A New Generation of Autocracy in Egypt
Jason Brownlee
Assistant Professor
University of Texas at Austin
“The great and proud nation of Egypt has shown the way toward peace in the Middle
East, and now should show the way toward democracy in the Middle East.”1 With this
injunction, U.S. President George W. Bush sought to catalyze political reform in the
region’s most populous state. But his bold declaration has elicited the same kinds of
faux liberalization that have characterized Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s quarter-century in power. While allowing a patina of competitive politics to validate the
United States’ hopes, Mubarak has also confirmed his critics’ worst fears. Constitutional
amendments in May 2005, followed by presidential and parliamentary elections that
fall, benefited Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) and exposed his opponents
to state-sanctioned repression. This past spring, the regime further entrenched itself,
deploying a second round of amendments that doomed any chance for vibrant multipartyism under the current president or his successor. The Egyptian elite has thus turned
Bush’s call on its head, embracing the mantle of reform only to enshrine its dominance
beyond Hosni Mubarak’s passing. Rather than blazing a new path to democracy, Egypt
has embarked on the road to political dynasty recently traversed by the Assads in Syria
and the Aliyevs in Azerbaijan. The lopsided battle over constitutional changes thereby
signifies the Egyptian government’s success at regenerating authoritarianism while again
suppressing its critics.
This essay recounts the latest arc of liberalization and repression. It also addresses
the reasons why hereditary succession may command the tacit support of most Egyptian leaders, focusing on the “transitional period” of the past two years, during which
autocratic rule has been rejuvenated without being reformed.2
Jason Brownlee is an assistant professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin and a regular
visitor to Egypt. His research on democratization and Middle East politics has appeared in Studies in
Comparative International Development and World Politics. He is the author of Authoritarianism in an Age
of Democratization. The author thanks Joshua Stacher for helpful comments on a prior version of this work.
This article went to press prior to the NDP’s ninth general congress, scheduled for November 2007.
Copyright © 2007 by the Brown Journal of World Affairs
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Jason Brownlee
The Constitutional Amendment and Contested Elections of 2005
74
When Bush reiterated his call for Egyptian reform in the 2005 State of the Union
address, Mubarak appeared to respond. Mubarak’s four six-year terms in power had been
approved through uncontested referenda, as had the tenures of his predecessors. On 26
February 2005 the septuagenarian president proposed amending Egypt’s constitution
to replace these single-candidate plebiscites with multi-candidate presidential elections.
But the measure, ratified by a violence-ridden referendum on 25 May 2005, did not
deliver the political sea change initially promised.3 As the fate of Mubarak’s strongest
challenger soon demonstrated, the amendment was carefully managed to foil genuine
competition. In the multi-candidate presidential polls that September, twice-elected
member of parliament Ayman Nour finished second with 7.6 percent of the national
vote to Mubarak’s unassailable 88.6 percent.4
This relatively strong showing solidified Nour’s status as the leading oppositionist
outside the contraband but active Muslim Brotherhood (widely regarded as Egypt’s
most viable opposition movement yet prohibited from joining the presidential race).
Nour’s success only intensified the problems already plaguing him and his party, Al
Ghad (Tomorrow). He was harassed by state security and then robbed of his seat in
parliament through electoral chicanery.5 His dubious defeat in the opening rounds
of parliamentary polls on 9 November 2005 supported suspicions that Nour was the
victim of an organized government campaign. On 24 December, a regime-friendly
judge convicted Nour on orchestrated forgery charges and sentenced the erstwhile
presidential contender to five years of imprisonment, a telling capstone to Mubarak’s
year of reform.6
Even as parliamentary elections spelled the beginning of Nour’s downfall, the same
set of polls appeared to buoy the Muslim Brotherhood, which won 88 seats—more
than quintupling the group’s presence from the prior legislative elections in the year
2000. The Brotherhood’s unprecedented capture of 20 percent of the People’s Assembly
enlivened the group’s supporters and disconcerted its critics. As was with Ayman Nour’s
candidacy in the preceding presidential elections, the Brotherhood’s victories constituted
not an irreversible advance for the opposition, but a gain the regime could neutralize after accruing credit for its alleged reform. Numeric success concealed qualitative
setbacks, as official and plain-clothed government targeted the Muslim Brotherhood’s
leadership for defeat. The head of the group’s parliamentary bloc, Mohammed Morsi,
lost his post amid state-sponsored intervention; anti-corruption champion Gamal
Heshmat was deprived a seat amid similar conditions. Brotherhood candidates who
surmounted electoral subterfuge composed a vocal parliamentary presence, only to find
their legislative initiatives derailed by Mubarak’s ministers and the solid supermajority
still held by the ruling NDP.7 Thus the Brotherhood’s expanded bloc commanded no
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A New Generation of Autocracy in Egypt
measurably greater influence over legislation than its previous cohort. On balance, the
88 parliamentarians’ first full year in office seemed a symbolic measure to placate U.S.
