When President Hosni Mubarak announced in February 2005 that Egypt would be holding direct democratic presidential elections for the first time in its history, US President George W. Bush was quick to welcome the news as a positive step toward the realization of democracy in the Middle East. Mubarak, a former military officer who has ruled Egypt for over two decades with the help of media censorship, secret police, and a state of emergency law, finally seemed to have succumbed to international and domestic pressure. Before his announced change, the president was selected by the parliament and then approved by referendum. Mubarak won his election easily, but the November 2005 parliamentary elections shocked observers and the political elite in Egypt. The officially banned Muslim Brotherhood Party exceeded expectations to net over 70 seats, which is about 20 percent of Parliament. Following these results, Mubarak, who had never truly embraced democracy, reverted to his old autocratic practices. This past February Mubarak announced the cancellation of local elections slated for April, undoubtedly in an effort to preserve his tight grip on Egypt.

The September 2005 multiparty presidential election, which was marred by accounts of voter irregularities and intimidation, had already turned heads and increased suspicion. Only Egyptian citizens who had registered to vote before December 2004 could actually vote, a clever loophole given that Mubarak did not reveal his intent to hold the election until the following February.

The most serious opposition to Mubarak, Ayman Nour of the secular and reformist Al-Ghad “Tomorrow” Party, also was imprisoned just weeks before the February announcement and now faces prison time on what appears to be trumped-up charges brought by the Mubarak government. The poor attendance on the part of secular liberal parties, in contrast to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, and the cancelation of April’s elections reveal the difficult tasks the United States must confront as it attempts to match action with rhetoric in bringing democracy to the Muslim world.

Challenges for the United States

The United States needs to increase the pressure on Mubarak and demand that he bring transparency to Egypt’s political culture. Not only are the Egyptian people ready, anxious, and eager for reform, but inaction now will only exacerbate what is already a tenuous situation. Yet at the same time, US demands for greater democratic reforms in the Middle East may hurt the interests of the United States and its allies in the short term as religious parties gain more power and support in the ballot box, a point amply demonstrated by Hamas’ recent victory in the Palestinian territories.

Close ties between Hamas and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood also poses the difficult question: to what extent should the United States demand democracy if it means allowing an Islamist party to join the political process? After all, while Mubarak may not be a democratic leader, his government is more likely to be stable and susceptible to US influence than would one led by a radical religious group. For the Bush administration, the changes in Egypt pose both significant risks and promising rewards. They will require a serious, sustained effort to bring about the elusive goal of a freer Egyptian populace under a truly liberal and open government.

The Crumbling Status Quo

Despite having campaigned in 2000 as a candidate dismissive of nation-building and overseas intervention, President Bush has, since the September 11 terrorist attacks, laid out a foreign policy agenda largely based on pre-emption and democratization. But critics from both sides of the aisle have noted that, beyond toppling the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration has poorly executed the war against terrorism, failing to secure US ports and borders and to back military muscle with diplomacy. For neoconservatives who are bent on refashioning the Middle East and for liberals who prefer diplomacy to war, pressuring Mubarak and his National Democratic Party (NDP) will mean change in Egypt as well as beneficial spillover effects, given the nation’s influence in the region.

The cry for reform is growing in Egypt’s domestic circles; the Egyptian people themselves are looking for better, more responsive leadership from the state and want Mubarak to change. A political movement of sorts has adopted the Arabic word kifaya, meaning “enough,” as its slogan, and has been expressing its frustration with the status quo of Mubarak’s Egypt. The success that the Muslim Brotherhood party achieved in the election, despite the police-state tactics of Mubarak to suppress turnout, is evidence of the crumbling support for the current regime. Egyptians, though they may be wary of or disagree with the goals of the Muslim Brotherhood to adopt religious laws, voted for the Islamist party as a sign of protest.

To make the situation even grimmer, Mubarak seems to be grooming his son, Gamal Mubarak, to succeed him in office. In recent years, Gamal Mubarak has taken various high profile trips to the United States, and he currently holds a key position in the NDP.

Why Pressure Mubarak?

Mubarak has begun to notice the trace of permanence that democratic impulses carry. But rather than take this seriously, he has largely used skin-deep democratic reforms to buy time and to ease political tensions. For the most part, Mubarak is betting that the Bush administration, besieged by the nuclear crisis in Iran, the continued fighting in Iraq, and the domestic doldrums at home, will not follow up on its 2005 State of the Union request that Egypt demonstrate efforts to democratize.

The status quo, however, is largely untenable. The longer Mubarak is allowed to sit idly, the more powerful the Muslim Brotherhood grows at the expense of moderate reformers by capitalizing on both anti-US and anti-Mubarak sentiments. Only by pressuring Mubarak can the United States break through the polarized state of Egyptian politics, divided between the authoritarian status quo of Mubarak and the religion-based alternative of the Muslim Brotherhood, to allow moderates and liberals like Ayman Nour to bring about a civil and stable democracy without inflaming the region’s already tense conflicts.

Fundamentally, a more democratic Egypt would also help Mubarak by giving the government legitimacy and a firmer footing, but so far he has selfishly held on to power. By running an authoritarian government, Mubarak is only exacerbating political instability, thus threatening his grip on Egypt and encouraging the citizens of Egypt to seek Islamic governance as the solution. Blindly supporting Mubarak does nothing to lessen the potential fundamentalist threat. Rather, the threat festers unchallenged in the court of public opinion.