The Dictator's Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy (51 page)

1
“It’s not going to be a fair fight”:
Henrique Capriles, interview with author, Pedro Gual, November 2009.

2
“They are extremely sophisticated”:
Vladimir Milov, interview with author, Moscow, April 2010.

3
Capriles was arrested for inciting:
Jackson Diehl, “In Venezuela, Locking Up the Vote,”
Washington Post
, April 10, 2006.

4
little more than “robberies, stripping cars, and rape”:
Yovanny, interview with author, Caracas, July 2010.

5
“There were forty days of campaigning”:
Carlos Ocariz, interview with author, Caracas, November 2009.

6
One of his more innovative educational initiatives:
Author interview, Caracas, November 2009. Also, the blogger Juan Cristóbal Nagel offers an excellent analysis of Ocariz’s program at
Caracas Chronicles
. His post “Red with Envy” appeared on January 13, 2011, and is available at
http://caracaschronicles.com/2011/01/13/red-with-envy/
.

7
the opposition lost seventy-six elections:
Leopoldo López, interview with author, Caracas, November 2009.

8
The head of the Venezuelan military:
Ezequiel Minaya, “If Chavez Loses Venezuelan Election, Transition May Be Rocky,”
Wall Street Journal
, September 12, 2011.

9
Chávez unveiled a new instrument:
Christopher Toothaker, “Chávez Opponents Say Charges Trumped Up to Bar Them from Running,” Associated Press, May 24, 2008. Russián’s list of 400 politically banned candidates was later reduced to 270.

10
One of the candidates banned:
Girish Gupta, “Venezuela’s Exclusion of Anti-Chávez Candidates Faces a Challenge,”
Time
, March 13, 2011.

11
“I want to express my support”:
The clip of Chávez’s speech appears in the documentary
Banned! Political Discrimination in Venezuela
(Ciudadania Activa, 2009) and is available at
www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=46572AE8BBE93290
.

12
“You have the historic responsibility”:
López’s remarks to the court appear in ibid.

13
More than eight hundred candidates:
Gupta, “Venezuela’s Exclusion.”

14
The mayoral post was stripped:
Juan Forero, “Venezuela’s Chávez Sets Up Obstacles for Opponents Who Won in Fall Elections,”
Washington Post
, February 12, 2009.

15
the Inter-American Human Rights Court sided:
Simon Romero and María Eugenia Díaz, “A Bolívar Ready to Fight Against the Bolivarian State,”
New York Times
, October 21, 2011.

16
“I am not disappointed”:
Rifaat El-Said, interview with author, Cairo, January 2006.

17
His parents had been good friends:
Author interview, Cairo, March 2010. 137
“I went back to prison”:
Ayman Nour, interview with author, Cairo, March 2010.

18
Life had not been easy:
Ibid.

19
“They are draining my resources”:
Saad Eddin Ibrahim, interview with author, Washington, D.C., March 2010.

20
an Egyptian court upheld Nour’s forgery conviction:
Matt Bradley, “Egypt Court Bars Opposition Hopeful,”
Wall Street Journal
, October 17, 2011.

21
“We ousted a military ruler”:
Stephanie Rice, “Ayman Nour Speaks About Disqualification from Egyptian Presidential Election,”
Global Post
, October 17, 2011.

22
“I have three more events”:
Anwar Ibrahim, interview with author, Penang, February 2011.

23
one figure looms above all others:
For a look at Mahathir Mohamad’s twenty-two-year rule, I recommend Barry Wain’s
Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

24
“It is the ruling party that is worried”:
Anwar Ibrahim, interview with author, Kuala Lumpur, April 2008.

25
“Only one Malaysian has ever”:
Author interview with Malaysian businessman, Kuala Lumpur, February 2011.

26
“We are going to Taiwan”:
Thomas Fuller, “Malaysians Go to Taiwan Amid Strife,”
New York Times
, September 8, 2008, p. 10.

27
“I knew the moment”:
Anwar Ibrahim, interview with author, Kuala Lumpur, February 2011.

