Pretending to embrace democracy? President Mubarak
Photo: AP
Mubarak, again
Paradoxically, Egyptian democracy shrinks as demand for it grows
Something is rotten in the state of Egypt.
Egyptian security forces prevented on Tuesday liberal playwright Ali Salem from traveling to Israel to receive an honorary doctorate from Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva. Salem tried to cross by surf and by turf, but he was barred from leaving every time.
Arab World
By Sever Plocker
Arabs don’t need “democracy lessons” in order to hold elections
Ironically, every time the demand for democracy in Egypt grows, it shrinks even more. The highlight? An amendment to the Egyptian constitution, which has diluted the demand for democratization.
Mubarak, who has run for presidential elections four times as the sole contender, has turned suspiciously into an enthusiastic supporter of the constitutional amendment, which supposedly allows multiple candidates to run during the election.
A closer examination of the amendment, which was passed in the Egyptian parliament, reveals that in reality, nothing has changed: Mubarak will continue to run as a sole candidate, only this time, in a democratic way.
Nonetheless, the amendment states this contender must be a part of the ruling party, or must collect 300 signatures from parliament members and municipal councils. Such a number isn’t possible, as the ruling party and Mubarak’s loyalists control the parliament and the councils. Therefore, stand-out candidates such as feminist Nawal al-Saadawi and others cannot pass this filtering process.
Mubarak will therefore of course be elected for a fifth term, which would last until 2011.
Amendment 'a trick'
The Americans understand this is a trick, but because of their involvement in Iraq they seem to prefer not to worsen their relations with the Egyptian government, and perhaps herein lies the problem.
Mubarak had to agree to the democratic changes mostly because of the Americans. His fear of the Saddam Hussein prescedent pushed him to carry out reforms he would not have dreamed of carrying out before. But when U.S. President George W. Bush was elected for a second term, less pressure was put on Arab leaderships.
Therefore, the problem is not with Mubarak and his confidantes and Arab leaders, but with President Bush. If he is in fact commited to the vision of a democratized Arab world, he must continue to exercise a powerful and demanding policy in the region. If he backs down, the lone sparks of democracy that were lit here during the past couple of years will die out.
The United States must clarify whether it is willing to continue to pay the heavy burden. If it doesn’t intend to do so, it should declare so now, otherwise poor human rights group activists in the Arab world will be given false hope, as they and only they will eventually pay the price for this inconsistent policy.
