Dispatch: Elections in Post-Mubarak Egypt
November 28, 2011 | 1952 GMT
Director of Analysis Reva Bhalla discusses issues surrounding Egypt’s first post-Mubarak elections.
Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
Egypt is so far reporting a high turnout in the country’s first phase of parliamentary elections in the post-Mubarak period. Holding this first phase of elections, at the very least, is critical to the military regime’s ability to navigate the country through this political transition while still maintaining effective control. The likelihood of the military’s authority enduring through this election period is exactly why protesters attempted to sustain a presence in Tahrir square in the lead-up to the elections, but the military is also gambling that the silent majority of those simply looking to restore stability to the streets and revive the economy will eventually drown out those Tahrir protesters with time.
Violent clashes between Egyptian security forces and protesters in the days ahead of the vote set the tone for Monday’s opening of the polls, with some protesters trying to resist resigning themselves to a reality in which the military remains the ultimate authority of the state. While around 30 of the youth candidates have already backed out in protest – and perhaps out of fear of losing ground – more than 7,000 political candidates and 400 party lists are vying for whatever political opening they can get.
The electoral process appears to be deliberately convoluted, providing ample opportunity for the shaping of results as the military regime sees fit. The first phase of the polls will take place over two days plus a run-off period. This process will be replicated in different parts of the country over the next month and a half with results expected to be announced some time in January. A lot of details about how those elections will be conducted, such as how the votes will be stored and counted, whether exit polling will take place and so on, have yet to be revealed. In order for a vote to qualify, the voter must select a party list in addition to two independent candidates. If they fail to do so, their entire vote is invalidated. It’s unclear how widely that message has been disseminated and a lot of voters have already complained that they can’t tell on the ballot which candidate belongs to which party.
Nonetheless, Egyptians in Cairo, Alexandria and seven other smaller governorates, representing about one third of the total population, are coming out in high numbers to vote. The candidates that are likely to fare best at the polls are likely to be the ones that are best organized, which include the Muslim Brotherhood on one end of the political spectrum and the former members of the old guard National Democratic Party on the other. How exactly the parliament turns out is, of course, the main question on everyone’s mind. But the military regime does appear so far to have the controls in place to shape the results and allow for a largely weak and ineffective civilian face to be put on the government while keeping that core regime structure in place.
Contrary to the scenes portrayed by most media focused in on Tahrir square, this is an outcome that many Egyptians are actually not opposed to. The Egyptian economy has suffered considerably from the unrest since January, with factories closing, the stock market reeling from wary investors watching Tahrir, from tourists keeping away and the government burning through its currency reserves to maintain subsidies. There are a large number of Egyptians who have more faith in the military’s economic management, allegations of corruption included, than they do in the hodgepodge of political actors campaigning in Tahrir.
Perhaps the calmest political actor in Egypt right now is the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood has been extraordinarily patient through the decades of repression the group has endured during the Mubarak regime, waiting for any semblance of a political opening to gradually make their way into the system. The Brotherhood understands the military regime’s agenda, and so is trying to avoid being grouped with those Tahrir protesters that are being portrayed by the military as those unruly irreconcilables. At the same time, the Brotherhood has to worry about competition from rival Islamist groups, one of many competitions that the military will also be relying on to keep Egypt’s largest opposition party in check as it tries to maintain an increasingly complex balancing act across the Egyptian political spectrum.
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