Egypt's election is one small step for Mubarek, no giant leap for Egyptians
■"For first time, Egypt has more than 1 presidential candidate," by Charles Levinson, USA Today, 7 September 2005, p. 17A.■"Egypt Vote Gets Mixed Reviews: Mubarek Opens the Field but Draws Protests Over Restrictions," by Karby Leggett and Yasmine El-Rashidi, Wall Street Journal, 7 September 2005, p. A14.
■"Lethal Fire Heightens Egyptians' Anger at Government: Another reason for ignoring a chance for expanded democracy," by Michael Slackman, New York Times, 7 September 2005, p. A3.
Mubarek was spooked enough by Iraq's elections and the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon to promise a competitive election, but true to his strongman form he's subsequently gone out of his way to turn it into a competition not unlike the Harlem Globetrotters taking on the Washington Generals (decent show, outcome never in doubt).
If so many average Egyptians are fed up with his rancid authoritarianism (the opposition movement's name is "kafiya" (which here means "enough already!"), then why is Mubarek getting away with it with such relative ease? The economy has long been beset with double-digit inflation and unemployment, but the new PM has been pushing a serious agenda of reform focused largely on reducing the state role in the economy, thus making Egypt seem more open for business and investment. Mubarek, in my mind, wants to re-legitimize his rule for one more six-year term on the hope that he can engineer a stable transition to someone else (the preferred vessel being the son, in a sort of Assad-like shift) the next time around, winning enough kudos from the public in the meantime for the government's economic reforms. In short, he can't afford a truly free election this time, but he wants enough of the appearance of one so as not to curtail the global business community's rising opinion of his economy.
The people's anger is real and profound, and the right spark can light it. Mubarek needs to buy himself some political slack with Washington with this pseudo-free election and his economy some time to let the reform process work. His long-term goal, like any strongman, is to extend his rule-here, virtually since he's so old.
A Middle East that's opening up progressively to the world in economics because it's security situation is improving works to Mubarek's plan-and frankly, our own because we can't hope for much better any faster in Egypt.
This is yet another reason why settling Iraq is crucial, and we need Iran's compliance to achieve that.