28
“Here, among the Malays”:
Ibid.

29
“Mahathir probably underestimated me”:
Anwar, interview, April 2008.

30
“Your passion for democracy”:
Ibid.

1
Up ahead, a checkpoint stretched:
This account of the events of February 16, 2010, comes from Ahmed Maher, interview with author, Cairo, March 2010.

2
Venezuelan students had higher approval ratings:
Roberto Patiño (student leader), interview with author, Caracas, November 2009.

3
“Our power is that we are not a political party”:
Maher, interview.

4
“It allows us to effectively”:
Douglas Barrios, interview with author, Caracas, December 2010.

5
Polls showed that 65 to 80 percent:
Juan Forero, “Protests in Venezuela Reinvigorate Opposition,”
Washington Post
, June 2, 2007.

6
he does remember sitting:
Barrios, interview.

7
“It was the first time I felt”:
Geraldine Alvarez, interview with author, Caracas, December 2010.

8
But a small group of students:
My account of events from May 28, 2008, comes from my interviews with student leaders, including Geraldine Alvarez, Douglas Barrios, Yon Goicoechea, Francisco Márquez, and David Smolansky.

9
“We did not achieve a concrete objective”:
Yon Goicoechea, interview with author, Caracas, December 2010. 156
It was an incredibly bold proposal:
Simon Romero, “Students Emerge as a Leading Force Against Chávez,”
New York Times
, November 10, 2007; Simon Romero, “Venezuela Vote Sets Roadblocks on Chávez Path,”
New York Times
, December 4, 2007; and Tim Padgett, “Chávez Tastes Defeat over Reforms,”
Time
, December 3, 2007.

10
Sometimes when they blocked roads:
Alvarez, interview.

11
One day the Venezuelan vice president:
Goicoechea, interview.

12
By most estimates, more than 150,000 Venezuelans:
Author interviews with student leaders Douglas Barrios, Yon Goicoechea, and Francisco Márquez.

13
He had no idea:
Goicoechea, interview.

14
And if you looked closely:
Adrian Karatnycky, “Ukraine’s Orange Revolution,”
Foreign Affairs
, March/April 2005.

15
“We see what’s happening”:
Alexander Bratersky, “Nashi Celebrates Fifth Year with Kremlin Support,”
Moscow Times
, April 16, 2010.

16
“The Nashi movement is the movement”:
Ibid.

17
“After the Orange Revolution, all the opposition”:
Author interview with Kremlin official, Moscow, April 2010.

18
In 2008, Nashi was awarded:
Human Rights Watch,
An Uncivil Approach to Civil Society: Continuing State Curbs on Independent NGOs and Activists in Russia
(New York: Human Rights Watch, 2009), p. 21.

19
It receives an even greater share:
Steven Lee Myers, “Youth Groups Created by Kremlin Serve Putin’s Cause,”
New York Times
, July 8, 2007.

20
the organizers made headlines:
Neil Buckley, “Cadre’s Campfire Song to Russia,”
Financial Times
, July 18, 2007.

21
During the 2010 summer retreat:
Anna Arutunyan, “Nashi Seen Behind Pamfilova’s Ouster,”
Moscow News
, August 2, 2010.

22
“Have you heard of Komsomol?”:
Ilya Yashin, interview with author, Moscow, April 2010.

23
A similar youth group, tied to United Russia:
Owen Mathews and Anna Nemtsova, “Young Russia Rises,”
Newsweek
, May 27, 2007.

24
When such a force is created:
Ellen Barry, “Russian Journalist Beaten in Moscow,”
New York Times
, November 6, 2010.

25
When he arrived home:
A security camera outside Kashin’s apartment captured his brutal beating by two attackers. The video can be seen at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w-YhStbTkc
.

26
the focus of Kashin’s reporting:
Oleg Kashin speculates about who was behind his attack. Oleg Kashin, “A Beating on My Beat,”
New York Times
, December 12, 2010.

