from a Dec 2005 column

The stark choices in Egyptian politics were captured this month in the dramatic standoffs in front of dozens of polling places during Egypt’s parliamentary vote. Rows of riot police blocked access to the polls, as hundreds of angry men and veiled women of the banned Muslim Brotherhood pressed up against the barricades, demanding to be allowed to vote.

The violence that erupted in these showdowns left five people dead and hundreds wounded by the poll’s end December 7. It was the same number as were killed in the last parliamentary election in 2000, indicating that while some of the rules of the game have changed in Egyptian politics, the government’s desire to maintain dominance at any cost remains the same.

It was a sad lesson to learn for any who might have taken seriously the National Democratic Party’s pledges of political reform over the past year. The government permitted a direct presidential vote for the first time in September, and let that vote take place without significance interference from security forces.

NDP spokesmen have been proudly showcasing the party’s ambitious reform agenda for the next parliament, which includes lifting the nation’s 24-year old Emergency Law, which strictly represses political life in Egypt, and loosening many of the current restrictions on political parties that have helped maintain Egypt as a single-party state.

The future of Egypt lies with a “multiparty political system, a political system where you have alternatives to the majority party, whatever that party is,” said Mohammed Kamal, one of the NDP’s leading young ideologues, on the day before the voting began.

“The government, the president, is committed to conducting a free and fair election, with state institutions staying neutral,” he said in an interview.

Instead, a disturbing pattern unfolded throughout electoral districts in Egypt. The government gave the Muslim Brotherhood unprecidented freedom to campaign and hold rallies before the vote. But when Brotherhood candidates began to win in far greater numbers than had been predicted, the soft-shoe manipulation and vote-rigging that marred the election’s first round gave way to strong-arm tactics remininsent of elections past.

When posting riot police in front of polling stations didn’t deter opposition voters December 7, state security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets. In some cases, live ammunition was used, killing opposition party supporters, according to independent election observers. The Egyptian government denied Wednesday that its election security forces shot live rounds.

In theory, many secular Egyptians would agree with the government that all things being equal, it would be desirable to keep the Muslim Brotherhood’s presence in parliament in check. There is a great deal of fear about their ambiguous agenda should they gain power, and the impact their religious views will have on the rights of women and non-Muslim minorities.

But the cheating used to limit the Brotherhood’s gains laid out in unusually clear terms a basic question for those who are interested in democracy in Egypt: Is it better to stand with the side that wants to impose Islamic law, or with the side that will employ any means to stop them from voting?

Liberals and secular opposition politicians are increasingly choosing to stand with the Brotherhood’s right to participate, even when they oppose their religious platform. Egypt’s weak secular and liberal opposition groups courted the Brotherhood for their united opposition front before this election.

For the past year, Brotherhood members have participated alongside Marxists, liberals, and socialists in anti-Mubarak demonstrations in Cairo. Analysts increasingly say that the Brotherhood’s presence in parliament could help to revitalize political life in Egypt by encouraging reform within the NDP and other parties.

With all of the rhetoric about democracy now in Egypt, cheating in elections is an increasingly appalling option, even for those who think that checking the rise of an Islamist party is a noble cause. Indeed, it is hard not to be moved by the sight of hundreds unarmed voters risking violence and arrest to cast their ballots and have their voices heard.

Brotherhood supporters also stand accused of paying voters in some districts and engaging in violence in an election that was far from clean on all sides. But the Egyptian government’s refusal to accept the will of its voters did something for the Brotherhood it could not do for itself: it turned a group whose slogan is “Islam is the Solution" into the most powerful emblem of the nation’s desire for democratic change.