Does That Mean Democracy?

NYT reports A hot breeze blew through the reed hut just on the banks of the Nile yesterday. President Hosni Mubarak, his shirt collar opened, sat casually inside as a local man recited a poem and the man's wife served the president a glass of tea. For television viewers around Egypt, it looked as though Mr. Mubarak had visited a village to mingle with its people and for them, in turn, to offer him their praise. "I swear to God, oh Mubarak, that I am in love with you," the man, Mahmoud Fathy, declared through a toothless grin. But this was a one-time, carefully scripted moment intended to make the president look like a man of the people, part of his campaign for election to a fifth six-year term.

Horrors. We have never seen photo ops in our campaigns, have we?

The theater of politics has arrived in Egypt, a country that has never known democracy. But many people are asking what it means that campaign posters are going up and that opposition candidates are criticizing the government. The campaign season - a mere 19 days before the Sept. 7 election - has sparked a debate about whether Egypt's first multicandidate presidential campaign is an honest first step toward a freer and more open political life in Egypt or merely a facade intended to help preserve the power of the old guard.

Mubarak was the only candidate in all previous elections. This time he has a number of opponents. He may win, but the Egyptian people have learned what it is like to decide for themselves who to vote for, and they are not going to be able to put that genie back in the bottle.