Way Cleared for Multi-Party Presidential Election in Egypt

Voters overwhelmingly cleared the way for Egypt’s first contested presidential election, according to referendum returns released Thursday. Government opponents dismissed the results.

It was a day of mixed news for President Hosni Mubarak as the White House denounced the beating of protesters during Wednesday’s vote.

“The idea of people expressing themselves in opposition to the government, and then getting a beating, is not our view of how democracy ought to work,” President Bush said. “It’s not the way that you have free elections.”

A few severe bursts of violence tainted referendum day, with plainclothes government agents beating protesters and watching as Mubarak supporters punched other demonstrators.

Six opposition groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, had called for a boycott of the referendum, but the Interior Ministry said 54% of the 32 million registered voters participated. Of those, 83% approved the referendum, the government said.

“The voting masses have realized that political participation within a framework of constitutional legitimacy is the safe path toward the future,” Interior Minister Habib Adli said on state-run television.

A high turnout was important to the government, which has been trying to portray opposition groups as an out-of-touch minority of Egyptians.

It wasn’t clear how many voters joined the boycott.

There was no independent, outside monitoring of results or turnout estimates.

Mohammed Mahdi Akef, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, dismissed the results and the referendum, saying, “I’m sad, and so sorry that ridiculing people has reached this level.” The vote, he said, showed that the government wasn’t committed to reform.

Abdel-Halim Qandil, a spokesman of the largely secular reform group Kifaya, or Enough, which also boycotted the referendum, characterized the results as “black humor,” saying all the returns were fabricated, including some “no” votes created for show.

Opposition newspapers published photos of purported irregularities, including shots said to be of two journalists voting at six separate polling stations and poll workers stuffing ballot boxes.

Mubarak, who has served for 24 years through unchallenged yes-or-no referendums, touted his call for multi-candidate presidential elections as a major democratic reform.

Critics say that it is only an attempt to satisfy U.S.-led international calls for greater democracy in the Middle East, and that the constitution’s new rules may allow for weak political challengers but will not loosen the ruling party’s grip on power.

The amended constitution requires independents to get 250 recommendations from elected members of parliament and local councils, all of which are dominated by Mubarak’s party, before being allowed to enter the presidential race.

The 77-year-old president is widely expected to run again in the election set for September.

Bush, speaking at a Washington news conference with visiting Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, noted his past support for Mubarak’s tentative steps toward democracy.

“Those first steps must include people’s ability to have access to TV, and candidates ought to be allowed to run freely in an election,” Bush said, adding that “there ought to be international monitors.”