Currents of change?
Euphoria at the outcome of the Press Syndicate elections and mysterious rises in exchange rates made the headlines in the Egyptian press this week, writes Aziza Sami
Saadeddin in Al-Arabi draws two fingers of the Press Syndicate pointing to Democracy and Change
|
The central event taking the lion's share of coverage in the newspapers this week was the Press Syndicate elections, resulting in the position of syndicate head going to the Nasserist Galal Aref and not to Salah Montasser, his government-backed rival. When compared to the opposition and independent press, the national daily Al-Ahram covered the event in a restrained manner, giving prominence to the number of votes won by each candidate. On 1 August, the daily published the news that "Aref becomes head of the Press Syndicate with 1,785 votes, 280 of them from Al-Ahram", with Montasser winning "1,415 votes, 663 of them from Al-Ahram".
Commentators emphasised the significance of journalists having opted in a democratic manner for the non-governmental candidate, while also warning of the precarious position the syndicate's new head might find himself in, since he was not fully backed by the state. The general view was that Aref will need to negotiate the syndicate's interests in a manner that was not self-defeating, averting head-on "clashes" with the government unless these were strictly necessary.
In the opposition daily Al-Wafd, Salah Issa on 2 August described Aref's victory as "the start of an era of autonomy", describing him as "the first independent Press Syndicate head to hold the position in 20 years". Issa cautioned that "the government would be mistaken if it did not realise the significance of Aref's victory, and it is time for it to lift its patronage and hegemony over civil-society organisations." He also demanded that journalists play a more active role in the syndicate's affairs, requesting the "forging of alliances with the state's institutions and with civil society in a manner not leading to conflict, except in cases of extreme necessity and after careful calculation".
The opposition weekly Al-Arabi, mouthpiece of the Nasserist Party, predictably came out on 3 August with the bold banner proclaiming "upheaval". The smaller headlines read that "currents of change overcome the government in the Press Syndicate battle." The independent weekly Sout-Al-Umma on 4 August wrote in its banner that "the government falls in the syndicate elections": "no to normalisation, corruption and the National Democratic Party", stated the headlines. Editor-in-chief Adel Hammouda wrote that "what happened in the syndicate elections was no surprise. All the indications were that this would happen, from the imprisonment of the Bakri brothers, to the death of journalist Mamdouh Mahran in jail from heart failure, and the framing of another editor-in-chief by a corrupt gang of bullies."
Hammouda also referred to "the suffering of scores of journalists from oppressive management and from their lack of moral or material fulfilment". The vote, he wrote, was not directed at the persons of the two candidates, but rather denoted a "no to the government and to all that comes from it".
The issue of "change", and the extent to which the Egyptian political system holds vestiges of democracy within it, was extensively dealt with in an article published in Al-Ahram on 28 July by a researcher at the paper's Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, Amr Hashem Rabie. Under the title, "But More Reform is Needed", Rabie was responding to an article published in Al-Ahram on 21 July by Abdel-Moneim Said entitled "Capitalism and Democracy in Egypt". Rabie contested Said's conclusion that the Egyptian political system could not be called "totally autocratic", since it contained vestiges of democracy, such as "opposition parties and press", television channels not controlled by the state, a parliament and a higher constitutional court.
Rabie argued that the extreme centralisation of the Egyptian political and economic system "cannot be compared with that of any other in the world", alluding to its "entrenched bureaucracy" whose power was intensified under the socialist transformation of the 1960s and now continues unabated. He referred to what he called the "deeply-rooted patterns of nepotism" that have made the "inheriting of administrative positions on all levels" an overriding principle of public life. However, the writer was careful to note that on the political level the principle of inherited positions could not apply "since it is known that Egypt is a republican system, which, by definition, cannot accommodate a hereditary presidency. It is thus different from the system in Syria, as was asserted explicitly by President Mubarak himself in an unambiguous manner".
Rabie referred to the "one-party apparatus" whose members, under the guise of preserving "stability", he said, perpetuated their existence through "emergency laws and slogans", such as the system is representing labour and peasants. He questioned how effective the current "17 political parties" alluded to by Said were, saying that these were shackled by a plethora of impediments, including the lack of funding. Like the larger environment in which they operated, he said, they also exhibited nepotism and a lack of democracy in their inner workings. The writer also contested the extent to which the Parliament was able to wield legislative supervision or to form a counter-weight to the all-powerful executive, describing it as having been reduced, through different mechanisms, to a "parliamentary body representing the NDP".
On 31 July, Al-Ahram and the national daily Al-Akhbar both reported Minister of Information and NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif as asserting at a meeting with leaders of the NDP's labour and rural committees that "the party believes in dialogue and participation with civil society's institutions" (Al-Ahram), and that "the concept of participation means breaking monopolies and giving a chance to youth and women." Al-Ahram also quoted El-Sherif as saying that "President Mubarak is extremely concerned to listen to all views; however, he refuses to compromise the rights of workers and fellahin (peasants), or free education, since these are in the interest of the wide base of citizens, and they are the basis of the legitimacy of Egypt's rule."
Grabbing the headlines on 28 July was news of the opening of, as Al-Akhbar put it, "the biggest strategic gas export project" between Egypt and Jordan, by virtue of which Egyptian natural gas will be exported to Jordan and eventually Syria, Lebanon and Europe. The venture is expected to accrue revenues of $70 million in the first year, reaching $500 million within five years. Significantly, the project has come in place of the once much-touted "peace-pipeline" envisaged as part of normalisation between Israel and the Arab countries, which was to have linked Egypt with the Palestinian territories, Israel, Syria and Lebanon in a massive natural gas export project.
Also on the economic front, the question of the apparently inexplicable rises in the exchange rate recurred over the week. "Mysteries of the Dollar" read the title of an investigative article published in the economic daily Al-Aalam Al-Yom on 28 July, with Al-Akhbar on 1 August devoting half a page to "the mysterious rise of the price of the dollar despite tourism's revival".
On 28 July, Al-Aalam Al-Yom reported the dollar as reaching "LE6.40 on the black market, as opposed to LE6.12 to LE6.19 in the banks". Reporter Mustafa Abdel-Salam wrote that "banking sources cannot explain this rise in the price of the dollar on the black market, in view of official statistics showing an increase in Egypt's foreign revenues and asserting that the banks are complying with customers' hard currency demands." Experts alluded to the continued manipulation of prices on the black market, attributing this to the fact that the exchange rate has still not been left to be determined totally by market forces.
On 30 July the opposition weekly Al-Ahali issued by the left-wing Tagammu' Party reported "warnings that the dollar could reach LE7 after it attained LE6.55 on the black market". The paper cited difficulties encountered by foreign investors in transferring their profits abroad, saying that the general unease had been fuelled by news that the government would hold an "emergency meeting" to discuss the foreign exchange situation.
On 31 July, businessman Samih Sawiris sent a letter to Al-Akhbar's editor-in-chief explaining that the rises in the exchange rate were not so mysterious after all, "since, if foreign reserves have increased by $250 million, as the Central Bank has announced, then this means that this amount is no longer available to the market, and that supply is less than demand. Therefore, there is no contradiction."
Sawiris added that whatever the course now being taken by the Central Bank, be it releasing dollars onto the market or otherwise, "what is needed now is transparency and coordination. It should not be possible that the government banks should have no role or knowledge of what the Central Bank's policies are [in this respect]. But it seems clear that they are not in the picture, and neither is the press. As for the public, of course it is the last to know!"
