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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 Missing points
By Fatemah Farag
The People's Assembly will present its response on Saturday to the government's policy statement delivered by Prime Minister Atef Ebeid last month. But this response will not include details of the positions of two leftist parties -- the Tagammu' and the Nasserists -- who have delayed participation in the exercise for the time being.
"We and the Nasserists have announced our rejection of the government's statement. As of Saturday, the floor will be open for debate and we will have time to explain the rationale behind our position," said Hussein Abdel-Razek, member of the Tagammu's political bureau.
Although the Nasserists, represented by Sameh Ashour, have also announced unequivocal opposition to the government's statement, they still need more time to sort out their reasons. "I still need time to prepare an explanation of our position," Ashour told Al-Ahram Weekly.
The Tagammu', however, was more than willing to read off a long list of objections. There are three points the party feels should have been included in the government's statement and a fourth they feel was covered inadequately.
"The first and most important missing point is a reference to democracy and political reform despite repeated demands during the past year for greater democracy," Abdel-Razek said. "Moreover, the emergency law [which has been in force since the 1981 assassination of President Anwar El-Sadat] will cease to be effective at the end of May, and this will be followed by parliamentary elections in November. Will the emergency law be renewed after 31 May? This is an important question."
Related to the question of democracy is the issue of corruption. "We believe that corruption should have been mentioned in the government's statement, especially after the wide-scale campaign to clamp down on this phenomenon since the recent presidential referendum," added Abdel-Razek.
Second on the list of missing points was a detailed explanation of the nation's foreign policy. "This year promises to be one of the most difficult. There is the Syrian track of negotiations and there are the final status agreements on the Palestinian track. There is also Egypt's declared readiness to host the Middle East/North Africa [MENA] conference [on regional economic cooperation]. The government statement merely included a few very vague lines on foreign policy. We feel that more details are needed," said Abdel-Razek.
Third was the lack of references to the recurrent US dollar shortages on the domestic market, privatisation and mega development projects. "We all know that the government plans to speed up privatisation, and we find it strange that no detailed information was included on this policy aspect," concluded Abdel-Razek.
Finally, the Tagammu' claims that promises made by the government to expand the social security net to include another one million citizens, employ 650,000 people and upgrade health insurance are unrealistic. "The party's economic committee has undertaken research which shows that investments needed to deliver on these promises are too high. For the government to create 650,000 job opportunities, it is estimated that investments worth LE39 billion will be needed. Moreover, the internal debt has reached 68 per cent of the national product. The state of the economy is alarming and party chairman Khaled Mohieddin will be sure to emphasise this point."
The position of both the Tagammu' and the Nasserists is in line with the misgivings with which they greeted Ebeid's cabinet, formed last October. On various occasions the two parties have expressed concern that the new cabinet has a mandate to finalise the process of structural adjustment and privatisation, thus jeopardising the interests of low-income brackets.
