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CIAO DATE: 04/05/07
Egypt’s Media Deficit
by Adel Iskandar
Cautious optimism pervades the Arab world’s most populous nation, as forthcoming political transformation seems inevitable. Egypt—one of the birthplaces of populist pan-Arabism— is at a historic crossroads. President Hosni Mubarak, the country’s “last Pharaoh,” took an unprecedented step this year by allowing the country’s first multi-candidate presidential election. Despite his victory in the 7 September 2005 elections, Mubarak’s underwhelming voter support (he was supported by only 18 percent of eligible voters) invited contention, increased his vulnerability to potentially fervent political criticism, and dissolved his public image as an infallible leader. The president’s electoral reform set a precedent in contemporary Arab political history, but lack of progress in liberalizing the state’s media apparatus ensures the election will be less than transformative. Although changes to Egypt’s press appear substantial in recent years, a vibrant media system that encourages civil society, civic participation, and political empowerment remains a distant mirage.
Egypt’s Last Pharaoh? In a nation undergoing political metamorphosis, the press should act as a reliable measure of progress. “Truth above power, and the nation above government,” the motto of Saad Zaghloul, the populist leader who defied British colonial rule and ushered in Egypt’s first indigenous nationalist party (al-Wafd), has long served as a slogan for political dissent. However, now his words point more directly to the failure of the nation’s journalistic establishment. Many of the changes to the state’s media landscape over the past half century have been merely symbolic.
Some of Mubarak’s contenders, having drawn the attention of the Western press during the election, appeared to outsiders to pose a significant threat. However, the foreign press tends to magnify the Egyptian opposition’s influence. In fact, few Egyptians can name the nation’s twenty-one officially ratified parties. Without a radical remodeling of the Egyptian national media, particularly national television, this will continue to be the case.
Television is Egypt’s most pervasive medium, but with most national television programming under strict state control, the opposition’s televised time was minimized to ensure reduced visibility. Opposition candidates in the 2005 election received just enough airtime to suggest that contenders have a voice in Mubarak’s Egypt. Furthermore, the president’s ruling party (the National Democratic Party, or NDP) turned down an invitation to a televised debate between Mubarak and his opponents. The minimal television time afforded potentially threatening candidates (Ayman Nour, of the al-Ghad party, and Nomaan Gomaa, of the New Wafd party) secured a significant buffer for the NDP, ensuring that electoral victory would remain within its reach.1 With deeprooted, institutionalized support for Mubarak’s NDP at all levels of the state, the president’s opponents stood little chance. Furthermore, in a country whose public has always feared government retaliation against dissent and where the national press is rarely critical of the state, few citizens demonstrate active opposition to the regime. They are generally loyal to it, apathetic toward it, or, at most, suspicious of it.
The use of websites during the 2005 campaign was another perfunctory nod to the democratic process. It was vital for the regime to sustain the impression, both domestically and abroad, that Mubarak was campaigning in a truly contested race. Thus, the president for the first time appointed a campaign manager, began a campaign trail, and launched a website to support his candidacy. His opponents launched similar websites, but with Egypt’s low literacy rates and limited internet penetration, these sites were ineffectual at best, and mere publicity stunts for foreign observers at worst.
Adel Iskandar is an expert on Middle East media and co-author of Al-Jazeera: The Story of the Network that Is Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism. He monitored the state of Egyptian media in summer 2005.