Yesterday Ayman Nour was released from prison. Mr. Nour, Egypt’s most famous secular opposition politician, was imprisoned several years ago after performing a bit too well in the first multi-party presidential elections. Ostensibly jailed for forging a few hundred petition forms supporting his candidacy, Mr. Nour’s arrest effectively dampened a cautiously optimistic mood amongst established political reformers in Egypt. His arrest did not completely blot out activism, as a dismal economy, rising food prices, and vast underemployment sparked a large number of strikes in the past couple of years. Add to that the activism of political neophytes through new mediums like Facebook and Egypt has seen a relatively vibrant political life unfold, met with even more vociferous responses from the coercive apparati of the government. Nevertheless, the imprisonment of Ayman Nour likely deterred some establishment figures with more at stake personally and professionally from agitating too boldly.
A few days before President Obama’s inauguration, some foreign diplomats were reporting rumors from Nour partisans that on January 21 President Mubarak would release Ayman Nour as a slight to Bush and an olive branch to Obama. This is clearly an America-centric point of view, but in this case it may have some credence. The Government already made its point to secular would-be opposition figures, Ayman Nour’s political party is in shambles (there was actually a fire-bomb fight between political party factions a few months ago resulting in the destruction of the party headquarters), and aside from the elite opposition press (where he has been publishing a several-times weekly column from prison) he doesn’t have much of a local following (much less, in fact, than the Muslim Brotherhood, whose leaders are still routinely imprisoned and intimidated). Assuming that Ayman Nour’s health really is deteriorating and given that the government would not want him to fall seriously ill while imprisoned, now seems like an ideal time for release. It mends some fences with activists in Egypt after the government’s unpopular response to Gaza, and it makes life in Washington easier for Egypt and those who support the importance of the strategic relationship over Egypt’s slow pace of political reform. Plus, if Obama is eyeing Cairo as his first stop on a Muslim World tour, Egypt looks a lot more attractive.
