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By Newsweek Editors
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They moved under cover of darkness. Batons in hand, visors over their faces, black-uniformed troops charged toward the Judges' Club, a social gathering spot for magistrates in downtown Cairo. For a week hundreds of protesters had gathered there in solidarity with two magistrates who have accused ruling party hacks of rigging last year's parliamentary elections. Now the judges were facing possible prosecution, and pro-democracy forces were outraged. As the protesters held hands and chanted antigovernment slogans, the club-wielding cops fell upon them, beating many and dragging 60 to jail. The following day, thousands of security forces sealed the High Court, arresting even more demonstrators as troop carriers rumbled through the city center. "This is Mubarak's democracy," said one young protester who witnessed the crackdown but did not want his name used for fear of retribution.
Egypt seemed on the threshold of a new era last September when President Hosni Mubarak, 77, broke with 24 years of dictatorial rule by holding the country's first multiparty presidential elections. The Egyptian strongman made the concession under pressure from the Bush administration, which maintains that transforming autocratic Middle Eastern regimes into secular democracies can help to tamp down Islamic radicalism. There was never any question who would win. Mubarak swept 84 percent of the vote and his ruling National Democratic Party captured 324 of 444 parliamentary seats. But the campaign, with strident anti-Mubarak protests in Cairo and other cities, raised new hopes for freedom of expression and an enduring political pluralism. Now Egypt is in the midst of a vicious crackdown--"a backlash," says one Western diplomat, against pro-democracy forces. Opposition leaders have been arrested, protests have been squashed and Mubarak has shown no indication that he'll remove the country's draconian Emergency Laws, put into place after Anwar Sadat's 1981 assassination.
Criticism by the United States, which gives Egypt $1.8 billion a year in military and other aid, has been muted. During a February visit to Cairo U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said only that transforming one-party states into democracies was a "process" that "takes time." After the victory of the radical Hamas movement in the Palestinian elections, and the strong showing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt's parliamentary vote, many Egyptians share the perception that the Bush administration is rethinking its commitment to Middle Eastern reform. "The whole thing was a charade," says George Ishaq, coordinator of Kifaya (Enough), which has organized dozens of anti-Mubarak protests. "The U.S. prefers stability to democracy." Some Egyptians believe that Mubarak's repression may even have contributed to last week's bombings in the beach resort of Dahab, killing 24 people. The Interior Ministry, they charge, has channeled most of its resources into pursuing secular pro-democracy activists rather than fighting Islamic terrorists holed up in the Sinai Desert.
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Mubarak's most spectacular attack on democracy has been the prosecution of Ayman Nour, the main opposition candidate for president last year. A former member of Parliament, Nour founded the al-Ghad (Tomorrow) Party in 2005 and built a large following among young Egyptians with his eloquent attacks on ruling party corruption. "He is young, he is charismatic, and he is a genius at campaigning," says Hisham Kassem, the editor of al-Masri al-Yom, a pro-opposition daily newspaper in Cairo. "Mubarak is frightened of him."
Nour came in a distant second in the presidential election with 7 percent of the vote. Three months later, he was put on trial for forging signatures on party registration documents. Though the case against him was hardly airtight--a key prosecution witness claimed he had been coerced into testifying--the judge sentenced Nour to five years in prison. A diabetic, Nour has languished in a prison hospital for four months; a decision on whether to allow an appeal will be made on May 18. The judge assigned to the case, Western diplomats say, is a Mubarak loyalist who is frequently called on to back the regime in politically sensitive trials. As for the party Nour founded, al-Ghad, it is in tatters. Nour's campaign manager was convicted on a separate forgery case and sentenced to one year in prison, and most other members have resigned in the face of police harassment and threats. "Mubarak has a military mentality," Kassem says. "His attitude is 'take out the last platoon, take no prisoners, wipe out the enemy'."
Mubarak has been only slightly more tolerant of his runners-up in Parliament. The Muslim Brotherhood captured 88 seats last fall; political analysts in Egypt say it could have won 120 if ruling party thugs and police hadn't shut down polling stations and beaten up would-be voters. Brotherhood representatives have needled the Mubarak regime in Parliament, charging that it mishandled a recent bird-flu outbreak and protected the owner of the ferryboat that sank in the Red Sea. In recent weeks the regime has struck back, arresting dozens of activists. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood has been savvily modifying its image for Western consumption: officials posted a notice on their Web site rejecting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's denials of the Holocaust, and they have downplayed their Islamic agenda. "The essence of Sharia law is to fight against corruption and to establish social justice," says Dr. Abdel Monem Abul Fotouh, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's High Board, "not to set boundaries for women's rights and such things."
This is probably Mubarak's last term as president; the next election isn't scheduled until 2010 or 2011. Analysts believe that the dictator wants to stifle political reforms so he can ease the way to power for a handpicked successor, possibly his son, Gamal, whose political profile has risen sharply in recent years. Gamal Mubarak is almost exactly the same age as Ayman Nour, and some Western diplomats and Egyptian analysts predict that Nour would defeat him in a free and fair election. The U.S. ambassador in Cairo has urged President Mubarak to free Nour, only to be told that it is a domestic matter. For the aging Egyptian dictator, pleasing democracy's champions in Washington no longer appears to be a priority.
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