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Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 January 2000 Issue No. 464 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 January 2000 Issue No. 464
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Heritage Special Books Profile Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Reform lobbyists seek stronger backing
By Amira HoweidyThe Political and Constitutional Reform Committee (PCRC), which was formed last year, has established a plan of action for the year 2000. Looking towards parliamentary elections scheduled for November, the committee will attempt to implement parts of its program, which reflects the demands of the opposition forces, by the end of this month.
According to one PCRC coordinator, the committee, which consists of representatives of the Labour, Tagammu, Nasserist and Wafd parties in addition to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and the Communist Party, will be active in a number of areas. Hussein Abdel-Razek of the Tagammu Party said the committee will continue organising public rallies in the nation's governorates and collecting signatures to support the call for political and constitutional reform. Secondly, it will focus on the upcoming elections in an attempt to ensure that the balloting will be fair.
Actions at the top of the PCRC agenda are directed towards influencing key government figures and educating members of parliament, among others, about making political competition fairer. A letter signed by leaders of the political parties, professional syndicates and members of parliament will be sent by the committee to Parliament Speaker Fathi Sorour, urging him to look into a draft law presented by Tagammu leader Khaled Mohieddin on the exercise of political rights. Members of parliament and former parliamentary candidates will be invited to a "round table" conducted by the PCRC to "explain election fraud and what can be done to prevent it", said Abdel-Razek. Concerning the political environment, a seminar on the necessity of "freeing" the media and giving the various political forces the right to express themselves via radio and television will also be organised.
During the second quarter of the year, the PCRC will launch a campaign on one of the opposition's more serious demands made throughout the past decade -- terminating the state of emergency in force since the assassination of President Anwar El-Sadat in 1981. "The state usually surprises us by renewing the emergency law in April. So we decided to escalate our campaign -- with the help of the political parties and rights groups -- in March and urge writers and columnists to take up the issue," he said. Establishing an election "watchdog" organisation will also be undertaken by the PCRC.
In spite of its ambitious plans, the PCRC has so far achieved limited results. Upon its formation in August of last year, the committee said it would work to organise a major public rally to give expression to its demands. However, this plan did not amount to much more than convoking low-key meetings in Cairo and several governorates. Ironically, the first of these, held at the Tagammu Party's downtown headquarters, was boycotted by the majority of political party leaders.
Moreover, the committee's activities were hardly mentioned by the majority of political party mouthpieces. Abdel-Razek conceding this fact, stresses two points, first, "the Liberal party mouthpiece, Al-Ahrar, has nothing to do with [the divided and leaderless] party; [Labour's mouthpiece] Al-Shaab is preoccupied with one issue which is the imprisonment of several of its writers. And although Tagammu's Al-Ahali was fairly consistent in its coverage, the party's officials weren't always in favour of our call". Such reticence was also indicated by the Muslim Brotherhood, along with the Labour and Nasserist parties, who, according to Abdel-Razek, "voiced concern about our call for constitutional reform because they didn't want to upset the president".
Constitutional reform, directed towards transforming Egypt into a parliamentary republic in which the president is chosen through multi-candidate elections, remains the committee's most sensitive demand. But the PCRC isn't the first body to be formed to pursue this objective. It represents the most recent in a series of attempts made by political figures since the 1987 elections to promote reform. Ironically, the would-be reformers were thwarted each time by political party leaders.
Salah Eissa, a prominent Tagammu figure and a PCRC founding member, was the first to publicise the concept of a parliamentary republic. He conceded that the committee had not been effective so far. "But we are trying, and we're in the stage of creating an environment [in which people are] familiar with our calls," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. An important point of reference in this connection, he argued, "is President Mubarak's speech at the opening of the current parliamentary session, in which he emphasised the necessity that the forthcoming elections be fair and that the opposition is given more ground".
"It is surprising for me that the political parties didn't try to make something out of this. Isn't this what they've been calling for? So why are they doing nothing? Why aren't they asking the government about what it will do to implement this? Or are they simply waiting to be granted their rights?" he asked.
Eissa conceded that the committee "has no illusions" about what it can actually do. And although its activities in the second half of the year will focus on the elections, Eissa believes that "the elections will be an obstacle in the way of our call because they will emphasise catchwords such as 'fairness', 'reform' of the electoral system etc., while we are basically working within a wider scope for political and constitutional reform".
It seems, though, that the PCRC needs to overcome some internal challenges. According to Eissa there is a lack of harmony among members, who in fact "do not reflect the views of their parties". As a result, he said, "it remains difficult to foresee the scope of coordination between the political parties in the coming elections, despite the committee's existence."
In light of this situation "the solution is to make political and constitutional reform a top priority for the political elite. This objective has the greatest potential for helping us to achieve reform," said Eissa.
