15. A bunch of elections in the Arab world will leave the incumbents firmly in place

Arab elections

Not much of a choice

A bunch of elections in the Arab world will leave the incumbents firmly in place

Oct 14th 2010 | Cairo

EGYPT, Jordan and Bahrain (see article), three of the West’s closest Arab allies, are all poised to hold general elections. No big surprises are expected, largely because the rulers of each have found ways to keep loyalists in charge and critics at bay. None of their parliaments has much say, in any case. Even so, the contests provide a rare platform for organised dissent and, just as important, for testing the regimes’ skill at boxing in challengers, particularly Islamists, without provoking too strong a backlash from their supporters.

With its 85m people, its strategic position, its cultural influence among Arabs and an ageing leader with no obvious successor, Egypt’s poll, in late November (the precise date is yet to be announced) will have much the biggest impact. After more than three decades in power, President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) conducts the political game to his liking. Its friends run the police, the security service, the courts and official boards that do such things as license other parties and oversee elections. NDP people have the deepest pockets, so the party can hand out favours at election time. Best of all, the NDP can count on the opposition to split into bickering factions, assuring itself of another smooth return to office.

The score of recognised opposition parties preparing for next month’s poll are all small. The most powerful, the Muslim Brotherhood, is technically illegal, so its candidates run as “independents”. Earlier this year it joined three of the largest secular parties in a united front to demand guarantees that the voting would be fair. The government ignored them, as it has ignored pleas from Western governments to admit independent election monitors. But this united front has been crumbling, as the Brothers have joined a rush by most of Egypt’s smaller parties, including some that are suspected of concluding back-room deals with the NDP for token seats, to register candidates.

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This breaking of ranks has fractured not only the broader opposition but also many of the parties. Even the highly disciplined Brotherhood has sprouted a vocal dissident wing that charges the group’s leadership with lending legitimacy to what it believes will be an electoral farce. It backed instead a campaign to boycott the poll that was launched by Mohamed ElBaradei, a former head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog. His return to Egypt this year and his sharp critiques of Mr Mubarak’s regime had roused a wave of support, stirring many Egyptians who had previously shunned politics as pointless. Almost a million voters signed a petition sponsored by Mr ElBaradei, and promoted by the Brotherhood, which demanded constitutional changes to institute normal democratic practices. That now looks hollow.

Keenness to enter the electoral fray may seem surprising, considering that very few Egyptians bother to vote and few expect this year’s procedures or counting to differ much from those of the previous general election, in 2005. That one was marked by violence and blatant fraud, yet still produced a record advance by the Muslim Brothers, who won a fifth of seats despite contesting only a third of them. This humiliation prompted Egypt’s government to tighten the rules further, making it even harder to challenge the NDP, and to intensify harassment of the Brotherhood, including the jailing of senior members.

Such pressures appeared to lighten in recent months, perhaps to lure the Brotherhood into the electoral game. Yet in the few days since it said it would run, intimidation has risen sharply again. Police stations have refused to grant some Brothers the certificates of good conduct needed to register as candidates. Dozens of local campaigners have been detained, joining the hundreds who are already in jail (not to mention the much larger number of more extreme Islamists behind bars).

The state has also tightened media controls. Private broadcasters and newspapers, a growing new influence in Egyptian politics and a rare sign of democratic evolution, have been pressed to mute critics of the regime. Companies that generate mass-mailing of telephone text messages, including news services and electoral advertising, must now be licensed and subjected to state monitoring.

Opposition supporters of the elections note that the last time they tried a boycott, in 1990, the NDP simply shut them out, denying them a voice for five years. For the Brothers in particular, elections offer a chance not only to display their strength on the street but also to advertise their commitment to democracy and peaceful change. Seeing the long-term goal of spreading its notion of Islam as more important than seizing power, they also calculate that even if their parliamentary strength is trimmed, as many guess it will be, the regime’s resort to dirty tricks will make its challengers look good. Already, the spectacle of the NDP’s selection of its own candidates, marred by fisticuffs between rivals for seats that are in effect guaranteed and accord their occupiers such perks as parliamentary immunity, has sullied its image.

In Jordan, an affiliate of the Egyptian Brotherhood, the Islamic Action Front, has been the strongest opposition force. Here too, electoral rules tilt the playing field, in this case in favour of loyalists to the ruling Hashemite family. In particular, the rules for electoral districting give greater representation to thinly populated rural constituencies than to dense urban ones, where Jordanians of Palestinian origin dominate. King Abdullah, unlike Mr Mubarak, has twice exercised his prerogative to dissolve parliament.

A general election scheduled for November 9th follows a year of direct royal rule, during which time some 30 laws were passed. One was a “temporary” election law, which ignored demands for reforms from the front and from many secular groups. As a result, Jordan’s Brotherhood branch is boycotting this year’s poll.

Middle East & Africa