CAIRO: Egypt’s parliamentary speaker said Friday that US pressure on Cairo for reforms may backfire and lead to a religious state, in a warning two days ahead of an election preceded by arrests of Islamists.
"If there is any US pressure on Egypt, it might possibly turn the situation from a separation of state and religion into a religious state," Fathi Sorour, a senior member of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), told AFP.
Washington has become increasingly critical of its ally after the arrests of more than 1,000 Islamist opposition supporters in the run-up to Sunday’s parliamentary poll, and has demanded Egypt allow international monitors for the vote.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition group, runs its candidates as independents to circumvent a ban on religious parties.
At least 1,200 of its supporters have been arrested since October, and it is expected to win fewer seats than the one-fifth of parliament it captured in the last election five years ago.
Sorour said he made similar comments to a group of visiting US foreign policy experts earlier this month.
One of them, Robert Satloff, is a member of the Working Group on Egypt comprising foreign policy experts who have consulted with President Barack Obama’s administration on Egyptian political reforms.
Satloff told AFP after meeting Sorour that Washington, which had initially distanced itself from the robust policies of Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush, wanted to ensure Egypt’s government had legitimacy.
"The US has an interest that the political process is open and transparent. We are eager for the Egyptian government to be as legitimate as possible," he said.
Analysts say Cairo, one of the top beneficiaries of US foreign aid, has used the threat of Islamists sweeping to power to ward off pressure to lift political restrictions in the NDP-dominated country.
Michele Dunne, a former State Department diplomat who is also a member of the Working Group on Egypt, says US officials are increasingly inclined to view the scenario of Islamists sweeping to power in Egypt as a hollow threat.
"It has come up in meetings when Mubarak meets with members of Congress," said Dunne, who is also a Middle East specialist with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
"The idea of the Brotherhood sweeping to power is a straw man and people in the Obama administration see that," she said.
The Brotherhood won most of the seats it contested in 2005, but analysts say that result was partly due to protest votes against the NDP, which has dominated parliament for more than three decades.
More than a dozen of its candidates have already been disqualified from the election.
The public prosecutor is considering an NDP request to disqualify more Islamists on the grounds they are misrepresenting themselves as independent.
Several courts around the country have ordered a cancellation of elections in 24 out of 254 districts because previous court orders to reinstate disqualified candidates, mainly Brotherhood members and other independents, were ignored.
It is unlikely that the courts’ decisions will be implemented as the government is contesting them.
