WORLD VIEWS: Hosni Mubarak's pretend democratic election; International aid in the wake of Hurricane Katrina
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, one of Washington's favorite dictators in the Arab world, has won a fifth six-year term in a pretend democratic election that, "[f]or the first time, in theory at least," gave Egyptian voters "the opportunity to place in the balance" what some local observers have called the long-ruling strongman's "Pharaoh presidency." (BBC)
Mubarak has commanded Egypt's government since 1981, when his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated. For many years, Washington has propped up Mubarak's iron-fisted rule with some $2 billion annually in U.S. foreign aid. (Federation of American Scientists) Last week's presidential vote was described as "democratic" because a change in Egypt's constitution, which Mubarak allowed several months ago, permitted opposition parties to field candidates against him for the first time ever. (Normally, Egyptian presidential elections function more like yes-no referendums on the acceptability of a single candidate -- Mubarak -- proposed by the parliament. The longtime leader's National Democratic Party tightly controls that national legislative body.)
George W. Bush was quick to congratulate Mubarak on his election victory (Malayala Manorama), even though only 23 percent of Egypt's 32 million registered voters (out of a population of some 75 million people) turned out to cast their ballots -- a fact that, in other countries, would likely be seen as weakening the winner's sense of a mandate. (Xinhua/Radio France Internationale)
"Mubarak gained 88.5 percent of the votes. ... His main rivals, reform-minded Ayman Nour of the opposition Al-Ghad ["Tomorrow"] party and Noaman Gomaa of the liberal Wafd ["Delegation"] party, took 7.3 percent and 2.8 percent respectively." (Xinhua) In fact, "[e]xpectations for Egypt's first [democratic] presidential elections were never high, and no one doubted the outcome. ... But the process, marred by rules that prevented real competition emerging, a wide range of irregularities on voting day, a secret vote count and poor turnout, set a low benchmark even by some regional standards."
As a result, after the official vote tally was announced, Nour, a liberal member of Egypt's parliament, joined some 2,000 protesters in Cairo who "accus[ed] the government of rigging the results." But the "secretary-general of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights and part of a coalition of independent non-governmental organizations [that had observed] the election, said [that], at most, 15 percent of the vote was questionable." (Financial Times)
In effect, the BBC's Cairo-based correspondent Fergus Nichol pointed out, alluding to influence from the Bush administration in preparing for this latest "democratic" contest, Mubarak's regime had been "[f]orced by outside pressure into an election it never wanted. ..." As a result, Mubarak "set out not to adapt to change, but to control it, in the process drawing a new template for cynical election management."
As Nichol saw it, Mubarak followed a few key rules to control the election and ensure his fifth win. Among them: he "allowed only nationally unfamiliar figures or out-and-out no-hopers to stand against [him]," and he made a point of "ban[ning] the Muslim Brotherhood -- a non-violent group that's hugely popular on the street, precisely because it provides the medical, sporting and social-security network that the government doesn't." Nichol noted that Mubarak's regime also conveniently halted "the last voter-registration drive" just before "the country's first-ever multi-candidate race" was announced weeks ago. (BBC)
Leading up to the voting last Wednesday, "[d]espite repeated calls from Washington, the [Mubarak] government rejected foreign monitoring of the polls on the grounds that it would constitute interference in the country's local affairs." Nevertheless, on election day, "Three coalitions involving 34 local rights groups fielded thousands of trained volunteer journalists and lawyers to observe the elections across the country, while thousands of international observers were similarly reported on site."
