If parliamentary elections have proved anything it is that now is the time for change, writes Hassan Nafaa* Some might think that it is taking things a bit far to speak of the collapse of the legitimacy of the regime when the legislative election returns, although not yet final, indicate that the ruling party will control 70 per cent of the seats in the People's Assembly. However, I am not one to make such pronouncements flippantly; I would have to have good reasons for making so grave and sweeping a judgement such. Before I set out my reasons, I should first clarify that by regime, here, I mean not just the NDP government but the system in its entirety, inclusive of its institutions, policies and political parties, both ruling and opposition. To begin with, NDP candidates fielded in the elections failed to obtain more than 40 per cent of parliamentary seats in the first and second rounds of the elections, and are unlikely to obtain more than this by the time the final results are in. This percentage of seats is not enough for the NDP to rule independently. When we consider, moreover, that the number of seats the NDP did win is more a product of the power of the official establishment than a reflection of the popularity of the ruling party, which had it not been for many irregularities in the polling process would barely have scraped together half that number, then it is time to recognise that we are facing a crisis of legitimacy. That the candidates who had left the NDP to run as independents will most likely come out with nearly the same amount of seats as the ruling party is also telling. It indicates that the NDP does not function as a political party should. In addition to the obvious fact, given the returns, that it does not choose its candidates well, the candidates it did field are bound not so much by ideology or party platform as they are by a vested interest in the status quo. Had we had a normal democratic political party system, and had the NDP emerged as an autonomous entity rather than as an organ of the state, then the independents could have formed their own party or parties and we would have had a more properly balanced electoral process. That many of these independents also won their seats on the strength of their ability to purchase votes gives us further cause to question the legitimacy of the system. Also indicative of the eroding legitimacy of the regime is widespread electoral fraud which, in spite of the amelioration that occurred during the second round, is expected to become more flagrant in the third and final round. Members of the judiciary responsible for monitoring the polls have testified to blatant attempts to rig the registration lists in some constituencies, to prevent voters from entering the polling stations in others and to falsify the results in yet more. In spite of this an officially banned political group whose members ran as independents had succeeded in winning 76 parliamentary seats by the end of the second round, a figure that may well climb up to a 100, or about 25 per cent of the seats in parliament. The official opposition parties, in contrast, have only managed to obtain 12 seats so far and are not expected to gain more than 15 by the end of the polls. Not only is this imbalance another indication of the collapsing legitimacy of the regime, it is also a mark of the bankruptcy of its policies. Further testimony to this is to be found in the fact that at least 75 per cent of registered voters did not turn out to vote. Clearly, a large majority is still not confident in the ability to effect change through the ballot box. They therefore decided to remain on the sidelines watching a game that they knew was rigged. Under conditions so skewed it was to be expected that the legislative elections would cast into relief the sharp polarisation between two forces -- the ruling party, representing the power of the state, and the officially banned political group representing the power of religion. True, the breakaway members of the NDP who fielded themselves in the elections will return to the party fold, ensuring it the more than two-thirds majority it needs to pass all the legislation it wants. However, the way this majority was achieved opens NDP control of the People's Assembly to question. Simultaneously, the fact that a banned political group will control many times more seats than the official opposition parties put together not only underscores the abnormality of the current situation but also reinforces the impression that the situation is potentially explosive. Indeed, it stirs resentment against the system of government that brought us to this pass. When religion becomes the sole recourse for opposition it means only one thing -- ordinary channels for political participation have become blocked and here is a political vacuum that had better be filled quickly, before it is too late. It would be a waste of time at this juncture to attempt to attribute blame for the current situation. More useful would be for all active political forces to keep their sights trained on the future and to concentrate on ways to extricate the country from its current plight. In this regard I would like to caution against two potentially dangerous pitfalls. The first is that the ruling party attempts to mobilise public opinion against the Muslim Brotherhood, using the official media to generate a state of alarm and then use this as a pretext for clamping down on and eventually eliminating the organisation. If the NDP does pursue this strategy it can only mean that it has failed to grasp one of the most important lessons of the past, which is that attempts to repress the Muslim Brotherhood only serve to make the organisation stronger. The NDP may think that it can exploit the anxieties of Copts, leftist groups and other segments of society -- many of them not unfounded -- in order to kill two birds with one stone. But such a policy is a two-edged sword and may well backfire in ways that are detrimental to national security. The second pitfall is for the Muslim Brotherhood to imagine that with its recent electoral victories it has succeeded in breaking the government's ban on the group and the government will no longer be in a position to resort to its old tactics of oppression against them and they can now dispense with alliances with other political forces. If the Muslim Brotherhood succumbs to this illusion and comports itself in a way that leads others to believe that its political alliances were no more than a cover to further its own ends rather than a means to promote the comprehensive democratisation to which the vast majority of the Egyptian people aspire then it will only facilitate the ruling party's strategy of turning the public against it. The government still has ways to rescue the country from the current crisis. Above all, it is not too late to put into effect an alternative strategy for comprehensive political reform, lifting the state of emergency and abolishing restrictions on the formation of political parties and on political party activity. Unfortunately, I fear that the powers that be within the NDP are neither ready nor willing to undertake such a progressive step. They still are under the impression that hereditary succession is the only way to safeguard Egypt's future and their sole preoccupation at present is to stage the transfer of power from father to son in an acceptable way. The tragedy is that their obsession with staging this charade is part of the problem rather than the solution. In order to set a real process of political reform into motion the government must undertake three interrelated steps simultaneously. It must remove Gamal Mubarak from the equation, at least at this juncture. It must separate the powers of the head of the ruling party from the powers of the executive -- i.e. President Mubarak should step down as head of the NDP. Thirdly, it should promulgate a law guaranteeing judicial autonomy. As I do not place much faith in the judgement of the NDP we can only hope that that of the opposition is sounder. The movement for democratic change in Egypt must realise that it bears the greatest onus for the peaceful pursuit of democratic transition. The presence of the Muslim Brotherhood within this front makes it possible for all parties to engage in dialogue aimed at establishing the rules for political conduct during this extremely delicate phase. To begin with, the opposition in the People's Assembly must act as a single bloc, regardless of whether or not this is technically proper, and push for constitutional amendments needed to formulate the bases of a new social contract that can be enshrined in a new constitution. If the opposition can sustain its unity inside parliament and simultaneously work with its constituencies outside parliament to build up the momentum for these changes it will have succeeded in an historic task. If today's parliamentary elections have put paid to the legitimacy and prestige of the current system of government, they have simultaneously placed the ball in the court of the opposition. Its task, now, is to build a new basis for legitimacy. * The writer is professor of political science at Cairo University.
