Amid calls of national boycotting, speculation of potential vote rigging and internal as well as external pressure on the Egyptian government for reform, the critical parliamentary election countdown has started.
In Egypt, the importance of parliamentary elections typically stems from presenting a barometer of national opinion and being a reliable indicator of many hot topics such as space of democracy, shifts in the relative position of the government and opposition, and most importantly the shape of the outlook of the Arab world's most populous country.
However, commentators believe this year's elections will witness major developments, especially after the former chief of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammad Al Baradei, made a forceful call for the nation to boycott the elections, saying they were certain to be rigged.
The Nobel laureate urged his supporters during an iftar gathering last Ramadan to join an organised boycott of Egypt's elections, saying that "if no one participates in the elections, except for [Egypt's ruling] National Democratic Party (NDP), Egyptians would be telling the system ‘you do not represent us and this is not a true democracy'".
In what was regarded as the "boldest act since his high-profile return in February", Al Baradei went a step further on his Twitter feed, calling for civil disobedience and demonstrations, adding that a boycott would "unmask [Egypt's] sham ‘democracy'."
He said if the regime continued to ignore calls for change, civil disobedience would be a positive action at this critical time for Egypt. However, he was not specific on where he would take his campaign next, thanking his supporters for collecting more than one million signatures in a petition in a few months.
Most in the political opposition are anticipating unfair elections, regardless of the repeated assurances by the NDP's general secretary of the policy committee Jamal Mubarak, who said his party would enter the parliamentary elections with full confidence in its accomplishments in the light of a different political system.
Consequently, some opposition groups — Al Ghad, Democratic Front, Kefaya and National Assembly for Change — have agreed to heed Mohammad Al Baradei's call for a general boycott of the parliamentary elections. They asserted that participation would merely legitimise the regime's undemocratic control, with no real gain to the opposition.
Al Ghad chairman and 2005 presidential first-runner-up candidate Ayman Noor gave his party members the option to run as independent candidates after voting overwhelmingly against participation in the parliamentary elections. He said his party "does not want to be a part of an election that lacks transparency".
Former Al Ghad party member Hamed Reda told Weekend Review: "The government already knows who is going to win, so why should we participate in a sham?" Reda urged that "no matter what Egyptians do, and even if they were to go in and everyone voted against the ruling party, nothing would change and we would be stuck with the same political system and people, as we have always been".
Other prominent opposition figures such as George Ishaq, former leader of the Kefaya movement and a prominent participant in the National Association for Change (NAC), said calls for an election boycott in November grew louder after upper house elections in June saw Hosni Mubarak's ruling party sweep most seats. Rights groups complained of abuses while the government insisted the vote was fair.
However, the likelihood of Al Baradei persuading different parties to participate appears to be slim. And in his efforts, Al Baradei runs the risk of further fracturing an already disparate opposition before the decisive presidential polls in 2011.
"He may create a partial impact in the parliamentary elections but Al Baradei won't be able to lead a complete boycott of all the opposition parties," said Walid Kazziha, professor of political science at the American University in Cairo. "Many of the bigger opposition groups are most likely willing to go ahead anyway, despite the fact that they have a lot of criticisms about the electoral process."
Other actors from the Muslim Brotherhood, New Wafd and Al Tajammu, however, still support participation in the 2010 elections and will decide whether or not to contest the presidential elections next year. They defended their stances by calling electoral boycotts strategically disadvantageous, because they hand an automatic victory to the ruling NDP and forfeit the opposition's only active presence, however small it may be, in Egypt's parliament.
Egypt's largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, announced that it intends to contest parliamentary elections as scheduled. Their parliamentary bloc chief Sa'ad Al Katatni announced that the group is gearing up for the elections, despite calls from other opposition parties and leaders for a nationwide boycott.
Sources within the "outlawed" group and observers close to its senior ranks have confirmed that they will field about 200 candidates.
The Brotherhood has 88 members, a fifth of Egypt's 454-member parliament, after running as independent candidates in the 2005 elections. However, sources of leadership in the brotherhood said the group would announce the list of candidates in parliamentary elections after it settled on the names of those who would contest the polls.
The opposition's choice to participate is not as odd as it seems, for Egypt's parliamentary elections, despite their serious limitations, offer some rare moments of open, if unequal, political competition between parties.
Opposition groups enter elections not to win a majority, and certainly not to govern, but rather to seek places in parliament that would facilitate providing simple services to their districts, such as improving roads, providing clean drinking water or creating job opportunities. Default exclusion by boycotting the elections would be tantamount to accepting political invisibility.
So both government and opposition take parliamentary elections very seriously, preparing for them months in advance. Out of eight electoral cycles since 1976, the opposition has boycotted only once, in 1990. Despite the renewed impetus for a boycott in 2010, all major opposition forces have announced their participation in the poll.
