Democratisation debate
The ruling National Democratic Party's initiatives aimed at democratising the political system are being criticised by the opposition as more window-dressing. Gamal Essam El-Din reports
The fall of Iraq's Ba'athist regime is impacting already on other ruling parties in the Arab world, including Egypt's National Democratic Party (NDP). Local opposition figures of all stripes have recently lined up to attack a package of reform initiatives that the NDP wants to see passed by parliament before it adjourns in June.
The initiatives -- which include scrapping 1980's Law 108 on state security courts, abolishing the Penal Code's hard labour penalty, and creating a National Council for Human Rights -- are being described as superficial attempts by the NDP to polish the party's image in the eyes of the United States, which has declared Iraq the first stop on its Middle East democratisation train.
According to NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif, the three bills are part of a wider package of political reform initiatives which also include laws aimed at establishing "family courts", fighting private monopolies, and setting up a ministry for women's affairs. Informed sources said a new amendment is also being discussed -- in secret -- in an attempt to revise the General Elections Law. This amendment is aimed at scrapping the current "individual system", which obligates candidates, regardless of whether they are independent or affiliated to a political party, to run individually, in favour of a "mixed electoral system", that combines both the individual and proportional slate systems. The latter obliges candidates from the same political party to run collectively on a single slate in each constituency.
Several opposition figures have warned that the idea of discussing new electoral policies without even consulting the opposition is actually a step backward, rather than forward, for democracy in Egypt. According to Rifaat El-Said, secretary-general of the leftist Tagammu Party, the law is being drafted in secret to ensure that it ends up being favourable for the NDP. "We don't want another electoral law being tailored to ensure the NDP maintains its monopoly over political life," said El-Said.
Adel Eid, an independent MP and a veteran human rights lawyer, is of the opinion that regardless of any new electoral laws, security forces must first be banned from intervening in elections so as to ensure the integrity of the process.
Meanwhile, with a large number of MPs speculating that the current parliament will be dissolved to make way for a new parliament elected via just such a new elections law, People's Assembly Speaker Fathi Sorour stepped up to vehemently deny the rumor. "The existing parliament is the first to be elected under full judicial supervision," he said, "and it was soundly elected to complete its full term in 2005."
Opposition MPs are also disturbed by some of the rhetoric being used by El-Sherif to describe recent democratic reform in Egypt. The NDP chief had said that since President Hosni Mubarak came to power in 1981, the Egyptian press has been empowered with unprecedented freedoms, the role of civil society organisations has been activated, a culture of human rights fostered, and the NDP restructured. Many of these reforms, said El-Sherif, were the brainchild of the party's influential Policy Secretariat, which is headed by Gamal Mubarak.
Independent MP Eid called these statements "deluded" -- especially the claim that "Egypt is living its most prosperous days of democracy." According to Eid, Egypt is branded by such global organisations as the United Nations Human Development Report (UNDP) and Freedom Watch as an undemocratic or authoritarian country. At the end of the 1980s, the UNDP report said, there were just four democracies in Africa. Today, the report added, as many as 17 African states have become democracies -- but Egypt is not one of them.
Within the same context, Eid also slammed the NDP's initiative on human rights as an example of the party's double standards. Eid had recently submitted two reports about human rights violations -- prepared by the UN and the Human Rights Centre for the Assistance of Prisoners (HRCAP) -- to the People's Assembly. The HRCAP's report, covering 2001-2002, said torture and ill treatment of citizens in prisons had become a systematic phenomenon. "In 2001-2002, HRCAP registered that 27 citizens died after they were exposed to brutal torture in prisons," Eid said. He also said that detainees who were arrested during recent anti-war demonstrations had told him dreadful tales about how they were harshly beaten with sticks, belts and shoes.
In an implicit response to Eid's criticism, NDP Policy Secretariat Chairman Mubarak said the proposed Council of Human Rights would be completely independent of the government. He said it would be headed by leading public figures and would have the power to investigate human rights violations.
Many political pundits feel the only real path towards democracy in Egypt must involve amending the 23-year-old constitution. Yehia El-Gammal, a prominent professor of constitutional law, said, "this constitution (which came into being in 1971) gives the president of the republic sweeping powers at the expense of the legislative and judicial authorities. A case in point is that the president can be re-elected for an indefinite number of terms and that a presidential candidate has to first be approved by two thirds of the deputies of the People's Assembly." El-Gammal proposes that the constitution be amended to clearly specify that the president remain in office for no more than two terms, and that several contenders must compete for the post.
"This will lead the way towards getting rid of the single-party system and creating a sound separation of powers," he said.
According to Youth Minister Alieddin Hilal, a leading NDP figure, the party's next congress, set to take place in September, will feature the election of its chairman, general secretary and politburo, a move Hilal called "a progressive democratic step which the party has decided to adopt for the first time in its 25-year history".
Eid was unconvinced. "Before their last congress (in September 2002), they also said their leaders would be elected." It ended up, Eid said, "with all of them being appointed".
