Egypt goes to polls with victor already known

Egypt : Egypt's election is a largely staged affair, writes Nuala Haughey , in Damietta.

Egypt: Egypt's election is a largely staged affair, writes Nuala Haughey, in Damietta.

It was a political rally, but with shades of a pop concert. When Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak, with his dyed, slicked-back hair and open-necked shirt, took to the stage for a stump speech in the ancient Nile Delta city of Damietta, the carefully selected crowd went wild.

Women in pastel-coloured headscarves made high-pitched ululating noises and the president's 40-minute scripted speech was repeatedly interrupted with chants of "With our blood and our souls we sacrifice ourselves for you, Mubarak!"

With monotone delivery, Mubarak pledged to kick-start the flagging economy by creating more than four million jobs in the next six years, boost exports, build factories and improve services and pay, as well as introducing more transparency and accountability in the way this country of 70 million people is governed.

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One enraptured audience member, Mohammed Labib Amer, a 45-year-old local craftsman, pressed against a crowd control barrier in the clammy heat of the huge sheet-draped tent, passionately delivering a poem he penned himself.

"Yes to you, son of the pyramids and the Nile by blood, I would say 100 million yeses," he gushed.

"For our country you have lit the sky and built bridges and factories and reclaimed the desert." Similar scenes of unprecedented and not entirely spontaneous adulation have been played out across the country as the 77-year-old Mubarak has taken to the campaign trail for the first time in his 24-year rule.

The unusual sight of Egypt's autocratic leader courting voters and empathising with the pain of his people comes courtesy of the first contested presidential election in the 5,000 years since Pharaonic Egypt emerged. The presidential race has many of the trappings of a genuine contest, with candidates criss-crossing the country and making ambitious pledges ahead of polling day tomorrow.

State-owned TV, normally devoted exclusively to the good deeds of the incumbent president, has actually covered the manifestos of all nine opposition candidates, although Mubarak still dominates the television and official print media.

The brutal policing of pro-democracy demonstrations organised by the umbrella group Kifaya (meaning Enough) in recent months has given way to a begrudging tolerance of electioneering by Mubarak's opponents during the brief 19-day campaign period, which ended at the weekend. But there are many here who see this contest as the pop industry equivalent of lip-synching to a backing tape.

Backed by the huge patronage machine of his ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), victory for Mubarak is a foregone conclusion.

Egypt's opposition is immature and enfeebled, its electorate jaded after more than half a century of one-party rule. The president's tight grip on power is shored up by emergency laws which human rights groups accuse the authorities of abusing to suppress political dissent.

Mubarak, a former air force pilot and general, was lauded domestically and internationally last February when he announced his plans for a constitutional amendment allowing the presidency to be contested by more than one candidate.

Since he succeeded the assassinated Anwar Sadat in 1981, Mubarak has been elected unopposed four times in "yes" or "no" referendums confirming his nomination by parliament. But optimism turned to anger when Egypt's small but increasingly emboldened political class learned that stringent qualifying conditions for presidential candidates gave Mubarak's NDP a virtual veto over the field.

The rules also prevented the officially banned but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood from fielding a candidate, thus neutralising the threat from the only opposition force with enough popular appeal to challenge the regime.

"Mubarak is not in the business of giving away power. He wants to give people a choice, but he doesn't want to give up power," remarked one Cairo-based western observer.

Most analysts view the introduction of competitive presidential elections as an effort by Mubarak to placate both domestic and international pressure, especially from America, for democratic reform and greater political accountability.

Some analysts say Mubarak is also manoeuvring to ensure he is succeeded by his youngest son Gamal, a 41-year-old banker and head of the NDP's influential policy committee.

Many believe Gamal would push aside the party's old guard and establish a circle of more western-minded younger businessmen and technocrats.

"He is trying to find a way in which Mubarak junior could be introduced later on," commented Mohammed El Sayed Said, deputy director of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies and a member of the Kifaya democracy movement.

"He actually spelled it out in an interview with a Kuwaiti newspaper, saying that if his son comes through in an election it will not be called inheritance.

"There was a need to sort of frame the presidency through a new legal and political approach." The authorities have refused to allow international election observers and Egyptian judges who had threatened to boycott their supervision of the election announced last Friday that they would take part, but have demanded more steps to guarantee a fair vote.

The two main leftist parties are boycotting the elections, while Ayman Nour, leader of the recently founded Tomorrow Party and the other main opposition candidate, Noman Gomaa of the long established liberal nationalist Wafd Party, complain that they have not been allowed to scrutinise voters' lists.

Nour (41), a Cairene lawyer and parliamentarian, was earlier this year arrested and held for six weeks on what he says are trumped up charges of forging some of the signatures needed to register his party. Now out on bail and awaiting trial due shortly after the election, he last week saw his campaign's television commercial blocked following complaints from the state broadcaster that its musical theme was plagiarized.

Some 50km north of Damietta lies the charming Mediterranean city of Port Said on the mouth of the Suez Canal.

Nour has twice taken his campaign here, conscious that Mubarak is deeply unpopular with locals, partly because he revoked the city's coveted duty-free port status three years ago.

Oddly, though, Port Said's tree-lined streets are draped almost exclusively in hand-painted banners endorsing Mubarak's candidacy.

One afternoon last week, Adel Yehia, a 37-year-old university graduate turned welder, was taking a tea-break from constructing a gazebo overlooking one of the world's most heavily used shipping lane. "Unfortunately I am going to vote for Mubarak, because unfortunately there's no one but him," said the father-of-two.

"We wanted new blood. A human being has more than one vein, but in this country there's only one vein of power."

Like many employees in Egypt's bloated civil service, Yehia has to supplement his income with manual work in order to feed his family.

"The Pharaohs used to make people obey with a whip. Unfortunately we Egyptians, we worship rulers, even if they are cruel."

Optimistic analysts look beyond tomorrow's vote to the longer term struggle for democracy, beginning with important parliamentary elections set for next November.

They are heartened by the change in the political climate which has allowed them to voice criticism of Mubarak and his family, a subject which not so long ago was taboo.

"The real gain is that we broke the barrier of fear and silence with just the presence of our party," says Nour.

"Our resistance has made Egyptians think why have we accepted this regime for 24 years. Whatever the result is, we have achieved huge gains for democracy.

"We have offered an alternative to the fascist military trend or the religious trend with the possibility of civil, liberal, democratic trend."

Mohammed Sid Ahmed, a respected analyst and opposition party member, says Mubarak's move, however flawed, has created enormous expectations.

"Mubarak cannot cope with the situation hehas provoked, it's bigger than Egypt has ever known," he said.