Egyptian Elections, Necessary But Not Sufficient - By Rabab El Mahdi | The Middle East ... - 0 views
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for the first time Egyptian elections are characterized by one of the most important features of democracy: uncertainty
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The absence of a pre-determined majority for the NDP is forcing all parties to shift their agendas away from simply opposing Mubarak policies to addressing voters concerns. It is also forcing all contenders and political forces, including the new post-January parties and "icons" to shift their attention away from television shows which have been their main venue and focus since the revolution, to building local constituencies and to adjusting their programs accordingly.
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It is also allowing citizens to reclaim politics in a way that was shortly lived during the uprising, but soon gave away to an elitist monopoly of politics within a narrow public sphere of experts and ‘professional activists' debating on TV and in closed forums.
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Seen in isolation, elections cannot provide Egyptians with the much-needed transformation they went out for in January 2011. Luckily, elections seem to be happening in parallel with other forms of political participation, including continued strikes, protests, public-campaigns, and the rise of community and workplace organizations. The challenge for Egypt's transformation now is to build bridges between emerging institutional politics as expressed in elections, and the extra-institutional politics of the street and the workplace.
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