This is a
big month worldwide for elections and the first is on today – in Egypt.
No-one has paid much attention to Egyptian elections in the past. The
country has been ruled under a state of emergency since 1981, and
president Hosni Mubarak has simply been “endorsed” every six years by
referendum – the last one claimed a 94% approval. As Adam Carr bluntly puts it, Egypt is “officially a presidential democratic republic. In practice a dictatorship.”

But
after 30 years of pouring in billions of dollars with little return,
the American government has finally applied pressure on Mubarak to hold
genuine elections, so this year he is facing nine opponents – two of
them (Noaman Gomaa and Ayman Nour) real opposition politicians.

Even
so, the result is a foregone conclusion, and most interest centres on
whether the turnout will be high enough to lend some credibility to the
exercise.

There are reports on the election in today’s Australian and yesterday’s Age. Further information can be found in this Economistpreview, and there’s a good summary of news sources on this Cairo website. The deadly fire in a theatre in Upper Egypt on Monday night, which killed 32 people (report here), may be a wild card arousing popular discontent.

Egypt
is the centre of the Arab world and one of the most powerful Islamic
nations; the world desperately needs it to be stable and democratic.
Instead, years of repression have built up a powder-keg. Let’s hope
today’s election is a step towards defusing it.