Big business, big brother

---

Third-round run-off elections ended yesterday and with them one of the most violent chapters in the history of Egypt's parliamentary elections. The vote was characterised by bribery, with businessmen spending millions to secure a seat in parliament, and intimidation, with thugs hired to frighten voters.

Businessmen are expected to control over 50 per cent of the parliament. It is business, then, that is set to shape the future, framing constitutional amendments and phrasing legislation that will regulate political life, the judiciary and the media.

No one is going to pretend the buying of votes is a new phenomenon. What is new, though, is vote buying on such a scale. NDP apologists speak of buying votes as if it were a legitimate activity. It is, after all, punishable by one day in prison. The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) maintains that vote buying is a token of friendship. Pious and not-so-pious seem to agree that if you want a seat in parliament, then go buy it.

A chamber once filled with Egypt's best legal minds is now filled with the rich, many of questionable reputation. Egypt's future is in the hands of the extremist, or else the corrupt.

Why has money become so omnipotent? Is it because we are inured to ignorance and corruption?

A seat in parliament has become one more way to amass personal wealth. That this is so is one more symptom of the way our political life has fallen apart at the seams. We have abandoned our future to those with money.

The NDP is likely to control over two-thirds of parliamentary seats once it re-admits dissidents to its ranks. The MB will occupy one seat in every four. Secular opposition parties got nowhere.

The reform agenda is now in the hands of big business and Muslim Brothers. Yet the NDP-MB control over parliament is a result of an election in which three out of four registered voters decided to stay at home. Critics of the amendment of Article 76 of the constitution were right all along -- no party has been able to secure the five per cent of seats needed to field a presidential candidate. The only group that surmounted the hurdle is the MB, and it is not a political party. In 2011 all the signs are the NDP will be contesting the presidential elections alone.

The lack of a secular opposition in parliament is disturbing. But this is not the end of the road. When masks fall and illusions evaporate, as they are bound to over the next five years, it will be possible to see what lies beyond.