TIME FOR BREATH LATER:

New Tests for Egypt's Opposition: Embattled Nour Puts Hope in Vote For Parliament (Daniel Williams, 9/24/05, Washington Post)

Egypt had barely caught its breath from the presidential vote -- the first time Egyptians could mark ballots listing more than one candidate -- when parties and politicians started gearing up for the November parliamentary elections. The campaign promises to be wide open. With nearly 450 seats at stake, there could be thousands of candidates.

Although [Ayman] Nour won only about 7 percent of the presidential vote, he says he believes he can claim a place as top opposition leader by running his party's candidates in every parliamentary district and winning a significant share of seats. Nour accuses government agents of mounting the challenge to his party leadership and other judicial maneuvers to divert him from organizing and campaigning. [...]

Political observers contend that even with Nour's low vote total, his performance signaled at least one change in Egyptian politics: He pushed aside traditional, docile opposition parties and their geriatric leadership. He won more than twice as many votes as Noman Gomaa, the 71-year-old leader of the Wafd Party, an organization with an 80-year history. "At 40 years old, Nour has emerged as the country's de facto leader of the opposition," said Cairo magazine. Other opposition parties are grappling with leadership changes.

A parallel generational change is underway at the National Democratic Party (NDP), Mubarak's political organization and electoral juggernaut. Mubarak's 41-year-old son, Gamal, and a group of businessmen, technocrats and academicians ran the presidential campaign. Old-line NDP politicians were nowhere to be seen or heard.

The NDP is preparing to run a slate of fresh faces in the parliamentary elections, said Mohammed Kamal, a member of the presidential campaign team. The NDP is trying to change its reputation from a party that mainly provided stuffed ballot boxes at past elections to one that has a genuine mandate to rule Egypt, party officials say. Currently, the NDP holds more than 80 percent of the legislative seats.

Gamal Mubarak's inner circle is playing a key role in picking parliamentary candidates, his associates say. He also heads the ruling party's policies committee, a group that has designed recent free-market initiatives in Egypt. He has steadfastly denied having presidential ambitions, yet his very presence overshadows any other NDP voice.

Quickly developing two main political parties would be a huge boon to the democratization process.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 24, 2005 9:41 AM