foreign policy makers and ward off subsequent pressure.8 If this was Mubarak’s ploy, it
worked; abandoning her earlier tone of criticism, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice was noticeably upbeat about local developments during her visits to Cairo in
2006 and 2007.9
Urban Cairo
Photo courtesy of Daniel Hudner
The autocratic wake of 2005 left reform advocates crestfallen, for the presidential and
parliamentary elections had momentarily answered long-standing calls by Nour, the
Muslim Brotherhood, and the broader set of democracy activists whose hopes they
carried. Beginning in the spring of 2003, public protests over the second Palestinian
intifada and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq had morphed into rallies directed at President
Mubarak, his family, and his associates. Print media crystallized this discontent, with
the Nasserist weekly Al-Arabi and the new independent Al-Masry Al-Youm assiduously
exposing the regime’s excesses. In March 2003, an estimated 10,000 protesters occupied
Cairo’s central square and chanters coupled their outrage against the United States with
critiques of Mubarak and his sons.10 State security rigidly corralled subsequent demonstrations, but the reemergence of public protests amid the martial law–like conditions
of Egypt’s state of emergency (in effect continuously since 1981) symbolized broad
dissatisfaction during Mubarak’s fourth term (1999–2005). In December 2004, a new
organization, calling itself the Egyptian Movement for Change or Kifaya (Enough),
initiated protests decrying further presidential terms for Mubarak and condemning
the rumored plan of a dynastic succession. Kifaya’s demonstrations varied in size from
dozens to hundreds of protestors and seemed to embolden other groups to articulate
their criticisms and manifest the depth of their popular support.11
By the time Mubarak displayed his newly minted electoral bona fides, Kifaya’s
calls had lost their earlier resonance, mainly because the government had silenced so
many advocates of reform. While Nour languished in prison, the Ministry of Interior
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Jason Brownlee
began mass arrests of Muslim Brotherhood members in March 2006. As the number of
detainees approached one thousand, the crackdown demonstrated the ephemeral impact
of the Brotherhood’s expanded parliamentary presence.12 Over the Brotherhood’s objections, parliament renewed the authoritarian state of emergency laws for an additional
two years, starting in April 2006.13 Other victims of the post-2005 backlash included
veteran judges and intrepid bloggers sanctioned for exposing state corruption. Wouldbe contestants in local elections were also chagrined to hear they had been postponed
until spring 2008. Hence, the trend toward muffling dissent and curtailing competition was clear barely a year after the May 2005 amendment had been approved, and it
would only quicken in subsequent months. The sources of this indomitable autocratic
drive—plus the signs of its next destination—are found among the regime’s ranking
leaders and their shared commitment to retain power.
Stewards of Democracy: The Ruling Elite’s Self-Legitimation
76
President Mubarak’s much touted constitutional amendment in 2005 was a poor
substitute for the political advances his critics had demanded. Rather than reinvigorating
Egypt’s moribund political system, the measure reinforced what is arguably the main
obstacle to electoral democracy: the ruling elite situated in the National Democratic
Party, bolstered quietly but firmly by the state’s repressive agencies. Those who head
the regime’s political and security wings have proven consistently unwilling to share
power with their critics.
