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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 February 2000 Issue No. 469 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 February 2000 Issue No. 469
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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 Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Reform culture first
Nadia Abou El-Magd
According to the 15th edition of the annual Arab Strategic Report, issued by the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, Egyptian public opinion was primarily preoccupied last year with the tantalising possibilities of change. The report identifies two reasons for this preoccupation -- the referendum on President Hosni Mubarak's presidency and the president's own remarks on the subject during a meeting with Alexandria University students last July.
Last October's cabinet reshuffle, involving a change of prime minister and the appointment of 13 new ministers, was denounced by some as insufficient, considered shocking by others and viewed as simply an extension of the status quo by yet more.
The report notes that "most of the major parties contradicted themselves when they said that no real change had taken place while at the same time arguing that it would have major bad results".
"The most serious thing that the ministerial change revealed," continues the report, "concerns the positions of the political parties and political realities in general."
The ruling NDP itself needs a major shake-up in order to be able to "survive open competition -- or at least more open than exists now".
"The relatively high performance of the People's Assembly in a number of inquiries did not add much to its overall efficiency," the report adds.
According to the report, inquiries in parliament have become "a way of opening a dialogue with the government; this dialogue may be heated sometimes, but it doesn't influence the government's policies, not to mention its personalities".
Parliamentary reform is a must, concludes the section dealing with the People's Assembly, since a weak parliament will undermine moves towards any democratic transformation. The report asks: "What is parliament's position on political reform and democratic transformation? Will parliament be active in any process for political reform?"
The report argues that the dichotomy of the government versus the opposition no longer accounts for the interplay in political society. It notes that government policies are criticised more often, and better, by national newspapers than in the opposition press.
The report criticises the fragmentation of opposition parties. A decade of failure to tackle their structural problems, as well as political and ideological decline, have resulted, insists the report, in the virtual disappearance of any effective opposition.
The report adds that political reform will be impossible unless restrictions on the publication of newspapers are removed. According to the report, the council of the Press Syndicate, elected in 1999, was too busy struggling for the cancellation of the imprisonment penalty for publication offences to make this demand.
The report goes on to assess the significance of the emergence of two new Islamist groups -- Al-Islah (reform) and Al-Shari'a (Islamic law), which have denounced violence. The report considers this to be "a major development, coming from one of the major schools of religious violence which, a decade ago, did not champion democracy". The report, however, does not discuss the sincerity of this drastic change.
As for professional syndicates, the report says their crisis has worsened since Law 100 -- which fixes an electoral quorum of 50 per cent of members -- was passed in 1993. One possible solution to the present quandary, it is argued, may be the establishment of a "multi-syndicate system" in which professional interests are represented by several unions which will then have to compete for membership.
The controversy over last year's legislation governing the activities of NGOs was, the report states, a perfect example of the shortcomings of public debate within Egypt. Furthermore, the new law revealed the level of mistrust that has developed between the government and NGOs, one manifestation of which was the greatly inflated figures for foreign funding supposedly received by NGOs.
For a third consecutive issue, the report warned of a possible escalation of "social violence" which "represents a greater threat than religious violence". Increasing violations of the law by those with power, influence and money are noted with dismay. At the same time, the spread of social envy also is lamented.
The report concludes by saying that the curtain has fallen at last on "religious violence", noting the commitment of Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya to the renunciation of violence and the release of more than 1,200 detainees since last April.
