Cairo, Egypt - Egyptians go to the polls this week for the country’s final round of voting, but the results are a foregone conclusion. Islamists, who captured around 71% of the ballots cast in the first two phases of voting, have secured a majority in parliament.
The results have perplexed Western liberals, who are baffled at why voters have chosen parties advocating restricted freedoms. But the Islamists' adherence to religious values only partially explains their allure. The key to the Islamists’ success lies equally in their effective grass-roots campaigning, which gives voice to peoples' wide-spread grievances.
Islamists are the best organized political parties. In states where governments crack down on any form of organized dissent and civil society groups are virtually non-existent, the mosque is the sole refuge for political opponents of ruling regimes.
For decades, Islamists used the cover afforded by mosques to increase their outreach in society. Today those networks are tasked with educating voters about their parties and ensuring they get to the ballot box.
Their mobilization efforts largely mirror those in Western countries where grassroots groups campaign for candidates. In nations such as the United States, union members and evangelical Christians canvass neighborhoods on foot during election season. Just like their Western counterparts, Islamist campaign volunteers are die-hard believers. They are everywhere in nations like Egypt. When travelers descend from mini-buses, twelve-year-old boys greet them with flyers featuring local Islamist candidates and bullet-points listing their campaign program.
The Islamists are also “anti-establishment” candidates in countries where the long-ruling governments have failed to improve economic and social conditions. Egyptians have backed the Muslim Brotherhood largely because it opposed the former regime.
Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood boast that the organization has been an opposition party since its establishment in 1928. Its members speak proudly of the time they served in prison merely for being believing Muslims. By burnishing their opposition credentials, they are admired by a population that has nothing but disdain for the regimes that persecuted Islamists.
Emphasizing their long-term opposition status also highlights their political experience. Many Egyptians who voted for the Muslim Brotherhood party cite the organization’s long involvement in politics. In a country suffering from so many economic and social problems, the electorate seeks a veteran party with the skills to solve them.
Unlike the Muslim Brotherhood, the puritan Salafis from the al-Nour party, which captured approximately 24% percent of the vote in the first two rounds, are newcomers to the political scene. They have historically eschewed politics to concentrate on outreach programs to instill Islamic values in society.
Rather than focusing on political issues, Salafi candidates have emphasized religion. Because politicians have pilfered state coffers while failing to better the lot of their citizens, promoting an anti-political agenda resonates with the electorate. Al-Nour’s campaign rallies and literature accentuate the party’s disdain for traditional politics and the deception and duplicity that accompanies it.
Because they seek to demonstrate that they can govern a country as large and important as Egypt, Salafis have sought to present Islam and politics as intricately bound. At most rallies they note that the Prophet Muhammad composed the first constitution almost 1,400 years ago in Medina.
The Al-Nour party of Salafis has been especially successful in impoverished areas where the uneducated look to their mosque preacher for guidance. When the party speaks of the religious concepts that every Arab learns as a child, they resonate more with the average man than sophisticated discussions of economic subsidies, which are beyond their grasp.
But it is not merely the underprivileged who support the Salafis. At one of their rallies, the owner of a clothing factory who employs four hundred workers told this writer that his support for al-Nour does not stem from his knowledge of their candidates or political program, but rather because they speak for Islam. In a country where the majority of the population is pious, it is the Islamists who know how to tap into this religious wellspring and cultivate it for political gain.
In an election where thirty six new parties were formed since the revolution, few in Egypt can identify the thousands of candidates or explain their political program. They chose what they know - Islam.
In a country with no democratic experience, the campaign was not about concrete political issues. As a result, the electorate voted for symbols and slogans rather than political programs.
Islamists emphasized that they speak for God and His Prophet, the two most powerful points of reference in the Muslim constellation. They emphasized the striking contrast between the purity of Islam and the corruption of secular politicians in Egypt since independence.
By dominating the first round of elections, Egypt’s Islamists have demonstrated that they know how to run successful campaigns. Whether they can actually govern remains to be seen.