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5. Opposition Alliances under Electoral Authoritarianism: The United National Front for Change in Egypt’s 2005 Parliamentary Elections
- University Press of Florida
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5 Opposition Alliances under Electoral Authoritarianism The United National Front for Change in Egypt’s 2005 Parliamentary Elections Hendrik Kraetzschmar The electoral alliance is a common yet underresearched expression of political opposition to authoritarian government. An electoral alliance is here defined as a grouping of parties that, instead of competing independently, publicly agree to coordinate their election campaigns, run joint slates of candidates, and, wherever feasible, govern together in case of election victory. Depending on the electoral system in place, such alliances can take the shape of either joint district lists or so-called noncompetition agreements. According to Golder, for an electoral alliance to be recognized as such, it has to be public, that is, visible to the electorate, and fall well short of a full merger of the allying parties (2003: 2). Since the turn to limited party pluralism in 1977, Egypt’s opposition parties have on several occasions forged electoral alliances for parliamentary elections . These alliances have varied both in size and composition. While some involved literally the entire opposition, as in the 1984 Alexandria by-election and the 2005 parliamentary poll, others were composed of only a limited number of parties, as in the 1984 and 1987 legislative elections (El-Mikawy 1999: 80–92). Despite their differences, however, all of these alliances were driven by the same rationale. Essentially, they were forged to surpass high electoral thresholds and secure a modicum of opposition representation in the Egyptian legislature. What is more, when measured against their limited objectives, most of these alliances have been electorally rewarding. In the 1984 Alexandria byelection , for instance, the opposition was able to wrest the local seat from the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), once it united behind a common candidate in the second round of voting. The two electoral alliances of 1984 and 1987, forged under list-based electoral formulas, were also instrumental The UNFC in Egypt’s 2005 Parliamentary Elections / 95 in aiding Egypt’s fragmented opposition to overcome an 8 percent national threshold and secure parliamentary representation. In 1984, the alliance between the New Wafd Party (NWP) and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) was the only opposition force that managed to win seats in parliament, while all parties contesting the elections unaligned failed to pass the legal threshold. In 1987, it was only due to the formation of a tripartite alliance between the MB and the Labor and Liberal parties that the latter two were able to leapfrog into parliament (El-Mikawy 1999: 82–90). The latest opposition effort at forging a unified front against the NDP took place during the 2005 parliamentary elections. This time around, no fewer than eleven parties and movements participated in the opposition alliance, which contested the poll under the banner of the United National Front for Change (UNFC). Unlike its relatively successful predecessors, however, the UNFC experienced a dramatic defeat of its candidates at the polls. Not only did the alliance fail to make any significant electoral inroads, but in fact it experienced an almost complete meltdown of its member parties in the new legislature. The dismal performance of the UNFC in the 2005 elections contrasts markedly with the air of optimism that prevailed among the opposition in the period leading up to the poll. Various developments immediately prior to the elections seemed to suggest that the opposition would stand a good chance not only of holding its ground against the NDP but of actually enhancing its parliamentary representation. To begin with, the elections took place amid a backdrop of unprecedented domestic and international pressures for democratic change. Faced with an emboldened reform movement at home and with all eyes of the international community set on Egypt’s election season, the regime showed more tolerance than ever toward opposition activism and seemingly greater willingness to ensure free and fair elections. The emergence of a more pluralist legislature thus became a realistic prospect (Hamzawy and Brown 2005: 3). Opposition hopes were further buoyed by the relatively promising showing of two of its candidates who had stood against President Mubarak in the first-ever multicandidate presidential race of September 2005 and collectively mustered about 10 percent of the total vote. In light of these results, observers widely believed that the opposition stood a realistic chance of augmenting their seat share in the new assembly. Finally, the nature of the alliance itself gave cause for optimism. Coalescing a total of eleven parties and movements into a single front, the opposition had significantly enhanced its capacity for mobilization and...