THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 282, December 6, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
EGYPT'S SHAM ELECTION
By Dr. Daniel Pipes & Ms. Cynthia Farahat
WILL THE RECENT ELECTIONS IN EGYPT LEAD TO THE ESTABLISHMENT & OPERATION OF A STABLE CONSTITUTIONAL REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY IN THE
COUNTRY, OR WILL THE OUTCOME BE A TYRANNICAL ISLAMIST THEOCRATIC DICTATORSHIP? ALTERNATIVELY, WILL EGYPT CONTINUE TO BE
GOVERNED IN THE TRADITIONAL MANNER, BY AN AUTOCRACY BACKED BY & REPRESENTING THE INTERESTS OF THE EGYPTIAN MILITARY? WHAT ABOUT
CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTION OF BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS? WILL THE EGYPTIAN GOVERNMENT BE REQUIRED TO ABIDE BY THE CONSTITUTION, OBSERVE THE
LIMITATIONS IMPOSED ON ITS POWER, & ALLOW SECULAR MUSLIMS, CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRATS & CHRISTIAN COPTS, AMONG OTHERS, FREELY TO
EXPRESS & ORGANIZE THEMSELVES & ENGAGE IN PEACEFUL POLITICAL ACTIVITIES? AS REGARDS EGYPT & ITS GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM, WHAT SHOULD BE
THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE U.S.A. & OTHER WESTERN STATES?
FULL STORY:
According to Egypt's elections committee, the Muslim Brotherhood won 37 percent of the vote of the first round of voting in Egypt; and the Salafis, who promote
a yet more extreme Islamist program, won 24 percent, giving them together a jaw-dropping 61 percent of the vote.
This stunning result prompts two questions: Is this a legitimate or rigged outcome? Are Islamists about to dominate Egypt?
Legitimate or rigged? No one took seriously Soviet elections with their inevitable 99-percent returns for the Communists; and, while the process and outcome of
the Egyptian elections are less blatant, they deserve similar skepticism. The game is more subtle, but it's still a game, and here is how it's played:
The Muslim Brotherhood (founded in 1928) and the military dictatorship (ruling Egypt since 1952) have a parallel ideology and a long history that makes them
simultaneously rivals and allies. Over the decades, they off-and-on cooperated in an autocratic system bound by Islamic law (Shari'a) and in oppressing liberal,
secular elements.
In this spirit, Anwar El-Sadat, Hosni Mubarak, and now Mohamed Tantawi tactically empowered Islamists as a foil to gain Western support, arms, and money.
For example, when George W. Bush pressured Mubarak to permit more political participation, the latter responded by having 88 Muslim Brotherhood members
elected to Parliament, thereby warning Washington that pure democracy means an Islamist takeover. The apparent weakness of non-Islamists scared the West
from further insisting on a transition to political participation. But a close look at the 2005 elections finds that the regime helped the Islamists gain its 20 percent of
the seats.
Today, Tantawi and his Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) still play this tired old game. Note the various methods: (1) Reports of electoral fraud have
emerged, for example in Helwan. (2) SCAF has, according to the prominent Islamist Safwat Hijazi, offered a "deal" to the Islamists: it shares power with them on
condition that they turn a blind eye to its corruption.
(3) The military has subsidized both the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi political parties during the recent parliamentary elections. Marc Ginsburg reports on a
SCAF slush fund totaling millions of dollars in "the form of 'walk around' money, clothing and food giveaways" that enabled hundreds of local chapters of
Islamist political organizations to buy votes. Ginsburg tells of a SCAF emissary who "met secretly with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood and other
Islamist oriented political movements last April to establish local political 'action committee' bank accounts to funnel an underground supply chain of financial
and commodity support."
Other Middle Eastern dictators, such as the Yemeni President and Palestinian Authority Chairman, also play this double game, pretending to be anti-Islamist
moderates and Western allies, while, in fact, being toughs who cooperate with Islamists and repress true moderates. Even anti-Western tyrants like Assad of
Syria and Qaddafi of Libya play the same opportunistic game in times of need, portraying massive uprisings against them as Islamist movements. (Recall how
Qaddafi blamed the Libyan insurrection on Al-Qa'ida lacing teenagers' coffee with hallucinatory pills.)
Dominate Egypt? If the military colludes with Islamists to remain in power, obviously, it, and not Islamists, retains ultimate control. This is the key point that
conventional analysts miss: the recent election results allow the military to keep power. As aspiring Egyptian politician Mohamed El Baradei correctly notes, "it
is all in the hands of SCAF right now."
True, if Islamists control the Parliament (not a sure thing; the military could yet decide to reduce their percentage in future rounds of an unusually complex
voting procedure open to abuse), they acquire certain privileges and move the country further toward the Shari'a – as far, anyway, as SCAF permits. This
maintains the longterm trend of Islamization underway since the military seized power in 1952.
What about Western policy? First, press SCAF to build the civil society that must precede real constitutional democracy, so that the modern and moderate
civilians in Egypt have a chance to express themselves.
Second, instantly cease all economic aid to Cairo. It is unacceptable that Western taxpayers pay, even indirectly, for Islamizing Egypt. Resume funding only
when the government allows secular Muslims, liberals and Copts, among others, freely to express and organize themselves.
Third, oppose both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis. Less extreme or more, Islamists of every description are our worst enemies.
© Daniel Pipes 2011
Originally Published in National Review Online, December 6, 2011
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes.org, December 6, 2011
URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/10389/egypt-sham-election
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Egypt, Arabs, & the Middle East
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
North Africa -- The Arab States of Islamic North Africa
The Middle East & the Arabs
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is Founder and President of the Middle East Forum,
Publisher of Middle East Quarterly,
Founder of Campus Watch, Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, a
signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a former
adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the U.S. Committee for a Free
Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and Technology, and a
former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the University of
Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for National Review Online, Front Page
Magazine, the New York Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and
developments in the Middle East have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington
Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network
television, as well as at universities and think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the
U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately
twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
Cynthia Farahat is an Egyptian Coptic writer, political activist, and dissident. She is co-author of a book about the Tahrir
Square protests in downtown Cairo. Ms. Farahat states that her political philosophy is somewhere between American
Conservatism and Objectivism and that she is very fond of and inspired by America's Tea Party movement.
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