"We've tried the bitterness of boycotting in 1990 and secured only five seats in the 1995 elections," said the Wafd Party's new leader Al Sayyid Al Badawi, explaining his party's decision to field 250 candidates. It is worth noting that the liberal Wafd Party had won six seats in the People's Assembly elections in 2005 and was joined by five independent members of the council's 454 seats.
The People's Assembly is the lower house of Egypt's bicameral parliament (the two legislative chambers system). In spite of its lower status, however, it plays a more important role in drafting day-to-day legislative duties than the Shura Council, the upper house.
The constitution states that the law shall determine the number of the People's Assembly elected members, provided that it is not less than 350 members. The Assembly is made up of 454 deputies, 444 of who are directly elected while the remaining ten are appointed by the president of the Republic.
The 2005 parliamentary elections, which saw President Hosni Mubarak's NDP winning almost 80 per cent of the seats, was regarded as one of the most transparent polls because, due to domestic and international pressure, the government granted the Brotherhood unprecedented freedom to campaign before this year's parliamentary vote. While the group's 150 candidates officially ran as independents, there was nothing secret about their affiliation to the Brotherhood. Candidates held rallies, hung posters with the Brotherhood's name and used its slogan, "Islam is the Solution".
Nasser Ameen, lawyer and general director of the Arab Centre for Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Profession, told Weekend Review that the 2000 and 2005 parliamentary elections witnessed a sufficient amount of transparency. "In 2000, the country experienced its first free elections, as the constitutional court had decided that each ballot box had to be supervised by a judge," he said.
The 2005 elections constituted a major breakthrough towards a more transparent and democratic electoral process, until the government realised that the Muslim Brotherhood posed a real threat.
"The first of the three phases of this election was free and transparent, and the Brotherhood won 88 seats in this first phase. The government immediately felt the danger and sabotaged phase two and three of the elections," he said.
Judge Ahmad Makki explains that "in the 2005 parliamentary elections, the government assigned a judge for every ballot box and the election had to unfold over more than a single day so that judges could move from one polling station to another. For the upcoming elections, there are no independent judges monitoring the process, so it can all be wrapped up in a day. That it all has been transferred from the hands of Egypt's independent judiciary to a ruling-party-controlled Supreme Election Commission is of particular concern for the political opposition," Makki said.
"With the 2010 parliamentary elections, we are going back to the electoral system that prevailed before 2000. This is a monumental step backwards," Ameen said.
The 1995 parliamentary elections are widely viewed as having been the country's most violent and fraudulent poll. That election delivered only 14 of the 444 seats to opposition candidates. Domestic monitoring groups preparing for the November parliamentary elections report increasing harassment from the government, which is turning a blind eye to requests made by NGOs and several European embassies in Egypt to have an international supervision of elections.
For his part, Ambassador Abdullah Ashal has criticised the government's refusal to accept the principle of international supervision of elections.
"Even the United States accepts the presence of international observers for the presidential election and the Congress. This does not represent any concern to them," he said.
This year's election will witness a major breakthrough, as the new quota system comes into effect; the extra 64 seats will secure women a minimum of 12 per cent representation in parliament.
Nehad Abu Komsan, manager of Egyptian Centre of Women's Rights, spoke to Weekend Review about the issue of the creation of a 64-seat quota for women in the People's Assembly, clarifying this is the first time in the history of the Egyptian parliament that such a step has been taken.
"The women's quota is a positive development in that it can help support women's rights, redress the longstanding underrepresentation of women and bring Egypt in line with levels of female parliamentary participation elsewhere in the Arab world, even if it will be one more tool for the NDP to control the assembly," Abu Komsan said.
She said the idea of women's participation in parliament didn't work 50 years ago — in 1957, only two women were elected. And in 2005, eight seats out of 454 were given to women. Of these, five were granted by appointment, which means only three were voted to the parliament. This, however, excludes the period between 1951 and 1986, which witnessed the specialisation of 30 seats to women.
Hence, this year's elections can almost be treated as a mock for important elections later, such as next year's presidential elections, and should be watched closely, as it can help people understand the regime's preferences of striking a balance between stability and the urgent need for reform.
Basic facts about the Egyptian parliamentary election
n It will be held on November 29 for a scheduled three-stage determining lower house membership
- Number of seats: The total number of seats this year will be 518 seats (regular 454 seats and the 64-seat quota for women)
- Former UN nuclear weapons chief Mohammad Al Baradei has called on Egyptians to boycott the election, threatening a campaign of mass civil disobedience if his demands for political reform continue to be ignored
- Major opposition parties such as the Wafd Party, the Tagammu Party, the Nasserist Party and the Democratic Front Party will participate in the election
- Egypt's main opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, announced its participation, targeting 30 per cent of the seats
- In the 2005 election, the Muslim Brotherhood managed to capture 88 seats, adding to the 28 seats picked up by opposition parties and giving the combined opposition a total of 116 seats
Raghda El Halawany is an independent writer based in Cairo.
