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Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 27 October 1999 Issue No. 452 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 27 October 1999 Issue No. 452
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Change is not a quantity
By Wahid Abdel-Meguid *Was the recent cabinet reshuffle so minimal as to justify the general disappointment that greeted it? Does the replacement of the prime minister, the removal of 11 ministers and the appointment of 13 new ones merit the "shock" expressed by some observers and the objection that "there was no change" voiced by others?
These questions give rise to others. For example, is it possible to set a specific ratio -- say, 50 per cent of cabinet members -- as a minimum requirement for real change?
While the causes of the dissatisfaction expressed in the first two questions are open to debate, certainly the third question can only have one answer: a cabinet reshuffle cannot be measured in terms of numbers. Such moves are designed to meet certain exigencies and are based most frequently on an assessment of government performance and the requirements of specific programmes.
If these are the criteria, and if the recent reshuffle affected a third of the former government's members, not to mention the prime minister -- by no means an insignificant change -- how do we account for the discontent?
I suspect that the source of this reaction is to be found outside the scope of the reshuffling process itself. Egyptian society as a whole, not just the political community, is desperate for change. The general level of political awareness is such, however, that few people realise what change entails: certainly, more than new faces in the cabinet. Here we see the enormous impact of the decline of participatory politics since the mid-'50s. The abolition of political pluralism and the imposition of restrictions on participation naturally put a damper on political involvement and eroded public discourse and activism. As a result, the prevalent assumption that politics was a top-down process, and specifically a matter largely concerning the executive branch of government, gained sway. To compensate for its inability to participate, public opinion concentrated on the performance of this branch of government and the comings and goings of cabinet members.
Sadly, the shift to a multi-party system in the mid-'70s brought no tangible alteration to general political behaviour. In part, this was due to the restrictions on the activities of political parties. In part, too, it was due to the poor performance of these parties themselves. The fact that the mechanism for forming a government remains unchanged has not helped. Political life remains stagnant, the scope of popular participation is still minimal and the public eye remains focused on the faces in government.
When the scope of cabinet reshuffles began to diminish in the mid-'80s, the public gradually became aware that there was a problem. Moreover, many began to feel that Egypt's fate was linked to the degree of change in the cabinet. This belief seems to have become widespread in the three months preceding the presidential referendum of 26 September, and was undoubtedly encouraged by President Mubarak's frequent references to the importance of change.
If public opinion can be forgiven for equating change with the extent of change in the composition of the government, however, there is no excuse for the politicians and political party officials who encouraged this perception through many of the opposition newspapers. These newspapers, along with the bulk of the national press, participated in the debate over how much the cabinet would and should change, and in the predictions of who would be dismissed and who would take their place. One would presume that the pundits knew perfectly well that Egypt's future does not depend solely upon the configuration of the cabinet. Indeed, were they to claim otherwise, they would be forfeiting their role in the political system and renouncing their demands for reforms designed to grant them increased influence. Public opinion, as measured by the lowest common denominators of awareness and political involvement, seems to be steering the political parties, when these parties should be playing a more active role in raising the general level of political awareness. This phenomenon, not any amount of cabinet change, is the real reason we should be depressed.
Apart from harping on the "shock" to public opinion and other such exaggerations, most political parties contradicted themselves when, having proclaimed that the reshuffle brought no change, they turned around and said that the change it had brought was for the worse. The two left-wing parties (the Nasserists and the Tagammu), for example, complained of a shift in favour of the economic liberals, and warned that the government was going to speed up the sale of the public sector. The new prime minister is pro-laissez faire, they say (by inference, of course, his predecessor was more protective of Egypt's economic interests). Suddenly, we discover that the cabinet reshuffle resulted from a conflict between two rival camps inside El-Ganzouri's government.
The Labour Party, with its quasi-fascist blend of Islam and Nasserism, made similar, but even more simplistic, arguments, reducing the cabinet reshuffle to the fact that Youssef Wali had remained deputy prime minister and was growing increasingly powerful. Still, this party is prey to the curious illusion that there are two rival wings within the government, one nationalist and the other "Zionist", and that Wali leads the Zionist wing.
These reactions tell us more about the state of the opposition parties and the way they cope with change and political realities in Egypt in general than they do about the government, old or new. In a recent interview with Al-Musawwar, President Mubarak said: "Change is an on-going process and will continue." The most important change, the urgency of which has been confirmed by reactions to the reshuffle, is a process of political reform that will save these parties from certain death. Their reactions indicate that, without greater scope for political participation, multi-party politics will atrophy and collapse.
There must be greater freedom for the establishment of new political parties and, simultaneously, fewer restrictions on party activity. This form of change will serve not only to expand the scope of democracy but, more immediately and more urgently, to rescue a fundamental and integral component of the political system -- political parties. After all, the Constitution does say that the national political system is based on political pluralism. Stimulating this important facet of the political system should also contribute to ending a particular legacy of the one-party system: the public's virtually exclusive obsession with quantifying cabinet reshuffles, and the disturbing exaggerations and distortions that have resulted.
* The writer is editor-in-chief of the Arab Strategic Report, published by Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
