
has nonetheless refused to allow either international or independent
Egyptian election monitoring. From Mubarak on down, state officials
insist they trust Egyptian judges to ensure the integrity of the
voting because a jurist will be placed at every polling station.
The Presidential Election Commission’s refusal to countenance
independent Egyptian monitors came as a surprise given an earlier
announcement by the government-appointed National Council for
Human Rights (NCHR), headed by former UN Secretary-General Boutros
Boutros-Ghali, that civil society organizations would observe
the voting along with the NCHR itself. On September 4, a court
ruled that Egyptian NGOs have a right to monitor the election,
but the Presidential Election Commission promptly refused to enforce
the court’s decision.
There are
four NGO coalitions that intend to monitor the election anyway.
They say they will check whether a judge is truly present near
every ballot box and make sure that no one is prevented from entering
to vote. In the meantime, pro-government factions have sought
to undermine the legitimacy of independent monitoring by accusing
the would-be monitors of reliance on suspicious “foreign funding.”
Undue “foreign
influence” was also the pretext for the government’s opposition
to international observers. Yet the confidence that the government
professes in the judicial monitors hides the deep rift between
the authorities and the Judges’ Club, an independent body representing
the Egyptian bench. In the spring, the judges threatened to boycott
the elections unless they were given full supervision of the election
-- inside the polling stations and outside. Currently, a group
of judges is accusing the electoral commission of picking judicial
observers on the basis of loyalty to the regime. Moreover, the
Judges’ Club embarrassed the government with a damning report
shortly after the May referendum that contested the government
calculation of 52 percent turnout. The judges’ estimate was that
less than 5 percent of the eligible voters had shown up. While
the NDP need not worry about Mubarak winning on September 7, a
low turnout would be a black eye. The outside world would see
that, despite the government’s efforts to sell the election as
genuinely contested, Egyptians did not buy it.
WHAT COMES
NEXT
What will
the mass of Egyptians do on election day? The tepid popular reaction
to the political developments of the past six months has perplexed
activists and intellectuals alike. Movements such as Kifaya have
failed to attract a mass following, despite the empathy of some
with their message. The explanation is certainly not apathy. Fear
may be part of it. As one civil servant explained: “I don’t want
to be suddenly woken up at dawn by you-know-who, and sent to a
prison whose whereabouts nobody knows, and come out years later
totally messed up. I have a wife and three children to take care
of. If something happens to me, who is going to take care of them?”
In the presidential election, meanwhile, there is no doubt about
the outcome. “We know Mubarak is going to win,” said one middle-class
professional. “We know that the government won’t let anyone else
win…so what is the point?” This dearth of hope for any prospect
of real democratic change is keeping many Egyptians from raising
their voices.
Some analysts
fear that the modest political opening tolerated while the government
burnished a “democratic” image for the world will be closed once
the election season is over. They expect a more systematic crackdown
on dissident voices and demonstrations; they say unruly editors
will be “dealt with.” Others insist that while the presidential
election is of only symbolic value, the parliamentary elections
to be held in November have the potential to transform the political
landscape in Egypt. The legislative campaigning may see the emergence
of new coalitions -- possibly including the Muslim Brotherhood
-- as well as a challenge to NDP hegemony in some electoral districts.
Such a scenario, of course, assumes that the parliamentary election
is truly free and fair, which in turn depends greatly on what
happens on September 7.