Wrapped in the mantle of modernization and “new thinking,” the NDP has refurbished its organization while preserving its hegemony. Generational changes within
the ruling party have not issued a cadre of soft-liners willing to partner with their counterparts in the opposition. Instead, a new
Wrapped in the mantle of modern- guard of younger politicians has encroached
ization and “new thinking,” the NDP on the domain of party stalwarts, only to
has refurbished its organization demonstrate that they themselves were more
interested in promoting themselves than in
while preserving its hegemony. proposing reform. Leading this group is the
president’s son, Gamal Mubarak. Beginning in 2002, the younger Mubarak and his
allies steadily outnumbered old guard politicians in the NDP’s general secretariat, the
party’s steering committee, and the president’s cabinet. Gamal Mubarak presently holds
one of three assistant secretary-general positions, comfortably ensconced behind Safwat
Sherif, the party’s increasingly ceremonial top administrator.14 Gamal also heads the
NDP’s nine-member Policies Secretariat and much larger Higher Policies Council, a
way station for recruiting academicians and priming them for future cabinet posts.
Gamal’s group seems uncommitted to a genuine organizational cleanup, let alone an
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A New Generation of Autocracy in Egypt
opening of the field for opposition candidates. Indeed, their own struggle against the
old guard remains contentious. Even as the NDP’s Higher Policies Council crafted the
May 2005 constitutional amendment, it remained under the close watch of Sherif and
Kamal El-Shazli, head of the People’s Assembly and putative kingmaker of Egyptian
legislative elections. In November 2005, new guard icon Dr. Hossam Badrawi lost his
parliamentary seat to an NDP affiliate known to have El-Shazli’s backing. If the new
guard’s actions demonstrated the limits of their democratic commitments, Badrawi’s
loss marks the scope of their capacity. Gamal Mubarak’s colleagues have colluded with
their party’s traditional bosses rather than reaching out to their contemporaries in the
opposition like Nour.
With the merger of its old and new wings, the NDP has co-opted well-known
personas who previously advocated change, including Badrawi and former Cairo University political science dean Ali Eddin Hilal. While these Anglophone technocrats
periodically aver that democracy depends on inculcating democrats, they are themselves
helping to perpetuate authoritarianism despite democrats through the continuation of
an autocratic regime impervious to moderate oppositional demands for reform.15 Given
that Egypt now lags behind young democracies like Ghana and Mali, it seems likely
that the NDP’s stewardship is the problem, not the solution. The new guard’s most
prominent spokespersons invoke the examples of Asian developing nations like South
Korea and Taiwan to argue that political reforms must be sequenced behind economic
reforms. This dilatory logic thereby gains a veneer of social-scientific reasoning, yet
obfuscates the NDP’s own role in preventing democratization and ignores contrary
evidence from the former one-party communist states. In Eastern Europe and Central
Asia, economic reform has progressed most robustly in the context of competitive,
free elections; political reform has spurred successful economic recovery rather than
the reverse. In contrast, countries that eschewed democracy descended into a quagmire
of stalled reform, where crony capitalists fed off the state while obstructing further
change.16 This is essentially where Egypt’s state and society lie today.
From a comparative perspective on democratic transitions, reformist elements
within the NDP have been remarkably reticent to play the role of soft liners.17 Westerneducated academics and businesspeople have not reached out to non-violent opposition
movements, nor have they sought counter-regime coalitions that could inaugurate free
and fair elections. Rather, they eschew even modest liberalization despite the regime’s
demonstrated capacity to repress radical groups whenever they do arise.18 This political elite still employs national security rhetoric to justify draconian assaults on civilian
activists. During a summer 2005 visit to the United States, Egyptian Prime Minister
Ahmed Nazif explained the government’s disruption of public protests as follows:
Well, we’ve seen some arrests yes, but first of all, the fact that there is [sic]
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Jason Brownlee
demonstrations says a little bit about the system. We’re allowing people to express
themselves through demonstrations. Now, in a society that’s still maturing . . .
what happens is, and many times this happens, a demonstration does not stop at
expressing opinions. It moves to becoming something of a destabilizing affect, for
example, turning to violence.19
Five days after Nazif ’s remarks, an officially abetted assault on civil demonstrators in
downtown Cairo betrayed the regime’s penchant for brutally quelling dissent. Through
their tacit collaboration with government security forces, yesterday’s soft liners are
today’s hard liners, the ruling party’s core strategists. Rather than working to democratize the regime, they have focused on succession stagecraft, coyly positioning Gamal
Mubarak as president in waiting. Against expectations that such machinations would
drive a rift within the regime, hereditary succession may instead nurture a consensus
among incumbent politicians and apparatchiks whose self-interests are wedded to the
regime’s preservation.