These poll watchers encountered such discrepancies as "complaints from voters in villages who said they found other people had already cast ballots in their names." They saw that "[m]any voters were forced to venture from one poll[ing] station to another until they found one that would allow them to vote." At one polling site, a representative of the ruling National Democratic Party admitted to a reporter that the NDP had bused in pro-Mubarak civil servants to cast ballots there. With such indiscretions in mind, a top official with Egypt's National Campaign for the Monitoring of Elections said there was "no reason why the government should not [have] allow[ed] local observers unless it [was] up to something." (Al-Ahram Weekly)
Despite the baby step toward full-fledged, participatory democracy that last week's Egyptian election represented, as an editorial in Al-Wafd, a newspaper that opposes Mubarak's regime, noted, "The people have woken up and they are not going to go back to sleep." (Cited in Ha'aretz) As a shopkeeper in the Cairo-Giza region told a reporter, even though he would not say whom he had voted for, the opposition candidate Nour deserved credit for "forcing the government to switch from a referendum to a real vote." "This time," the merchant predicted, "if Mubarak doesn't fulfill his promises, the public can hold him accountable." (Al-Ahram Weekly)
For many Americans, especially those hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina and staunch Bush supporters who regard any post-storm assistance from other countries as some kind of deserved, expected payback, the good news is that many donors from around the world -- from little Estonia to economically booming China -- have sent money, emergency-rescue personnel and much-needed supplies to help the relief effort. (Baltic Times /People's Daily)
Among the assistance the United States has received in the hurricane-ravaged region in and around New Orleans: aerial inspection -- by Mexican military helicopter -- of oil spills along the Mississippi River, plus the aid of a Mexican navy ship. (El Universal)
For the first time since 1846, Mexican troops also have set foot on U.S. soil, this time along with a 45-vehicle convoy bringing food supplies for refugees from the hurricane zone. Speaking from Chihuahua, Mexican President Vicente Fox said that, in addition to being a matter of pride for his countrymen to be able to help their northern neighbors, their relief offering expressed the sense of "solidarity" the people of Mexico feel with Americans. Fox said: "That is Mexico -- solidarity, love, affection and strength to overcome adversity." (El Universal)
Germany's contribution is set to include, among food and other supplies, dozens of technical experts specializing in high-water emergencies and in drinking-water concerns. (Agence France Presse/Badische Zeitung) Because of the Bush administration's now famously inefficient bureaucracy, as of late last week Switzerland was still waiting for a green light to send relief supplies and personnel to the storm zone. (Swissinfo)
Meanwhile, Canada has dispatched a team of military doctors and "[t]hree navy warships carrying hundreds of Canadian personnel" to the region. The big ships are "carrying everything from blankets and medical supplies, to diapers and baby wipes. ..." A captain with the medical team said, "We're putting ourselves at the disposal of the Americans, and as long as they have something meaningful for us to do and want us there, we will stay." (Canoe Network)
As for the nearly 1,500 doctors that Cuba has standing by and has offered to send to the hurricane-affected region, so far the Bush administration has not dignified the government of Fidel Castro with a reply. (Prensa Latina)
"The world's people are extending a helping hand to the United States, the only superpower in the world," China's state-controlled People's Daily noted, waxing philosophical. "This has transcended the meaning of economic aid; it mostly displays human morality and the humanistic spirit, and this is exactly what is most needed by our world that is continuously accelerating [toward] realization of economic globalization."
Then, gently wrapping criticism of Bush's now-familiar go-it-alone, unilateralist approach to international affairs in the rhetoric of working together with brotherly love, the Chinese daily added: "It is impossible for any one country to rely merely on its own strength to cope with all knotty problems. Strengthening cooperation has become our necessary choice; showing concern for each other is the foundation for people in the same boat to help each other."
By contrast, Nick Cater, a British writer specializing in philanthropic issues, has argued that, in Katrina's wake, what the United States needs is "change, not charity. ... [L]et's take a hard look at American disaster planning before rushing to generosity and letting President Bush's administration off a hook of its own making," Cater proposed. He noted that Bush's budget cuts to the hurricane region and limited funding for the Army Corps of Engineers "were among the reasons flood levees failed, and the emergency services could not cope." In other words, he suggested, nature alone should not be blamed for the total wipeout of New Orleans and its environs.
But rather than blame the victim -- in this case, apparently, the Bush administration -- alone, Cater went on to observe, in a consideration of payback of a different kind, that, "[w]hen it comes to helping others, American aid [to other countries] is mean and hugely politicized." Offer relief handouts to the United States? Cater hinted that the United States shouldn't expect too much, considering that, "with international aid a mere 0.1 percent of its economic might last year, the U.S. has long been the least generous nation, while its trade regime impoverishes millions worldwide." Cater recommended a bottom line to keep in mind when thinking about aiding Bush's America in the aftermath of Katrina's devastating blow. "If we do give," he wrote, "let's react as America would to any developing country [that] fails to prepare for disaster and allows its people to die, such as Zimbabwe or North Korea: set conditions for aid use, channel it away from the government to trusted charities, and insist on intensive scrutiny of the results." (The Guardian)
Author, artist and critic Edward M. Gomez is a former diplomat and correspondent for Time magazine in New York, Tokyo and Paris. He speaks several languages and has lived and worked all over the world. He is a regular contributor to The New York Times and other publications and is the U.S. editor of Raw Vision magazine. worldviews@sfgate.com |