CAIRO, 7 September 2005 — With the run-up to what the Egyptian government describes as the country’s first democratic election drawing to a close, the mood in Cairo is mixed. For some, the decision by President Hosni Mubarak early this summer to modify Article 76 of the constitution — and, thus, to allow for multiparty elections — came as a sign of real, positive change taking root in Egypt.
“We’ve come a very long way under Mubarak’s rule,” Hussein, a street food vendor originating in Upper Egypt, said. “Think about how life was 24 years ago, and look at Egypt now. In 2005, every home has a telephone, most people have access to electricity, life is good. You can get from one place to another in Cairo within minutes, thanks to the bridges that the president has had built. And now we’re even having these elections. Things are only getting better for us.”
For others, however, today’s elections are just a ploy by the ruling National Democratic Party, in power for 24 years, to justify political maneuverings that will ultimately allow for a secure inter-party transfer of power from Mubarak to his as yet undefined successor — who is nevertheless suspected to be Gamal, his younger son.
Members of civil society institutions and the legal community have been pushing to independently monitor the elections, but to no avail. In particular, supporters of the multifaceted and even internally conflictive Kefaya (enough) movement that emerged late in 2004 to directly oppose the presidency’s abuse of power are pushing for grass-roots change. The main point of contention has been over the legitimacy of a vote under such special circumstances going unmonitored — activists feel that the NDP-dominated government will not stop short at steering the vote in its favor.
Some of those outside the circles of grass-roots politics are not fed up too. “I’m going to vote for the Wafd Party leader Noaman Gomaa,” Ahmed, a student, said. “The only reason why is because I don’t want Mubarak to win.”
Nevertheless, some things have definitely changed in a country whose street politics have been, over recent decades, stagnant. For the first time, the very notion of the citizens’ ability to even ponder who should rule them has been cast into the arena of debate, as has the question of how a legitimate, transparent election should be run.
Ever since the various candidates launched their election campaigns, Egyptian families have been exposed to a kind of debate never witnessed before here: between politicians on television, with posters of more than one variety pasted across the country, and rallies taking place on a practically daily basis through Cairo and the rural areas of the mainland.
