Hot spots: Egypt.(INTERNATIONAL SECTION)(economic reforms and political environment of Egypt)

Before beginning his fifth six-year term as Egypt's Head of State Last September, Hosni Mubarak vowed to set the nation on a new track with "free and fair" elections, with constitutional amendments to strengthen parliament and political parties and to replace emergency Laws in effect since 1981, and with revived social and economic reforms. Since then, the conduct of parliamentary elections, which were held in three rounds Last November and December, has made it clear that with regard to political liberalization there will continue to be a wide gulf between what the regime promises and what it does.

While the state media dutifully hailed the elections as a "splendid pageant of democracy," the voting, in reality, was badly marred by all sorts of irregularities, from ballot box stuffing and vote miscounting to intimidation and deadly violence that left at Least a dozen people dead. The result was far from what Western observers had hoped for. Predictably, President Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) retained enough seats to stay in undisputed control of the Legislature and to go on rubber-stamping the regime's initiatives. But all the Legal, secular opposition parties did miserably, losing even seats that had been occupied by their Leaders and best-respected deputies.

By contrast, the outlawed but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood did exceptionally well, despite the government's machinations against it (including the arrest of 1,500 of its supporters in the third round of voting) and even though its members ran technically as "independents." The Brotherhood came away with 88 seats, nearly six times the number it had held previously, and with a success rate of over 50 percent, considering that its candidates--wary of provoking the government--ran for only 150 of 444 contested seats. This is a noteworthy achievement, and one that the U.S., hoping for Egypt to become a model democracy in the Middle East, is bound to view with some discomfort.

The Brotherhood, after all, was the wellspring from which originated radical Islamist groups such as Hamas, Jamaat al-Islamiyya, and parts of al-Qaeda. While it is not itself an armed group, it has consistently supported violence against Israelis in Israel and against Americans in Iraq. It believes that Islam is the answer not only to religious questions but also in political and economic matters. It has no real democratic convictions, and its ultimate aim is to establish a new caliphate to rule not only Egypt but the entire Islamic world.

In effect, the Brotherhood's election success (and the failure of the secular opposition parties) means that there is, at this point, no political middle ground in Egypt between the authoritarian NDP and the militant Islamic group. This makes it easy for the regime to claim that the only alternative to its rule is Islamic absolutism and that it is, therefore, deserving of outside (especially American) support despite its authoritarian bent. The U.S. has been furnishing USD 1.8 billion in annual aid, and while the Bush Administration may express its dismay by postponing trade negotiations that were to get under way in January, it is not Likely to put an end to the financial assistance.

There was hope at one time that the President's son, Gamal Mubarak, would succeed with efforts he began more than three years ago to modernize and reform the NDP. He heads the party's policy committee and did bring in a number of liberal-minded young professionals. Gamal's drive, though, has ...