The Emperor has new clothes
By Jennye Greene

Hosni Mubarak has been getting all kinds of makeovers recently. For one, he hired a large team of specialists to spruce up his traditional, strongman image and orchestrate a more media-savvy campaign. The second makeover happened on Election Day when he set aside the well-worn autocratic garb and donned his new democratic raiment.

There is no fabric in the world finer and more worthy than this one, said the weaver. It is called Nominal Democracy. But don't worry; it resembles democracy in appearance only, permitting you to rule as you always have, but with an added effect of legitimacy and progress. And so the ruler strained his eyes until he saw the magnificent cloth and ordered a new robe to be made thinking that the people would acknowledge his skillfully woven attire and be complacent.

It would be easy to chalk the recent multiparty presidential elections up to international pressure or Mubarak's desire to smooth the way for his son to eventually succeed him. In either case, these motivations result in changes that are largely superficial, both from a procedural and a participatory perspective. Numerous lacunae still exist in the legal framework and the practical implementation of the electoral process (see reports elsewhere in this newsletter). Additionally, voter turnout was abysmally low. By the most generous estimate (read the official government one), only 23% of the 32 million registered voters cast ballots. In a country of 77 million people, that means that Mubarak's crushing victory of 88.6% was made possible by approximately19%of the electorate and a mere8%of the population.

But here, just as in the tale, there is a lag time between when the Emperor first starts his procession and when he is completely discredited. Mubarak is currently doing his utmost to pass off his new robe as genuine. He strives to maintain a grip on public perceptions and perpetuate a culture of political hopelessness in order to keep the psychological components of participatory democracy from take much as the robes conceal the familiar autocratic rule, they equally betray emering weaknesses in the regime's imposing edifice.

Somewhere the proverbial little boy has already whispered, The Emperor has no clothes! and it remains to be seen how far and how fast this news will circulate amongst the crowd. Citizen mobilizations are becoming more frequent and the government is discovering, albeit slowly, that the repressive tactics it has grown accustomed to using are not as easily justified as they once were. Hiring thugs to beat up peaceful demonstrators in the lead-up to free and fair elections gives all new meanings to words like embarrassing and hypocritical. Additional signs that the deception has not worked include many judges who are continuing their trend of siding with the citizenry and setting important legal precedents. For example, several rulings of the Administrative Court have already effectively challenged the Presidential Elections Commission, an invention of the recent Presidential Elections Law and bedfellow of the Ruling Party that was designed to escape regulation by any other government body. The language of presidential elections, though originally composed of hollow promises, can become constraining when people begin to demand accountability.And thus it is ironic how the wool this regime tried to pull over everyone's eyes is increasingly being used to tie its hands.

There will be no better test of this than the parliamentary elections that start this 9 of November. At stake is no less than the future ability of any party to field a presidential candidate in 2011. This will require that a party hold at least twenty-three parliamentary seats and obtain 250 supporting signatures from government representatives, 100 of those coming from the People's Assembly. To bolster their chances, ten of the opposition groups have formed a pro-democracy coalition with an eye towards reducing direct competition where possible. The members represent the entire to the liberalWafd party to the Kefaya protest movement to the Muslim Brotherhood, the only thing uniting them is an intense desire to get out the anti-Mubarak vote. Of equal interest will be the degree to which voter turnout increases over previous elections.