The Collective Benefits of Hereditary Succession
78
Beginning in the summer of 1999, Gamal Mubarak had risen steadily in the ruling
elite alongside his like-minded colleagues. Through putatively meritocratic promotions
in the National Democratic Party, the younger Mubarak could be groomed for the
presidency in plain sight while assiduously denying any dynastic ambitions. The 2005
constitutional amendment put his disavowal under strain, however, for it opened an
electoral stepping stone from the NDP to the presidency. Badrawi reinforced such
suspicions when he remarked in summer 2006 that the party could nominate Gamal
Mubarak for the next presidential election, scheduled for 2011.20 Gamal has thus
become the undisputed heir apparent in a government conspicuously devoid of a vice
president. While another member of the ruling clique could certainly vie to fill Hosni
Mubarak’s post after his passing, the president’s son has a substantial lead at building
political support where it formally matters—much to the contrary of earlier predictions
regarding the impossibility of a civilian successor.
While ruling party politicos are the face of Mubarak’s regime, the military remains
its backbone. All four prior presidents (including the nominal executive Mohammed
Naguib during the republic’s first year) came from Egypt’s armed services, leading some
commentators to doubt Gamal Mubarak’s prospects.21 There are at least a couple of
reasons, though, why the military might not only accept but even abet a hereditary
transition. For one, the military’s role in public life has steadily receded. The Ministry
of Interior under Habib al-Adly, who holds the rank of general, and the Egyptian
Intelligence Services, headed by Omar Suleiman, are the primary institutions for con-
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A New Generation of Autocracy in Egypt
trolling elections, demonstrations, and other opposition activity. Hence, Egypt has
become more of a police state than a military state, with the numbers of state security
employees eclipsing the military’s 450,000.22 The personnel trend toward a civiliandominated cabinet over the course of Egypt’s last two presidencies proves further that
the military’s political role has retrenched.23 Consequently, while military officers and
their patrons will presumably defend their privileges, which extend from country club
access to neighborhood administration and business ties, their significance has noticeably shrunk in the years since Sadat transplanted Hosni Mubarak from the air force to
vice presidency in 1975. The military’s most important interests may lie with a status
quo–preserving scenario in which they retain access to political power but do not rule
directly. A president with his base in the party rather than the military could be an acceptable ally, particularly if he is the strongest candidate for preserving Egypt’s annual
receipt of $1.2 billion in U.S. military aid. Moreover, there is no reason the civilian
Gamal would not work effectively with security professionals, thereby perpetuating the
police state built up during the elder Mubarak’s reign.
Additionally, hereditary succession would conform to political patterns in
analogous regimes elsewhere. It is true that when viewed through the prism of Egypt’s
recent history—including the overthrow of a monarchy in 1952 and subsequent rule
by military officers—succession by Gamal would be unprecedented.24 Yet when placed
in a broader comparative perspective, hereditary succession in Egypt would be quite
conventional. In the past decade, sons of autocrats have taken power in a rapid series
stretching from Syria (2000) to Azerbaijan (2003), Singapore (2004), and Togo (2005).
Rulers in Equatorial Guinea, Libya, and Yemen appear to be headed in the same direction. The very diversity of these cases would seem to confound any search for a general
explanation. Yet there is a political common denominator that runs through these
cases and through Egypt as well. In each of
One earlier scholar thus foresaw
these instances the ruling party lacked experience in choosing a successor from within its few institutional arrangements
own ranks and was essentially subordinate through which autocrats would
to the president. The president’s tapping of
his son as heir apparent thereby forestalled favor non-hereditary succession.
an unbridled struggle for leadership. Father-son handovers then provided collective
security for regime elites who preferred the preservation of their own privileges over
a potentially destabilizing power grab. A similar process appears to be underway in
Egypt. Rather than polarizing the civilian and military factions of Egypt’s regime, hereditary succession may cement a fresh coalition between outspoken party members
and circumspect officers.
