Mubarak's spring chill

Ostensibly building on limited political reforms enacted in 2005, Hosni Mubarak has proposed more than 30 constitutional amendments to be decided by referendum in April. But the veteran president's bid to nurture a second "Egyptian spring" faces deep-rooted public scepticism, and the most tangible development to date has been wholly regressive: mass arrests of members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the officially banned, non-violent Islamist group that is the country's strongest opposition force.

Mr Mubarak's decision to allow multi-candidate presidential elections two years ago and parliamentary polls that saw 88 Muslim Brothers elected as "independents" now look like the high watermark of the Egyptian reformation. Middle East leaders are watching the process closely and US democracy-promoters are keen to learn how to accommodate, or defang, grassroots Islamists. But Mr Mubarak and his National Democratic party have not proved the most enlightened teachers.

Ayman Nour, the Ghad party leader who won 8% of the presidential vote to Mr Mubarak's 89%, was jailed last year on specious charges. US appeals for his release on health grounds were ignored. Municipal elections were postponed for fear of more Brotherhood gains. And despite a 2005 promise, Mr Mubarak, 78, has failed to appoint a deputy while his son, Gamal, continues to accrue influence.

The renewal of the state of emergency in force since Anwar Sadat's assassination in 1981, the refusal of licensing requests by 12 political parties, the suppression of the independent leftist newspaper Al-Badiel - the Alternative - and the defenestration of Talat al-Sadat, an MP who criticised the military, have all been seen as additional moves in the wrong direction.

Then came December's demonstration at Cairo's Al-Azhar University in which students sympathetic to the Brotherhood paraded in black, Hizbullah-style uniforms. "The government capitalised on the demonstration," said leading analyst Amr Hamzawy, writing in Al-Ahram Weekly. "Its violent clampdown and detention of several leaders was only part of the response. More significant was its success in casting the debate over recognition and participation of the Brotherhood in public affairs back to square one."

The government was determined to portray the Brotherhood as an "incubator" for terrorist groups, such as Egyptian Jihad and Al-Gama'a al-Islamiya, and no different from Hizbullah and Hamas, he said. "The inference is that Islamist movements in the Arab world have but one aim - to monopolise power for themselves."

More arrests have ensued. According to Human Rights Watch, nearly 300 Brothers are in detention, with 40 cases moved to military tribunals from which there is no appeal. "This is an indirect call by the regime for violent forces to become active because it is crushing all the peaceful factions," said Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh, a Brotherhood leader. He noted that many of those arrested were likely candidates in April elections to the Shura council, Egypt's upper house.