The Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi is no
longer officially alone at the top of the Egyptian government, although the
amount of change Parliament will bring is still up in the air. Some context is
probably necessary. Egypt was one of the many Middle Eastern countries caught
up in the Arab Spring and accordingly saw the overthrow of the regime headed by
Hosni Mubarak, which had long stifled political opposition. This in turn
ushered in the ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s
first president to be freely elected. The strong grounding that the Muslim
Brotherhood had in, you guessed it, Islamic faith and Morsi’s grab for greater
power to erase the remnants of Mubarak’s government turned the people and
military against him, leading to a military coup that put al-Sisi in office
starting in 2013 and the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist
organization, powerless to submit candidates for representation in the new
parliament. (Do look into this further if you are interested. There is plenty
more to note about this time of upheaval.)
al-Sisi
has acted as a force of stability in the face of all this institutional change,
so it seems like parliament will further these aims as opposed to striking out
on its own path, especially considering that all 120 seats allocated to parties
went to a coalition that ran on a pledge to lessen the legislature’s power over
presidential impeachment. 28 were selected by al-Sisi himself, and the
remaining 448 went to individual candidates, among them politicians from the
Mubarak period and public figures.
Connecting
this to what we have been learning in class, the voter turnout for these
parliamentary elections was horrid, with a 26.5 percent turnout in the first
stage of voting. This presents a different side of voter apathy when compared
to the United States, for there are substantial problems in Egypt relating to
the economy and political expression that would probably rile up US voters.
Instead of stemming from a situation of contentment or laziness, Egypt’s apathy
seems to reside in the government’s ability to change what is wrong. Constant
upheaval lessens what people expect of their government and makes involvement
in the voting process seem trivial. Of course, the banning of the Muslim
Brotherhood and boycotts from 11 other parties also limited voter choice and
limited overall motivation for the supporters of these parties.
Beyond
providing an interesting case study for voting practices, the actions of this
new parliament are important to U.S. foreign policy. al-Sisi has proven to be
effective in not tolerating extremist groups, a good quality when contrasted to
the chaos surrounding ISIL, but an effective, active parliament would further
the spread of democracy, another foreign priority of the U.S. The U.S. would
mainly influence this by either sending military assistance to Egypt in hopes
of establishing a strong relationship with the current regime to combat
terrorism or withholding assistance, which in turn might apply pressure for further
change.
Do you think Egypt’s new
Parliament manifests a chance for stable democracy in the region? Is this even
what Egypt needs at the present time? What about the United States? Should our
government focus on establishing democracy or strengthening a regime that has
already proven to take hard stands against extremist groups? Finally, what are
some critical traits a government needs to have to spur voter turnout?
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