27
one poll conducted in 2007:
Sarah E. Mendelson and Theodore P. Gerber, “The Putin Generation: The Political Views of Russian Youth” (presentation, CSIS, July 25, 2007),
http://csis.org/images/stories/mendelson carnegie moscow corrected.pdf
.

28
A comparison between Ukrainian and Russian youth:
Taras Kuzio, “Ukraine Is Not Russia: Comparing Youth Political Activism,”
SAIS Review
26, no. 2 (2006), p. 74.

29
The same 2007 poll indicated:
Sarah E. Mendelson and Theodore P. Gerber, “Soviet Nostalgia: An Impediment to Russian Democratization,”
Washington Quarterly
29, no. 1 (Winter 2005–6), p. 85.

30
“You really have to admit”:
Dmitri Makarov, interview with author, Washington, D.C., February 2010.

31
“If you would directly ask”:
Ivan Ninenko, interview with author, Moscow, April 2010.

32
A rare instance when authorities:
Ibid.; Cathy Young, “Kenny Will Live,”
Reason
, October 10, 2008.

33
his most recent arrest:
Mostafa el-Naggar, interview with author, Cairo, March 2010.

34
Sixty percent of the population:
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life,
The Future of the Global Muslim Population
(Washington, D.C.: Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 2011).

35
the youth population in the Middle East:
Jack A. Goldstone, “Understanding the Revolutions of 2011,”
Foreign Affairs
, May/June 2011, p. 12.

36
college graduates were ten times more likely:
Ibid.

37
“I have fallen in love”:
Khalid, interview with author, Cairo, March 2010.

38
No one would have predicted:
Marc Fisher, “In Tunisia, Act of One Fruit Vendor Unleashes Wave of Revolution Through Arab World,”
Washington Post
, March 26, 2011, p. 1.

39
“It started when I was at university”:
Ahmed Maher, interview with author, Cairo, March 2010.

40
the UN World Food Programme reported:
“Soaring Food Prices Anger Egyptians,”
Al Jazeera
, March 18, 2008.

41
there were fewer than a hundred labor protests:
I am indebted to Khaled Ali of the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, for these figures. He very patiently spent hours going over these numbers on recent labor activity with me (Cairo, March 2010).

42
the Facebook group exceeded:
Esraa Rashid, interview with author, Washington, D.C., March 2010. See also Samantha M. Shapiro, “Revolution, Facebook-Style,”
New York Times Magazine
, January 22, 2009, p. 37.

43
“The [regime’s] security had fallen”:
Ahmed Salah, interview with author, Cairo, March 2010.

44
The streets, however, were:
“Egypt Police Clash with Protesters After Foiled Strike,” Agence France-Presse, April 6, 2008; and Nasser Nouri, “Clashes in Nile Delta After Strike Aborted,” Reuters, April 7, 2008.

45
“We had talked about”:
“Egypt to Raise Wages After Unrest,”
New York Times
, May 1, 2008.

46
Among all the youth movements:
Mohamed Adel, interview with author, Cairo, March 2011.

47
“The idea was to try”:
Salah, interview.

48
“The Tunisian revolution gave faith”:
Kamel Arafa, interview with author, Cairo, March 2011.

49
It was Afifi who:
Salah, interview; and Omar Afifi, interview with author, Falls Church, Va., July 2011.

50
It instructed demonstrators to wear:
Adel, interview; and Afifi, interview.

1
Samira was still there:
Samira Ibrahim, interview with author, Cairo, March 2011.

2
“We started sending SOS messages”:
Ahmed Amer, interview with author, Cairo, March 2011.

3
Egyptians love their military:
Robert Springborg, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, is one of the foremost experts on the Egyptian military. For an excellent analysis of the relationship between the Egyptian military and the regime, see Robert Springborg and Clement M. Henry, “Army Guys,”
American Interest
6, no. 5 (May/June 2011). See also Ellis Goldberg, “Mubarakism Without Mubarak: Why Egypt’s Military Will Not Embrace Democracy,”
Foreign Affairs
, February 2, 2011.

4
“People worship the army”:
Author interview with human rights activist, Cairo, March 2011.

5
the empire that today’s Egyptian military:
David Kilpatrick, “Egypt’s Military Discourages Economic Change,”
New York Times
, February 17, 2011; Thanassis Cambanis, “Succession Gives Army a Stiff Test in Egypt,”
New York Times
, September 11, 2010.

6
Indeed, far from relaxing:
William J. Dobson, “Worse Than Our Worst Nightmare During Mubarak,”
PostPartisan
(blog),
Washington Post
, March 17, 2011. See also Human Rights Watch, “Egypt: Retry or Free 12,000 After Unfair Military Trials,” September 10, 2011.

7
“We have found the regime”:
Hayam Ahmed, interview with author, Cairo, March 2011.

8
Mubarak, an unremarkable, colorless vice president:
As vice president, Mubarak was always in Sadat’s shadow. During a meeting with Sadat, Henry Kissinger had mistakenly assumed that Vice President Mubarak was a junior aide to Sadat. See Mary Anne Weaver,
A Portrait of Egypt
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999), p. 36.

9
Mubarak is said to have:
For the assassination of President Anwar Sadat, I relied on ibid., p. 61.

10
Roughly 44 percent of Egyptians:
Joel Beinin, “Egyptian Workers Demand a Living Wage,”
Foreign Policy
, May 12, 2010.

11
Fewer than half the homes:
Max Rodenbeck, “No Paradise,”
Economist
, July 15, 2010.

12
Roughly 30 percent of the adult:
Ibid.

13
The Ministry of Interior … employed more than 1.5 million people:
Jason Brownlee, “Egypt’s Incomplete Revolution: The Challenge of Post-Mubarak Authoritarianism,”
Jadaliyya
, July 5, 2011,
www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/2059/egypts-incomplete-revolution_the-challenge-of-post
. Brownlee is a leading scholar of both Egypt and authoritarianism. I thoroughly recommend his book
Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization
(Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

14
The message was center stage:
Author interview with NDP official, Cairo, March 2010. See also Heba Saleh and Roula Khalaf, “Regime Faces an Uncertain Future,”
Financial Times
, December 16, 2009.

15
“Mubarak recognized that it isn’t”:
Ali Eddin Hilal, interview with author, Cairo, March 2010.

16
The previous ten years had been:
I am grateful to the blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy for his full account of these years and the role that bloggers began to play (Cairo, March 2010).

17
Take, for example, a basic element:
I am indebted to Gasser Abdel-Razek for this observation (Cairo, March 2010).

18
“So the red lines are not the red lines”:
Gasser Abdel-Razek, interview with author, Cairo, March 2010.

19
“In 2000, if there was a UN event”:
Hossam Bahgat, interview with author, Cairo, March 2010.

20
“the
brain of the party”:
Author interview with NDP official, Cairo, March 2010.

21
Egypt’s economy grew:
Youssef Boutros-Ghali, “Egypt: Trendsetter in the Mideast,”
Washington Post
, November 5, 2010.

22
“The same as you, I suspect”:
Mohamed Kamal, interview with author, Cairo, January 2006.

23
“The NDP can reinvent itself”:
Mohamed Kamal, interview with author, Cairo, March 2010.

24
“play the game forever”:
Author interview with NDP official, Cairo, March 2010.

25
Ezz’s holdings were estimated:
Richard Leiby, “The Rise and Fall of Egypt’s Most Despised Billionaire, Ahmed Ezz,”
Washington Post
, April 9, 2011.

26
“We needed a plan”:
Author interview with NDP official, Cairo, March 2010.

27
The weakness of the party’s brand:
I am indebted to Tarek Masoud for this point. For more on the ruling party’s election strategy and performance, see Masoud, “Why Islam Wins: Electoral Ecologies and Economies of Political Islam in Contemporary Egypt” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 2009).

