Carrying on a tradition

Latin America has had numerous experiences with so-called "demonstration elections," a phrase coined by Edward Herman in 1968. The term describes elections that weren't supposed to decide anything and even less to change anything. They were held just so the regime in charge could say it had had elections.

It's a lesson that has not been lost on any number of authoritarians. Now, as AP for Tuesday lets us know, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak has joined the list.

Egypt's parliament overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment Tuesday allowing multicandidate presidential elections for the first time, but the opposition denounced the reform, saying it won't shake President Hosni Mubarak's grip on power.

The term "multicandidate" seems, let's just say, something of a misnomer here. For one thing, the rules ban all religious-based parties, a move apparently aimed at the Muslim Brotherhood. Although it has been banned in Egypt since 1954 (after one of them tried to murder Gamal Abdel Nasser), it remains the largest Islamic group in the country and would command considerable support were it allowed to compete freely.

The kicker, though, is that

[t]he guidelines stipulate that a presidential candidate must either be a member of an official political party or, if running as an independent, get a minimum of 65 recommendations from elected members of the lower house, 25 from the Shura council and 10 from local councils from at least 14 governorates.

The regulations were seen by opposition as putting a gag on serious contenders, as all the elected bodies are dominated by Mubarak's ruling party and its supporters,

leaving only a handful of what independent member of Parliament Hamdeen Sabahi called "weak" political parties able to run candidates. Even those parties which can run will struggle to organize campaigns for an election supposed to take place in just four months' time. Sabahi himself has been prevented from forming a party by the political party committee, which is dominated by Mubarak supporters.

So it's an election where the government decides who gets to run and the strongest opposition candidates are blocked but the regime still gets to claim it had a "free" election. It's an election the mullahs who are the real power in Iran could love. Or Karl Rove, even.

Footnote, Birds of a Feather Div.: Reuters for May 10 reports that

[t]he United States and other countries have secretly sent scores of Islamist detainees to Egypt since the mid-1990s, where they have likely been tortured, a human rights group said on Tuesday.

Human Rights Watch issued a 53-page report criticizing Egypt as the world's main recipient of detainees, including suspected Islamist militants believed to offer useful intelligence for the U.S. war on terrorism. ...

[Joe] Stork[, deputy Middle East director for Human Rights Watch,] said torture and other forms of mistreatment are so prevalent in Egypt that the United States and other countries violate the international convention against torture each time they sent a terrorism suspect to the country.

"I'm afraid it's an open and shut case," he said.

The report, titled "Black Hole: The Fate of Islamists Rendered to Egypt," is available at this link.