It’s Official: Egypt Will Hold Parliamentary Elections in September

Pajamas Media ^ | March 29, 2011 | Barry Rubin

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The military junta ruling Egypt has announced that parliamentary elections will be held in September. Rather than spending the next five months complaining, those who aren’t supporting the Muslim Brotherhood better get started actually working and organizing.

I’ll analyze this a lot more in the coming months but briefly the blocs are as follows:

Islamists: The Muslim Brotherhood says it is aiming at getting 30 percent of the seats. I think they’ll succeed. A smaller, moderate Islamist party — whose members split from the Brotherhood because they say it is too extremist — would be lucky to get any seats.

Left: There are several neo-Marxist parties, but it is not clear whether they will work together or run separately. In either case, they are unlikely to get many seats, and none at all if they compete for the limited votes that might be obtained. Probably no more than 5 percent.

Conservatives: The ex-regime’s politicians, including leaders of the ruling National Democratic Party. This group could do better than outsiders expect. If they unite and put forward coherent positions, they could take as much as 20 percent.

Nationalists: If Amr Moussa organizes his own radical nationalist party and does a good job, it might get up to 40 percent, especially if he brings in a lot of the former supporters of the Mubarak regime. This is the only group I think that could have a larger bloc than the Islamists.

Centrist pro-democracy forces: This would be the party of Mohamed ElBaradei, Ayman Nour, and the Facebook kids. I doubt it would get more than 15 percent, almost all in Cairo and Alexandria.

Obviously, these are tentative figures that will have to be revised as we see whether these groups do get organized and are able to remain united.

The Brotherhood will definitely not “take over” Egypt this year — especially since Amr Moussa is the most likely president and the Brotherhood won’t run a candidate. But it will have lots of influence and a key role in writing the new constitution.

Presumably, the Brotherhood will make deals to get religious and social clauses it wants in exchange for compromises on things it doesn’t care about very much. Egypt, then, will take a big step closer to Islamism and an even bigger step toward being hostile to the United States and Israel, while moving into a virtual alliance with Hamas.

[Berlin_Freeper]

- a big step closer to Islamism and an even bigger step toward being hostile to the United States and Israel

That means a step towards nuclear weapons too.

[Prospero]

Something new, under the Sun, or maybe just a first for me, is an Islamic Junta, brought to us by the same faceless authoritarians who assassinated Anwar Sadat. Or at least the same folks who proscribed any more mass demonstrations like those that brought down Mubarak, barely six weeks ago.

If Conservatism was strong in the American Republic we would be hearing more questions like, "who lost Egypt?"

Even Israeli public opinion seems muted, if more resigned. The most chilling moment may have been the recent reassurance from the Junta, made to Israel, that the Camp David accords would be honored, for the time being.

I doubt the new found unity among the overlapping "interests" of the Brotherhood and the Officer Corp in Egypt - still financed by direct U.S. payments - are prepared yet to see their air force and many other assets destroyed on the ground as a prelude to the next war with Tel Aviv.

[expatguy]

I'm sorry, but I can't believe I'm reading this nonsense.

Does the author honestly think democracy is going to take root there?

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Democracy and liberty are not necessarily synonymous. The election can be free and fair, then the Egyptians can continue to live in misery under whomever they put into power.

[AlexW]

In that part of the world, I would rather keep the devil that I know, before having the devil that I do not know.

[Brad from Tennessee]

Since Erdogan became prime minister of Turkey in 2003 his strategy has been to quietly insert Islamists into the state bureaucracy and the schools. He appears to be building a force to counter the Army, considered the guardian of secularism. Erdogan was quoted in the New York Times saying “Democracy is like a streetcar. When you come to your stop, you get off.” This could become the model for Egypt.

[BobP]

I'm sorry, but I can't believe I'm reading this nonsense.

Does the author honestly think democracy is going to take root there?

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Maybe Obama can give another speech and Hillary can fly over to talk to them.