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Cairo Dispatch: False Choice

(New Republic) Joshua Hammer - As Egypt prepares for its first multiparty presidential election, the Mubarak regime's strategy can be summed up by a single word: containment. Mubarak grudgingly green-lighted the vote last February, bowing to pressure from the Bush administration, feisty opposition groups inside Egypt, and a new generation of Western-educated technocrats inside his ruling National Democratic Party. Since then, the ruling party has stage-managed every aspect of the process. Voting is open to all Egyptians, as long as they registered by December 2004 - two months before Mubarak called for the multiparty vote. By some estimates 15 million Egyptians, many of whom have become excited about politics for the first time, have been disenfranchised. Numerous Egyptians insist that the process Mubarak has set in motion could easily spiral out of the party's control after the election. "They can't stuff the genie back in the bottle," said Diaa al Rashwan, an analyst with the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.
2005-09-09 00:00:00
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