The calm before the storm
The confrontation between opposition MPs and the NDP-dominated People's Assembly is in a hiatus for the Eid holiday; however, as Gamal Essam El-Din reports, it may well explode when parliament resumes in just over a week
By all appearances the current session of the People's Assembly has set a record in cancelling the membership of its MPs. On 4 February, the assembly ratified the expulsion of two MPs, bringing the number of deputies stripped of their parliamentary membership this year to six. However, this number is expected to increase to at least 12 by the time the parliament wraps up its current session in June.
On 8 February, the Supreme State Security Court sentenced Bahaa El-Miligy and Hussein Eweiss, two MPs belonging to the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Fayoum, to 15 and five years in prison, respectively, both with hard labour.
El-Miligy and Eweiss were also fined LE6,320 million. The court found the MPs guilty of a number of offences ranging from forging official documents to claiming compensation for plots of land that were sequestrated by the state in 1961 to profiteering and misappropriation of public funds.
The verdict against the Fayoum MPs has dealt yet another blow to the ruling NDP's image. It is common knowledge that El-Miligy and Eweiss were close associates of Youssef Wali, deputy prime minister and minister of agriculture. Wali, also an MP for Fayoum and the NDP's former secretary-general, supported the inclusion of El- Miligy and Eweiss on the NDP's Fayoum list of candidates in the 2000 parliamentary elections.
In its meeting scheduled for 22 February, the People's Assembly will vote on whether to strip El-Miligy and Eweiss of their parliamentary membership. According to Mohamed Moussa, chairman of the assembly's Legislative and Constitutional Committee, the court's ruling cannot be appealed, meaning that parliament, in all likelihood, will vote to oust the pair.
Even worse for the NDP's reputation is the timing of the court verdict against the pair, coming as it does just ahead of the scheduled trials of two of NDP heavyweight deputies who are to go before the courts on charges of banking fraud and graft.
The cases of Abdallah Tayel and Abdel-Wahab Qouta are expected to cause further uproar -- not only in parliament, but also in the business world. Tayel was chairman of the People's Assembly Economic Affairs Committee from 1997 to 2002, while Qouta was deputy chairman of the same committee from 1995 to 1997. Both were close to Kamal El-Shazli, another cabinet minister (for parliamentary affairs) and NDP parliamentary whip. Should the MPs be found guilty by the courts, they, too, face losing their seats in parliament.
NDP MPs' involvement in a spate of corruption scandals has given opposition MPs considerable ammunition for their attacks on the government. Attempting to put a positive spin on the situation, NDP leaders contended that the trials are a clear indication that the ruling party harbours a deep respect for the law "and that no one is above the law".
Opposition benches are also suffering. Two opposition MPs now face a fate similar to that of their NDP colleagues. On 3 February, assembly speaker Fathi Sorour, supported by the NDP majority, referred Mohamed Farid Hassanein, a maverick independent MP with considerable business interests to the Ethics Committee for misconduct and of having directed "a great insult" against parliament. The day before, assembly security prevented Hassanein from showering MPs with hundreds of copies of what he titled "an urgent letter to President Hosni Mubarak". In the letter, Hassanein called upon President Mubarak to fire speaker Sorour, Prime Minister Atef Ebeid and chairman of the assembly's Industry Committee Amin Mubarak. "Dear President, they must be replaced by people more honest and devoted to the interests of this nation," Hassanein wrote in his open letter.
Hassanein also contended that Sorour has stripped MPs of their supervisory powers, Ebeid's economic policy has largely failed, while Amin Mubarak has turned the assembly's Industrial Committee into a promotional forum for cabinet ministers. Infuriated by these accusations, Sorour described Hassanein's letter as "an illegal leaflet aimed at defaming the image of the assembly and its speaker". Sorour told Hassanein that he would have the chance to defend himself when he goes before the assembly's Ethics Committee on 4 February. Hassanein responded by saying that, "it is shameful to describe a letter to the president as a leaflet." The MP said he was unable to appear before the committee on the scheduled date because he was scheduled to travel to Germany.
An informed parliamentary source told Al- Ahram Weekly that Hassanein has until 22 February to appear before the committee. "If Hassanein fails to show up this week, we will move to drop his membership," the source said.
The other opposition MP facing an uncertain future in the assembly is Ayman Nour. On 25 January, Sorour intervened to prevent Nour from directing an interpellation (a question that must be answered by cabinet ministers) about what Nour claimed to be "the marked increase of mental disorders in Egypt, resulting directly from the severity of economic conditions." Sorour insisted that Nour's interpellation was "farcical". The next day, Sorour rejected Nour's interpellation. He asked Hamdi El-Sayed, chairman of parliament's Health Committee and the head of the Doctors Syndicate, to investigate whether the World Health Organisation (WHO) has ever issued a report claiming, as Nour contended, that at least 25 per cent of the Egyptian population suffers from clinical depression. The next day, El-Sayed said Nour's claims about mental disorders in Egypt were entirely unfounded. "There is no proof that WHO has ever produced a report in which this figure was claimed," El- Sayed said. Sorour said that Health Minister Awad Tageddin has also sent him a letter saying that WHO did not publish any figures about mental disorders in Egypt.
Nour, however, was not cowed by Sorour's threats that disciplinary action would be invoked against MPs who aim to pose so-called frivolous interpellations. Nour decided to table an interpellation directed towards Prime Minister Atef Ebeid about the government's failure to protect citizens from the dissemination of unethical and immoral material. Nour cited a recent case in which a videotape featuring businessman Hossam Abul-Fotouh and bellydancer Dina was stolen, copied and made available on the black market. An informed parliamentary source described Nour's latest interpellation as more nonsensical than his previous one, saying, "I think Nour will be closer than ever to losing his membership if he insists on tabling such an interpellation."
