Egypt vote shows unease with democracy

Though the NDP is a largely secular party, Egypt's constitution is partly based on sharia, or Islamic law. Its party symbol seen on the ballot – important because so many Egyptians are illiterate – is an Islamic crescent moon.

A member of the Brotherhood's central office in Cairo said he would be shocked if any of their candidates won since, he alleged, most of their supporters had been blocked from the polls.

The group sent shock waves through Egypt's controlled political establishment when it won 88 seats in parliamentary elections last year that were marred by allegations of vote rigging and intimidation, but nevertheless was Egypt's most free election for decades.

Analysts say it appears the government is trying to starve the movement – which eschewed violence 40 years ago in favor of a slow and steady approach to win power at the ballot box – of political oxygen, and giving it the choice of either fading away or turning to violence, which would enable the government to wipe out the group.

"The regime is doing all this because it is incapable of honest political competition with opposition forces,'' said Mohammed Habib, the Brotherhood's No. 2 official. "The aim is to marginalize the Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt's political life and to prevent us from moving forward towards peaceful reforms and change through legal and constitutional means."

And it's not just the Brotherhood. Ayman Nour, a secular politician who ran against President Hosni Mubarak last year, remains in jail on what he and his supporters say are trumped up forgery charges.

Kamal, who has a PhD in political science from Johns Hopkins University and worked as a congressional aid in Washington, said the new rules are designed to safeguard the secular character of the Egypt, and that the Muslim Brotherhood would be allowed to form a political party as long as it abandoned its Islamic slogans.

"The Islamists have to play by the rules of the liberal and democratic game," he said.

"They are talking with both sides of their mouths – some elements of the Muslim Brotherhood benefit from the position they're in now. They don't have to be transparent about their finances or practice internal democracy, yet they continue to complain that they are the victims," he said.

At a press conference, General Tarek al-Attia, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior said the police were strongly warned against partisanship and said their large presence at most polling places was designed to protect voters and prevent violent incidents.

Nevertheless, political scientist Dia Rashwan, an expert on Islamist movements at the Al Ahram Center for Strategic and International Studies in Cairo, said in a commentary for the independent Egypt Today newspaper that the new electoral rules, which have removed direct judicial supervision of polls, instead placing the supervisory role in a government-appointed body, were designed to limit political competition.

"The logic is clear and will be seen at midnight tonight when the results will show a total NDP victory and the failure of the 'unpopular' opposition forces such as the Muslim Brotherhood," he wrote.

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