Although the grooming of Gamal Mubarak has generated culturalist accounts
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80
about allegedly Arab traditions, his rise is more readily explained in political terms.25
Rather than being a dysfunctional method for hording power around the ruler, hereditary succession helps resolve the collective problem posed by non-democratic leadership
transitions. Father-to-son power transfers prepare for a regime’s continuity without
endangering the sitting ruler’s position. Rulers prefer sons over alternative figures
more inclined to hasten the succession through assassination or coup attempts. More
importantly, hereditary succession appeals to most of the surrounding political elites,
the very pool of potential heirs not designated to fill the ruler’s post. By establishing
a pattern for the preservation of the regime after the ruler’s death, other incumbent
officeholders share an incentive for accepting the ruler’s appointee rather than vying
against each other in a power struggle. One earlier scholar thus foresaw few institutional arrangements through which autocrats would favor non-hereditary succession,
expecting hereditary monarchs to gradually predominate among non-democracies.26
This approach illuminates the constellation of actors assembling behind hereditary
succession in Egypt.
There is obviously no guarantee that even the most well-planned hereditary succession would be successfully executed. But the shared interests of party elites and security
officials in the regime’s overall continuation may mean there is less tension around this
issue than is often assumed. Evidence from contrasting cases also supports such an
inference. In one famous example of failed dynasticism leading to a ruler’s ouster—the
case of Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay—the regime had publicly split two years before
the coup took place. Notably, in Paraguay much of the military favored hereditary
succession, mainly for the reasons outlined above, and the country’s century-old party
was a major opponent.27 The Egyptian elite has displayed no such fissures and closely
resembles peer states like Azerbaijan and Syria, where sly constitutional engineering
has presaged a hereditary succession that preserved the incumbent elite intact. The past
year’s events in Egypt have further promoted Gamal Mubarak to the detriment of any
opportunity for power sharing between the regime and the opposition.
Constitutional Engineering in 2007
On 26 March 2007, Egyptian voters minimally turned out to ratify amendments of
34 articles in their country’s constitution. The changes had received due discussion
within parliament but were publicly proposed and briskly approved within a week’s
time, thereby curtailing public deliberation and opposition resistance regarding the
amendments’ intended effects. The 2007 amendment package carried the same blend of
superficial reform and substantive restrictions as its forebearer two years prior. But this
second round of constitutional engineering went much further to exclude the Muslim
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A New Generation of Autocracy in Egypt
Brotherhood, severely constrain the formal opposition, and ensure the power of the
NDP and Gamal Mubarak after the current president’s passing. Ruling party member
and political science professor Dr. Mohammed Kamal touted the latest amendments
as a set of “very positive steps” that “give unprecedented powers to parliament.”28
Less ebullient outside analysts have cautioned that the 2007 amendments bode
poorly for political reform. Freedom House warned that “they will further hinder
political competition in a repressive environment,” and Amnesty International called
the constitutional change Egypt’s “greatest erosion of human rights” since 1981.29 As
detailed in a report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the revisions
strengthen the regime’s political control and further disadvantage the opposition. Even
if they lead to the nominal conclusion of the state of emergency in place throughout
Mubarak’s tenure, the amendments preserve the president’s ability to try civilians in
military trials—under the rubric of “anti-terrorism”—and actually reduce the opportunity for the accused to lodge legal appeals. Independent judicial supervision is
supplanted by an electoral commission that is effectively subordinate to the executive
branch. Most crucially for the exercise of political rights, the amendments bolster the
NDP’s electoral dominance by symbolically incorporating the formal opposition and
decisively excluding the Muslim Brotherhood.30
The threshold for presidential nominations is retained but lowered, allowing
leaders of the formal opposition to ostensibly challenge the NDP’s standard bearer in
future presidential polls. Without guarantees of electoral fairness by an independent
arbiter, however, it is difficult to see how such competition will provide more than
the kind of democratic facade practiced by numerous dictators elsewhere, including
in nearby sub-Saharan Africa. Severe restrictions on the Muslim Brotherhood are
consistent with this impression and suggest the Egyptian government is more concerned with burnishing its plebiscitarian visage than with democratizing its politics.
