Egypt’s Bumpy Road to Free Elections

The much-anticipated announcement by Egypt's ruling military council of a schedule for the nation's first post-revolution parliamentary elections was met with dismay by a wide range of political parties, from the Muslim Brotherhood to the liberal Ghad Party to the conservative Freedom and Justice Party.

In all, more than three dozen parties are saying they plan to boycott the elections, the first round of which is slated for Nov. 28, on grounds that the timeline for voting unfairly stacks the deck in favor of former political allies of ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

While no one is actually running under Mubarak's old National Democratic Party banner, according to Steven A. Cook, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, at least one former NDP powerbroker is leaning on the party's past support networks, especially in areas outside Cairo, to gain an edge in the upcoming polls.

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