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Al-Ahram Weekly 30 Sep. - 6 Oct. 1999 Issue No. 449 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 30 Sep. - 6 Oct. 1999 Issue No. 449
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Kinds of change
By Rifaat El-Said *
"Change" is a highly ambiguous term: it could be positive or negative, adequate or inadequate, substantive or nominal, and we already have a legacy of erroneous policies. It may be high time to remove certain officials the public has simply grown sick of, or blame them for errors and failures. Our first priority, however, is radical reform of the political, economic, social and legislative systems.
In politics, political parties should have a more active role. We must have free elections, untampered with by administrative or security authorities, an updated list of voters with their civil registry numbers written against each name, and voters signing the electoral registry as a measure to counter fraud. I would also like to see the National Democratic Party revise its selection system to save us future surprises -- like party candidates who are serving prison sentences. It would be nice, too, if party lists were to feature the names of Christian candidates to eliminate the undesirable practice of their appointment to parliament.
The Constitution must be amended to allow several candidates to run for president and vice-president. All laws that restrict freedom should be amended. The Emergency Law should be amended, limiting its application to cases of natural disasters and war.
We also need genuine economic reform guaranteeing that the burden of the current economic situation is shared by the entire population, not borne mainly by the poor as is the case today. Comprehensive social reform is needed to solve the problems of unemployment and to give the population better education and health care.
* This week's Soapbox speaker is the secretary-general of the Tagammu Party and a member of the Shura Council.
