Читать книгу On the State of Egypt - Alaa Al aswany - Страница 15

Does Rigging Elections Count

as a Major Sin?

Over the coming eighteen months or so Egypt will have parliamentary and then presidential elections. In the past the Egyptian regime has tried to use judges to conceal election rigging, but upright judges refused to betray their principles and their message was clear: “Either we supervise the elections seriously and scrupulously, or we’ll withdraw and let the regime alone take responsibility for the fraud.” This time the regime has decided from the start to abolish judicial supervision and has announced that it will not allow any international monitoring of the voting. All this confirms that the next elections will be rigged. Even now Egyptians are well aware that members of the ruling party will win the majority of seats in parliament and that the presidential elections next year will be a farce through which President Mubarak will either hang on to power or bequeath it to his son, Gamal.

The question here is: Who is responsible for rigging elections? The Ministry of Interior is the authority that supervises the conduct of elections and so is responsible for rigging them, but in fact the interior minister is no more than carrying out orders. The person who takes the decision to rig elections is the president himself, and so the decision to rig is conveyed from the president to the interior minister and is then implemented by thousands of police officers and civil servants across the country. These are the people who prevent people from voting, call in thugs to beat up voters who don’t belong to the ruling party, fill in unused ballot papers, close the ballot boxes, and then announce fabricated election results. These fraudsters, like most Egyptians these days, are conscientious about performing their prayers, fasting in Ramadan, giving alms, and going on pilgrimage, and they ask their wives and daughters to wear the hijab. Although they are meticulous about these religious obligations, they take part in election rigging and do not in the least feel they are committing a religious sin. They are not kept awake at night by any feelings of guilt. Generally they consider themselves merely to be carrying out the orders of their bosses, as though they see the whole question of elections as unconnected with religion.