U.S. Pressure Helped Prompt Egypt's Call for Competitive Race
WASHINGTON — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's dramatic decision to allow a competitive presidential election comes amid a behind-the-scenes struggle by the Bush administration and Congress to require Cairo to spend part of its annual $2 billion in U.S. aid on political and economic reform.
Because the Egyptian government has been unwilling to accede to U.S. demands, administration officials said, $1 billion in U.S. aid for financial reform and $80 million to foster democracy have gone unspent.
In addition to putting conditions on the aid, the White House has been sending increasingly pointed signals to Mubarak that President Bush is serious about the need for democratic reform in Egypt. But officials said they did not believe that U.S. pressure alone forced Mubarak's hand.
"U.S. pressure was certainly material," said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But [Mubarak's] people are sitting watching TV. You've seen free elections in Palestine, free elections in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating on the streets in Lebanon, illegitimate elections overturned in Georgia, illegitimate elections being overturned in Ukraine
The State Department appeared to be as surprised as anyone by Mubarak's announcement Saturday that he would open up the constitutional process to allow other candidates to run for president in the fall election. Since the monarchy was overthrown in 1952, Egyptian presidential elections have involved only voting "yes" or "no" on a single candidate nominated by parliament.
"I'm not aware we had any advance warning on it," a senior State Department official said. "There may have been a late cable [from Cairo] Friday that I don't know about."
The official said Assistant Secretary of State William J. Burns spoke by telephone last week with Nabil Fahmy, Egypt's ambassador to the U.S., after Cairo canceled plans for a joint meeting of the Arab League and the Group of 8 nations to discuss reforms.
Egypt and the United States had clashed over the agenda for that meeting.
A subsequent decision by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to cut Egypt and Saudi Arabia from a trip this week merely added to tensions between Washington and Cairo. Rice will now travel only to London for the launch of a conference on Palestinian reform.