28
Several officials told me:
Mohamed Kamal, Gehad Auda, and Ali Eddin Hilal, interviews with author, Cairo, March 2010.

29
“What I do is more organizational”:
I am indebted to Janine Zacharia, the former Jerusalem bureau chief for the
Washington Post
, for sharing the transcript of her unpublished April 2010 interview with Ahmed Ezz.

30
The NDP captured more than 90 percent:
Amr Hamzawy, “Egypt Faces a Legitimacy Crisis Following Flawed Elections,”
Daily Star
, December 14, 2010; and Robert F. Worth and Mona El-Naggar, “Egyptian Election Shuts Out Islamists,”
New York Times
, November 30, 2010.

31
“Let them entertain themselves”:
Mohamed Abdel-Baky, “Shadow Play,”
Al-Ahram Weekly
, December 23–29, 2010.

32
Boutros-Ghali’s vanity:
Author interview, Washington, D.C., December 2005.

33
I interviewed several members of the council:
Author interviews with current and former members of the council included Hafez Abu Saeda, Ahmed Kamal Aboul Magd, and Bahey el-din Hassan, Cairo, March 2010.

34
“Why did they decide to get rid of me?”:
Ahmed Kamal Aboul Magd, interview with author, Giza, March 2010.

35
“These two curves had to collide”:
Wael Nawara, interview with author, Cairo, March 2011.

36
The people had been warned:
For an account of the June 28 clashes, see Sharif Abdel Kouddous, “Five Months of Waiting,”
Foreign Policy
, July 15, 2011.

37
“I don’t believe in the credibility”:
Kamel Arafa, interview with author, Cairo, March 2011.

38
No one knows how powerful:
Cambanis, “Stiff Test,” September 11, 2010. For a deeper look at the Egyptian military, I recommend Steven Cook,
Ruling but Not Governing: The Military and Political Developments in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).

39
“The one thing we cannot discuss”:
Bahgat, interview.

40
The twenty-year-old blogger was:
I am grateful to Gamal Eid, the executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, for discussing this case with me at great length (Cairo, March 2010).

41
“It happened because this is a red line”:
Bahgat, interview.

42
One famous Egyptian television host:
Zeinab El Gundy, “Famous Egyptian TV Host Sacked After Challenging Ex-army Officer on Air,”
Ahram Online
, July 25, 2011.

43
Maikel Nabil was highly critical:
Frederick Kunkle, “Egyptian Tribunal Sentences Blogger to Three Years for Criticizing Military,”
Washington Post
, April 11, 2011.

44
Military courts quickly became:
Hossam Bahgat and Gasser Abdel-Razek, interviews with author, Cairo, March 2011. See also Human Rights Watch, “Egypt: Retry or Free 12,000 After Unfair Military Trials.”

45
“In the old system, with all its violence”:
Abdel-Razek, interview, March 2011.

46
the government’s military-appointed cabinet:
David D. Kilpatrick, “Egypt Military Aims to Cement a Muscular Role in Government,”
New York Times
, July 16, 2011; David D. Kilpatrick, “Egypt’s Military Expands Power, Raising Alarms,”
New York Times
, October 14, 2011; and Matt Bradley, “Egyptians Bristle at Military’s Plan,”
Wall Street Journal
, November 3, 2011. In the months that followed, representatives of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces issued contradictory statements about the role the incoming parliament would have drafting a new constitution, continuing to raise suspicion that the military did not intend to cede some controls and protections for itself.

47
“They understand the game now”:
Sherif Mickawi, interview with author, Cairo, March 2011.

48
“I had a really magnificent network”:
All quotations from Sherif Osman come from three separate interviews conducted in July 2011.

49
“These days everyone is a constitutional expert”:
Author interview with activist, Cairo, March 2011.

50
“The creation of the dictatorship”:
Abdel-Razek, interview, March 2010.

51
“Please trust that we are not an extension”:
I am grateful to Tarek Masoud for the transcript from a meeting with a visiting delegation of Egyptian generals in Washington, D.C., on July 25, 2011.