Amr El-Choubaki* on the choices now facing the Muslim Brotherhood and the National Democratic Party The Egyptian legislative elections saw the emergence of a number of new phenomena. There was the unexpected success of the Muslim Brotherhood, the meltdown of the opposition parties, a setback for the National Democratic Party (NDP) and an increase in violence and the buying of votes. The rise of a missionary-political organisation such as the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), which won nearly 100 seats, reflects past failures to deal with the MB on both the security and bureaucratic fronts. It has for too long been considered a "security threat" and not a political-religious-social entity that should be confronted through the creation of an alternative party model capable of competing with it and winning in the political arena, attempts to deal with the MB have been piecemeal at best. The organisation remains officially banned yet it has been permitted to operate within syndicates and on campuses where it uses religion as a tool for political mobilisation, a strategy to which the regime is hardly in a position to object given that it, too, has used religion to shore up its legitimacy through fatwas issued by Al-Azhar and the cooption of Sufi orders. Egypt's political management of the MB comes to look even more surprising when compared to experiences elsewhere in the region notably in Turkey and Iran. From the beginning modern Turkey was a republican system based on a secular constitution that, in some aspects at least, appears extreme. The system has enjoyed the protection of the military and the integration of Islamists into the political equation was deemed acceptable only after they had committed themselves to operating within the legal and political system. Following a long struggle between secularists and Islamists, the latter eventually integrated themselves within the democratic equation, forming a civil political party that has been successful at the polls and often appears more European and democratic than Turkey's conservative secularists. The experience of Iran is the opposite of Turkey, though it too set political and constitutional criteria which had to be met before various powers were allowed to join the political equation. In Iran the battle between conservative and reformist currents is still ongoing. Egypt, with a moderate republican system and civil constitution that nonetheless makes Islam the primary source of legislation, managed to contain the MB for 25 years, during which it benefited from the group's social and political energy. Now, though, it is clear as day that the time has come for the MB to transform itself into a civil political party. The state's acceptance of this party would invigorate partisan and political life and re-energise the NDP and opposition parties alike. The phenomena of buying votes is in many ways indicative of the collapse in support for those we might conveniently term service candidates. Since 1976 service candidates have played a role in legislative elections. Prominent on the ruling party's lists, they offered services to their constituencies, such as the paving of streets, the building of clinics and creation of jobs. The fact is, though, that many of the services offered turned out to be empty promises, except in cases where candidates were extremely wealthy men, such as Mohamed Abul-Enein and his ilk. The failure to deliver the services promised allowed candidates who purchase votes to partially replace the service candidates. On the surface, it would seem that votes were purchased in unprecedented numbers during the recent elections. Deteriorating economic conditions led members of the electorate to sell votes to the highest bidder, something that reflects a loss of trust not only in service candidates but also those we might term political. Given the failure of political and service candidates to offer anything of note to their constituencies many voters preferred to sell their vote for ready cash. The legislative elections saw the implosion of that model of political representation put forward by Egypt's traditional left and represented, if partially and sporadically, by the Tagammu Party. United National Front for Change candidates, parachuted into electoral districts with their ambiguous programmes for political and constitutional reform yet without any connection with grassroots constituents, suffered wholesale losses. So did those candidates who raised the slogan "Reform is the answer" and then neglected to make any attempts to connect with the voters. Progressive reformist slogans seemed sadly out of place in the cut and thrust of the elections, though they have had a more sympathetic reception among some of the political elite. One of the most important reasons behind the success of the MB when compared to the United National Front for Change was the way in which the former has successfully combined the service and political candidate models. And while MB candidates continued to mix politics with religion and use bombastic slogans -- "Islam is the solution" being the prime example -- that offer nothing in the way of practical answers to problems faced, their organisational competence was much in evidence. Alone among the parties the MB possesses a political machine capable of mobilising its supporters and turning that support into votes. In comparison the performance of the ruling party and opposition parties was a shambles. Out of that shambles has arisen a crisis for the NDP, many of whose candidates relied on the state's administrative and security apparatuses in order to rally support. Yet others adopted the tactics of so-called independents, hiring thugs to intimidate voters, or else buying support. There was not a modicum of common ground -- intellectual or political -- discernible among NDP candidates. There were reformist candidates, such as Hossam Badrawi, who lost their seats and others, representatives of the old-guard, who won. The NDP fielded service candidates alongside those happy to hire thugs and bribe voters, candidates who used religious slogans even more intensively than the MB, and others who were voal in defence of the civil nature of the state. It is time for the NDP to fix an identity and make time choices in the political arena and without the support of the state's security and administrative agencies. As a party it must cleanse its hands of the infractions, violence and fraud perpetrated by some of its candidates even if this means losing seats, for the loss of a few seats, ultimately, will be far less costly than losing respect for the law and the civil constitution. * The writer is an analyst at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