The Brotherhood’s promising participation in elections and public life has now been
constitutionally sanctioned by a ban against not only religious parties, but all forms
of political activity based upon religion. Such restrictions will likely combine with
electoral revisions to block the Muslim Brotherhood from competition and place the
formal opposition in perpetual orbit around the NDP, jockeying for advantage while
depending on a ruling party with no viable competitor.31
This regeneration of Egyptian autocracy seems set to coalesce in future elections
held under a party-list system, also enabled by the March 2007 amendments. If most
parliamentary seats are soon filled by party lists, the demise of individual candidacies
will increase the power of the NDP-controlled Political Parties Committee and place
the opposition further in the thrall of the regime it is supposed to challenge. In addition to marginalizing the unlicensed Muslim Brotherhood, party lists and enlarged
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Jason Brownlee
constituencies will presumably help the NDP’s new guard ease ahead of veteran party
members. Through appropriately high placement on the party’s lists, Gamal Mubarak
and his technocratic colleagues like Kamal can avoid competing with popular local
candidates and more easily transit from the NDP’s policy committees into parliament.
Finally, the amendments designate the prime minister as the president’s official presidential successor in the absence of a vice president, a change that could be employed
in advancing the Mubaraks’ incipient dynasty beneath a legal ruse.
Conclusion: The Renewal of Egyptian Autocracy
82
Early in Mubarak’s tenure, it was still possible to envision a halting and labored march
toward democracy: two steps forward, one step back. Yet instead of using institutions as
a springboard for pluralism, the ruling party has erected them as barriers to competition.
Much like Iran’s infamous screening body, the NDP elite have turned themselves into
Egypt’s own Council of Guardians: vetting, repressing, and otherwise obstructing the
country’s incipient reform movement. Rather than relinquishing power to the millions
of Egyptians whose interests they allegedly defend, Mubarak and his party continue
to undercut their fellow citizens’ efforts to make government serve the people. Areas
for improvement are multiple, but NDP stalwarts continue to avoid the kinds of real
changes that would guarantee dignity and equality to those with a different political
vision. In this sense, the potential succession of Gamal Mubarak is a symptom of the
regime’s debility rather than a root cause. Dynasticism is an instrument for the new
guard’s unremarkable power grab as erstwhile reformists become the latest in Egypt’s
line of self-appointed stewards.
Paradoxically, the regime sees its greatest threat in the moderation of its opponents, who determinedly advocate reform through public demonstrations and the
limited formal channels—newspapers, parliament, elections—that the system offers.
Because the opposition, unlike the regime, has refrained from violence in conveying its
message, its continued exclusion is a necessary embarrassment for incumbents wanting
to stay in power. Whether through force (state-sanctioned thuggery against peaceful
demonstrators and voters) or fraud (the conviction of Ayman Nour) the ruling party
is aggressing against the very Egyptian democrats it claims to await. In this context,
one should heed Prime Minister Nazif ’s comment that the opposition will not be prepared for presidential elections until 2011. Indeed, Nazif probably overestimates the
other parties’ ability to escape NDP-sponsored repression and develop viable political
organizations in a state under martial law.32
It is not the alleged absence of democrats that most troubles the ruling elite, but
the stubborn resilience of pro-democracy forces despite the regime’s attempts to in-
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A New Generation of Autocracy in Egypt
timidate them, discredit them as radicals, or sabotage their organizations from within.
These opposition forces have proven courageous but have not yet effected structural
changes in the system. In light of comparative experiences in developing states this
moderation may be part of what delays the regime from engaging in the hard work
of genuine reform. Whereas most autocratic withdrawals occurred under some form
of pressure that compels compromise, the current Egyptian regime faces a restrained
domestic opposition and benefits from regular international support. Thus, the cohesion of Egypt’s leading elites may stem in large part from the absence of radical threats
to their privileges and interests.33
U.S. backing for the Mubarak regime has played a role in the rise of an Anglophone, Western-trained technocracy poised to inherit and perpetuate an autocratic
system. Oddly enough, given that his government is the second-largest recipient of U.S.
aid, President Mubarak has attempted to smear all of his opponents as foreign puppets.
