More than a month ago, I sounded the alarm about the Egyptian military joining forces with the Islamists to freeze out the democrats – by any means necessary.
This morning, thanks to Daniel Pipes & Cynthia Farahat (National Review Online), we have a better idea just what those means were:
Six parliamentary candidates filed official complaints against a range of officials and demanded that the elections be annulled and redone, reports the newspaper El-Badil in its January 10 edition. One of the candidates, a Wafd Party candidate named Ibrahim Kamel, explained how he acquired government documents indicating that fewer than 40 million Egyptians were eligible to vote, while the current elections included 52 million voters, implying 12 million fraudulent ballots. This increase was achieved, he said, by taking the names and identification numbers of legitimate voters and duplicating them between two and 32 times in other electoral precincts.
To give an idea of what 12 million extra voters can do, keep in mind that neither Islamist party scored that many votes in total in the final party-list tally (Daily News Egypt). In fact – assuming all 12 million phantom voters went with the Muslim Brotherhood’s FJP or the Salafists’ Nour – a clean result would have meant the secular parties would have won about 60% of the vote, at least.
Meanwhile, the Salafists in particular expressed more concern for the safety of the military junta than for the honesty of the election process (Pipes and Farahat):
In contrast, the victorious Islamists, who despise democracy, made little effort to conceal their electoral success through fraud. Some of them went so far as proudly and unapologetically to assert that it’s their Islamic duty to be dishonest. Tal’at Zahran, a leading Salafi, called the democratic system “infidel,” “criminal,” and “out of the Elders of Zion.” He cynically observed that “it is our duty to forge elections; God will reward us for this.”
Revealingly, Zahran also praised Tantawi: “Just as we gave Mubarak the bay’a [the Islamic oath of loyalty], we now support SCAF. If Tantawi decides to stay in power, we will support him until the day he dies.”
Funny, I don’t remember Mubarak touting the Salafists’ oath to him as he presented himself to be the only obstacle to their seizing power. Plus ça change, plus ça mème chose.
Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal
