Egypt is aiming for a real Western-style democracy. Or that's what they say at least.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the biggest organization in Egypt that practices political Islamic fundamentalism (an offshoot of them assassinated Anwar Sadat, the previous president), has explicitly stated that it will not participate in the elections and will not attempt to take power. Egypt will not be a second Iran. Besides, there's no Ayatollah Khomeini figure anywhere to be seen anyway - so there's no risk for another Islamic "Republic".
And I know what you mean when we're talking politically correct bullshit Lasse, by Western standards, many Middle-Eastern countries are somewhat backwards in comparison to Europe; however, these standards that they have are standards they implemented themselves. There are riots all over the place now because they are apparently wanting rights closer to those of citizens in Western countries - because Western hegemony makes it seem as if democratic rule is the best thing that was ever made since sliced bread. Democracy really is a horrible thing, but it's the best that we've come up with. Egypt, although corrupt as hell, impoverishing and just plain nasty (politically speaking) was stable throughout the thirty years Mubarak reigned. And as crazily conservative as it may be, Saudi has also been pretty stable over the 80 or so many years it's existed. Sure, Saudi suffers from actually having fanatic scholars in the government, and it's an absolute monarchy with laws that border those of the Middle Ages, but it's still somewhat politically stable.
There's a lot of factors leading up to these things, and it's way too complex for me to put it in one post.
