Egypt elections beyond ideology: A return to common sense politics
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Hamid Eltgani Ali and Warigia Bowman
December 13, 2011, 5:00 pm
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The first round of Egyptian parliamentary elections is drawing to a
close, but in another sense, Egyptian multi-party politics is just
beginning. After a partially successful revolution, Egypt is now on a
crash course to multi-party democracy. Other countries that have gone
through major political transitions from dictatorship to democracy
generally have had decades to make the transition. The question many
Western observers are asking now is what shape will Egypt’s nascent
democracy take? Will it more closely resemble the secular Turkey, or the
more theocratic Iran?
As news reports have indicated, the results of the first round of
elections have been discouraging for those who support a secular state
in Egypt. Based on our quantitative analysis of publicly available ex
post election data after the first round of voting, the Islamists
performed exceptionally well in comparatively rural areas with low
political capital such as Fayoum and Luxor.
By contrast, liberal and
moderate parties, taken altogether, won only 27 percent of total votes
and performed relatively well in highly urbanized areas of high
political capital like Cairo, Alexandria and Port Said. Liberal
candidates are likely to do worse in the second and third rounds of
voting which will be held in parts of rural Egypt that are likely to be
less progressive and politically sophisticated than Cairo, the Red Sea
and The Delta.
Given results in the first round of the Egyptian elections, what lessons can be learned?
Keep reading here: Daily News Egypt: A Return to Common Sense Politics