21 - 27 December 2000
Issue No.513
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 21 - 27 December 2000 Issue No.513 |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Tiptoeing toward reform
By Salama Ahmed Salama
The first term of the new parliament has given rise to many expectations, following the general elections. This means that the new parliament could be a first step on the way to political reform -- a transformation that would be in keeping with 21st-century developments taking place around the globe, and in which political reform goes hand in hand with economic reform.
This has informed many opinions and public commentaries. It was reflected in the speech with which President Mubarak opened the new session. The political stasis to which the People's Assembly had succumbed would have been impossible to sustain in the light not only of criticism levelled at both parliament and MPs but of the results of the last elections, which bespoke change in every imaginable respect. As soon as some degree of integrity was introduced (through judicial supervision), a more vital and varied parliament emerged, representing a greater number of parties and power clusters. Imagine what would happen if all the conditions necessary for a free and unbiased electoral process obtained.
And yet the powers that resist change, throwing obstacles in the way of political reform, remain predominant. New MPs may include "independent" candidates who joined the majority party as soon as they won the elections, true independents or members of opposition parties. Perhaps fear of new and unreliable MPs who may subsequently prove hard to control drove the National Democratic Party to keep the old heads of People's Assembly committees in place. The NDP put all its muscle as the majority party into installing less competent committee heads, violently opposing the nomination of non-NDP candidates for those positions previously occupied by MPs who lost the elections on the committees for foreign affairs, Arab affairs, culture and information. The only development that took place is that some businessmen became heads of some committees. Many new MPs have gained seats, a fair number of them young or independent politicians. And in the light of the new constituency, it must be said that the (NDP-led) administration of the People's Assembly must revise its methods of interaction with MPs. No longer will it be easy to demand complete concurrence -- at least not without persuasion and dialogue taking into account a number of different viewpoints.
President Mubarak remarked that many intellectuals and (educated) city dwellers refrained from voting. We must also admit, however, that the failures besetting many electoral procedures demand a revision of laws pertaining to the exercise of political rights: candidate lists must be rectified; and new ballot cards must be issued for every citizen, based on the new national ID cards, the compulsory use of which will guarantee integrity. This is the only way to encourage the silent majority to speak up and exercise its political rights without being humiliated by the police. It can only be accomplished by extending supervision to all aspects of the electoral process, thus protecting voters from the tyranny of police intervention and organised intimidation.
Had the People's Assembly begun by implementing the law and evicted those MPs whose candidacy the courts declared invalid, this term would really have been a true beginning of the unadulterated democratic life so many people want.
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