Kifaya, Al-Ghad, and Egyptian judges have denied such ties while attempting, with
moderate success, to return attention to the regime and its U.S. backers. Meanwhile,
Gamal Mubarak enjoys an audience with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Egypt
and even, during a May 2006 trip to the United States, the White House. These connections increase skepticism about President Bush’s eagerness to see Egypt “show the
way toward democracy in the Middle East.” One interpretation is that the apparent
tensions of U.S.–Egyptian relations were mainly for domestic consumption: Bush
showed his constituents the Iraq War had spurred regional democratization; Mubarak
went along while appeasing his local critics with another liberalization charade. For a
couple of years at least, the United States could look like it was effectively spreading
democracy, and an Arab autocrat could act like he was democratizing.
If democracy promoters seek more encouraging figures to shake up old modes
of thinking, they can invoke the example of Ayman Nour and his Tomorrow Party.
Much like the centrist opposition to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos in 1986,
Nour’s party has the potential to draw together a broad array of anti-Mubarak groups
for change. However, just as Gamal Mubarak’s ascendance signals the regime’s problems
but is not the source of them, Ayman Nour symbolizes Egypt’s promise but is not its
panacea. The most important step would be for all of those—in the regime and among
the regime’s foreign patrons—who have been obstructing and resisting change to stand
aside and remove the barriers they have posed to Egyptians’ expression of their own
beliefs and realization of their own political visions. That would require a willingness
by Egypt’s rulers to allow societal demands to chart the course. Instead, they seem to
be ushering their countrymen down a predetermined route of self-preservation and
political continuity. With NDP technocrats twisting laws and Gamal Mubarak newly
wed, the country approaches its first hereditary transition since the ill-starred king
Farouk took power in 1936. W
A
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Notes
84
1. George W. Bush, “Remarks by the President at the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment of
Democracy,” (speech, 6 November 2003).
2. For background on Egyptian politics, including the earlier portents of dynasticism, see Jason Brownlee,
“The Decline of Pluralism in Mubarak’s Egypt,” Journal of Democracy 13 (October 2002): 6–14.
3. Neil MacFarquhar, “Mubarak Pushes Egypt to Allow Freer Elections,” New York Times, 27 February
2005.
4. Joshua Stacher, “The Election to Prepare Succession: An Anatomy of Egypt’s First Presidential Election,” Review of African Political Economy 34 (September 2007).
5. Michael Slackman, “Mubarak Foe, Bravado Gone, Feels Victimized by Smears After Second-Place
Finish,” New York Times, 19 October 2005.
6. Nadia Abou El-Magd, “Egyptian government opponent convicted of forgery, sentenced to five years,”
Associated Press Newswires, 24 December 2005.
7. Samer Shehata and Joshua Stacher, “The Brotherhood Goes to Parliament,” Middle East Report 240
(Fall 2006).
8. Shibley Telhami, “America in Arab Eyes,” Survival 49 (Spring 2007): 108.
9. Mohammed Abbas, “Egypt Rulers Restore Grip on Power, US Distracted,” Reuters, 1 March 2006;
USA Today, 17 October 2006; Jackson Diehl, “Rice’s Rhetoric, In Full Retreat,” Washington Post, 22
January 2007.
10. Paul Schemm, “Egypt Struggles to Control Anti-War Protests,” Middle East Report Online, 31
March 2003.
11. The International Crisis Group termed this reaction the “Kifaya effect.” International Crisis Group,
Reforming Egypt: In Search of a Strategy, Report No. 46, 4 October 2005, 10.
12. US Fed News, “Egypt: Police Intensify Crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood,” 18 December
2006.
13. Daniel Williams, “Egypt Extends 25-Year-Old Emergency Law,” Washington Post, 1 May 2006.
14. For a description of how Gamal Mubarak has eclipsed his colleagues, see Joshua Stacher, “Egypt—A
Leap toward Reform or Succession?” Arab Reform Bulletin 4 (October 2006).
15. Jane Perlez, “Egyptians See U.S. as Meddling in Their Politics,” New York Times, 3 October 2002.
16. Joel S. Hellman, “Winners Take All: The Politics of Partial Reform in Postcommunist Transitions,
World Politics 50 (January 1998): 203–234.
17. Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986).
18. A protracted internal security campaign against the Islamic Group and Islamic Jihad during the
1990s produced a ceasefire that has prevented the recurrence of widespread militancy. See Mohammed
Hafez, Why Muslims Rebel: Repression and Resistance in the Islamic World (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2003),
71–76, 82–91.
19. “Newsmaker: Ahmed Nazif,” NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 20 May 2005.
20. “Egypt NDP Member Hints at Gamal for President,” Reuters News, 19 September 2006.
21. Roula Khalaf and James Drummond, “Why Mubarak’s son will not lead Egypt,” Financial Times,
23 April 2001; “U.S.-Egyptian Relations,” Middle East Policy 8 (June 2001); Carol Giacomo, “Will the
son succeed the father as Egypt’s president?” Reuters News, 29 June 2003.
22. Muhammad Abdul Aziz and Youssef Hussein, “The President, the Son, and the Military: Succession
in Egypt,” Arab Studies Journal 9/10 (Fall 2001/Spring 2002): 80.
23. Ouda, Jihad, Negad El-Borai, and Hafez Abu Se’ada, A Door Onto the Desert: The Egyptian Parliamentary Elections of 2000, Course, Dilemmas, and Recommendations for the Future (Cairo: United Group,
2001).
24. Abdul Aziz and Hussein, “The President, the Son, and the Military;” Samer Shehata, “Political
Succession in Egypt,” Middle East Policy 9 (September 2002); Mary Anne Weaver, “Pharaohs-In-Waiting,”
The Atlantic (October 2003).
25. Charles M. Sennott, “Arab Sons of Privilege Inherit Power and Instill Doubts,” Boston Globe, June
14, 2000); Brian Whitaker, “Hereditary Republics in Arab States,” Guardian Unlimited, 28 August 2001;
the brown journal of world affairs
A New Generation of Autocracy in Egypt
Editorial Board, “Dynastic Regimes,” New York Times, 25 August 2003.
26. Gordon Tullock, Autocracy (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1987), 151–157, 161, 166,
215.
27. Riordan Roett, “Paraguay After Stroessner,” Foreign Affairs 68 (Spring 1989): 124–142; Richard
Snyder, “Explaining Transitions from Neopatrimonial Dictatorships,” Comparative Politics 24 (July 1992),
391.
28. Heba Saleh, “Rice tones down criticism of ‘difficult’ Egypt reform,” Financial Times, 26 March 2007;
Anthony Shadid, “Apathy Marks Constitutional Vote in Egypt,” Washington Post, 27 March 2007.
29. Freedom House, “Proposed Egyptian Constitutional Amendments Another Blow to Hopes
for Egyptian Democracy,” 23 March 2007, http://www.freedomhouse.org/printer_friendly.
cfm?page=70&release=475; Amnesty International, “Egypt: Proposed Constitutional Amendment
Greatest Erosion of Human Rights in 26 Years,” 18 March 2007, http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGMDE120082007 (accessed 23 April 2007).
30. Nathan J. Brown, Michele Dunne, and Amr Hamzawy, “Egypt’s Controversial Constitutional
Amendments,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC, 23 March 2007.
31. In elections this past June for the upper (consultative) house of Egypt’s parliament, all of the
Muslim Brotherhood’s nineteen candidates went down to defeat (amid reports of voting fraud and voter
intimidation), while NDP candidates won 84 of 88 seats contested (a 95% majority). See Dan Murphy,
“Egypt vote shows unease with democracy,” Christian Science Monitor, 12 June 2007; Maamoun Youssef,
“Ruling party grabs nearly all parliament seats in runoff vote,” Associated Press, 19 June 2007.
32. Nazif stuck to this assessment in a Sunday morning interview on Tim Russert’s Meet the Press.
Meet the Press, 15 May 2005.
33. Nancy Bermeo, “Myths of Moderation: Confrontation and Conflict during Democratic Transitions,”
Comparative Politics 29 (April 1997): 305-322.
85
Fall/Winter 2007 • volume xiv, issue 1
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