Is history repeating itself in Egypt today, or are the same mistakes being committed again? About four years ago, the opposition called for boycotting the second round of elections, because candidates of the now-dissolved National Democratic Party (NDP) won a suspicious landslide victory, gaining 95 percent of parliamentary seats, even in districts where NDP candidates had lost popular support to candidates from the opposition and independent parties.
Cairo — This scenario repeated itself yesterday as nominations began. The Supreme Committee for Election opened up to nominations for parliamentary elections (a 10-day process), and one Ahmed Ezz — “one of the main reasons for the January Revolution” — submitted his application through his lawyer.
The call for boycott came even before the first round this time, as many suspect that the expected outcome of this election may resemble the previous one.
The fraud witnessed during the 2010 election was committed and overseen by the same Ahmed Ezz, the NDP’s secretary-general at the time, from an operations room in the party headquarters near Tahrir Square and Abdel Munim Riad Square. The boycott of the second round of elections revealed the fragility of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, which had ruled the country for 30 years. In those days, a number of opposition parties, including the Wafd Party and the currently banned Muslim Brotherhood, led the boycott . The most important result of the boycott, the January 25 Revolution, followed a few months after, in 2011.
The Constitution Party established by Mohammed al-Baradei recently joined the list of parties boycotting the 2015 elections, which includes the Egyptian Popular Current (headed by former 2014 presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi), The Socialist People’s Alliance Party and the Strong Egypt Party (headed by former 2012 presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh). The reason for the boycott, according to these parties, is the government’s rejection of their repeated demand to amend the electoral law in order to “build a political system based on a multi-party system and transfer of power.”
Amr Badr, a member of the Socialist People’s Alliance Party and a boycott supporter, said “boycotting is the solution, it is the best option in light of a regime that does not believe in the political parties that are counting on the January 25 Revolution.” Badr believes the “revolutionary wave” is coming, but he cannot predict its timing: “The make-up of the next parliament (if the elections are held in this manner) will inflame public sentiments as the political and economic oligarchs — who corrupted Egypt’s political life and against whom the revolution erupted in the first place — return.”
[T]he election will “expose the nature of the regime and will determine if it is an extension of the Mubarak regime or if there is some kind of change.” — Hassan Nafaa, political science professor
The Constitution Party, which joined the boycott recently, justified its decision saying: “The current political climate does not encourage political parties to participate in public life. There is a strong tendency to narrow and confine the political sphere to people with special interests, influence and money, in addition to ongoing severe human rights violations.”
Ezz running in the elections suggests that the same scenario may be crudely repeated. And he wasn’t the only symbol of the Mubarak regime — imprisoned after the January 25 Revolution only to be later acquitted — to be involved in the nomination process. The list of candidates (until the deadline for submitting papers to the relevant courts) is headed by Ahmed Ezz and his wife Shahinaz al-Najjar; but also Hussein Megawer, president of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation under Mubarak; another NDP figure named Ragab Hilal Hamida; and also Hani Sorour who was accused of supplying tainted blood bags [to Egyptian hospitals] but acquitted after several years of adjudication.
Hassan Nafaa, a political science professor, commented on the current electoral scene saying the revolution continues and it is taking different forms. He believes the election will “expose the nature of the regime and will determine if it is an extension of the Mubarak regime or if there is some kind of change.”
Nafaa however argues that “the revolution will not be like the one in 2011, especially now that Egypt is entering a period that resembles the Mubarak era in terms of the behavior of security agencies as they tighten their control over events, the return of the network of economic and political interests through parliament, and the strengthening of the military institution, through the presidency of former Secretary of Defense Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.” He adds: “Liberal forces have begun to realize that the current regime is not their regime... The power of the ruling regime will be determined in the next six months and in light of its confrontation with the Muslim Brotherhood.”
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
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