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Al-Ahram Weekly 10 - 16 February 2000 Issue No. 468 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 10 - 16 February 2000 Issue No. 468
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Focus Profile Travel Books Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Bills to clean up the polls
By Gamal Essam El-Din
Following lengthy debates that dragged on for months, the People's Assembly's Proposals and Complaints Committee last week approved a bill aimed at revamping the law on "the exercise of political rights". The bill, submitted by Khaled Mohieddin, leader of the leftist-oriented opposition El-Tagammu Party, still has a long way to go before it wins the Assembly's final approval in a plenary session. In the next few days, Mohieddin's bill will be scrutinised in debates in the Assembly's Legislative and Constitutional Committee ahead of the Assembly's discussions.
Khaled MohieddinThe bill has thrown into sharp focus recent attempts by various political forces to modify the 1956 law on the exercise of political rights ahead of next November's parliamentary elections. The bill is the brainchild of various political forces and submitted by Mohieddin on behalf of all opposition parties as representing their demands for political reform. In addition to the bill, two other draft laws are in the works. One, which echoes the voice of independent MPs, is being drafted by Abdel-Moneim El-Oleimi, an independent deputy. The government recently promised that an amended version of the law on the exercise of political rights will find its way to the Assembly for discussion within the next two months. In their recent "Justice Conference", court judges unanimously issued a recommendation that amending the law on the exercise of political rights should be a top priority on the agenda of political reform ahead of parliamentary elections.
Mohieddin's bill has won favour in opposition political circles, where it has been lauded for its "clear-cut objectives and genuine interest in guaranteeing the integrity of parliamentary elections," as one opposition politician described it. However, observers predict that in all likelihood, it will be dropped in favour of the government's upcoming bill.
Mohieddin's bill was originally drafted by a member of El-Tagammu's Central Committee, Abdel-Ghaffar Shukr, but opposition parties introduced several modifications to the 41-article bill, including article No 16 which seeks to make the Ministry of Justice, not Interior, responsible for supervising the elections. This, said the bill's explanatory note, entails that "a supreme election committee" be formed to assume full responsibility for the supervision of elections in all stages and the declaration of results. The bill says the election committee will include nine high-ranking judges from the Courts of Appeal and Cassation and will be completely responsible for the supervision and running of the electoral process. Its members will be immune to dismissal and their decisions on the elections will be binding.
The bill also proposes that the existing voting lists be scrapped. Instead, the note explains, citizens will vote in accordance with their names in the Civil Registry Offices. The bill states that identification cards and signing one's name in what it described as "an attendance book" were voting preconditions. People who cannot read or write will be fingerprinted as a form of identification. "This is an essential procedure to prevent rigging", the bill's note explained. The bill stiffens penalties for all those found guilty of committing electoral offences such as rigging and forcing citizens to vote for a certain candidate.
According to Hussein Abdel-Razek, assistant secretary-general of the the Tagammu Party, 10 years of work went into Mohieddin's bill. "Following the 1990 elections, a committee of several legal and political experts met to formulate a new law aimed at providing greater guarantees with the objective of ensuring the integrity of parliamentary elections," Abdel-Razek said. "Mohieddin submitted the law eight times but each time it failed to find its way into the Assembly's Proposals and Complaints Committee." He added that the bill is an amendment to Law 73 of 1956. "According to the Assembly's regulations, it is a must that proposed laws be first discussed by the Proposals and Complaints Committee and another concerned committee. As for government draft laws, they are to be discussed only by the committee concerned." As a result, Abdel-Razek said laws proposed by deputies, especially those of a political nature, take years before they come up for discussion by the Assembly in a plenary session. By the time the Legislative and Constitutional Committee approves the bill the Assembly's four-month session would have ended.
Abdel-Razek said the bill was primarily aimed at creating a better democratic climate in preparation for the next parliamentary elections. "The law focuses mainly on the most important conditions necessary to guarantee the integrity of general elections," Abdel-Razek said.
As for the independents, El-Oleimi's law, which was submitted in 1994, must still be discussed by the Proposals and Complaints Committee and, consequently, is not expected to be discussed by the Assembly in time before the elections. The law states that the elections' main voting stations be placed under judicial supervision. "As for subsidiary committees, which are generally accused of rigging practices, they are to be placed under the supervision of university professors and high-ranking state officials to make up for the shortage of judges," El-Oleimi's draft law said.
The government says it is currently involved in amending the 1956 law on the exercise of political rights. Speaking in a recent TV interview, Kamal El-Shazli, minister of state for parliamentary affairs, said that within two months, the government will submit to the Assembly an amendment of the 1956 law on the exercise of political rights. The amendment's objective, El-Shazli said, is to expand the judiciary's supervision of elections in all stages.
