A challenging report
Continuing intransigence on the part of both the opposition and the government will undermine Egypt's plans for political reform, argues a recent high-profile report.
Omayma Abdel-Latif investigates
A recent report by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a high-level Brussels-based crisis management organisation, may be the first comprehensive and up-to-date survey of the political and economic fallout of the six months since the war on Iraq. Entitled The challenge of political reform: Egypt after the Iraq war, the 22-page report comes at a time when tension between opposition forces and the government over the issue of political reform has reached an all time high.
The report provides a survey of public debates on two of the most contentious issues being discussed in today's Egypt -- who will succeed President Hosny Mubarak, and the precise nature of Egypt's relationship with the United States during and after the war on Iraq.
The key difference between the National Democratic Party and the opposition hinges on the meaning and content of democratisation, concludes the report. If US policy continues to appear interventionist, hostility towards America could be both broadened and deepened.
ICG held a one-day discussion session of the report on 16 October to gauge the reactions of Egypt's civil society pundits and political elites to its first assessment of the country's political and economic scene. Many of those who attended the conference -- mostly seasoned diplomats and long time advocates of political democratisation -- saw the report as the first comprehensive survey of the post-Iraq war political situation. Drawing heavily from local press accounts and personal interviews conducted by the ICG's Cairo office staff, the report revealed a range of views belonging to both the ruling NDP and opposition parties.
At the outset, the report referred to "emboldened challenges to the regime", as represented by both traditional opposition pressure and newer dissenting voices that have no particular political affiliation. "The failure of Egypt and the Arab states to prevent the American invasion of Iraq, coupled with growing concern over economic issues, has prompted renewed challenge of the government's policies," the report noted. "Beyond the forcefulness of the critiques, what is remarkable is the extent to which the regime has allowed them to be aired publicly."
According to the report, the long-standing conflict between Islamists and secularists has transformed into a dynamic involving the more pro-American wing of Egypt's elite class pitted against an Islamic-nationalist alliance. A new player has also emerged onto the political scene in the form of young people who are not affiliated to any organised political group but still hope their voices will be heard. "Braving police crackdowns, they demand more political and economic justice both in the region and at home and highlighted the dearth of institutional channels for political participation."
Of the highly sensitive issues that the report shed light on, perhaps the most contentious was the on-going debate on the succession of President Hosni Mubarak. On this point, the opposition was criticised for tending to "overemphasise personalised criticism of Gamal Mubarak, the president's son". Far more effective, the report suggests, would be a critique that put the question of who will succeed Mubarak aside, and focussed instead on how that person ought to be selected. "The opposition needs to articulate the conditions that the selection of any successor would have to meet to be deemed legitimate."
Gamal Mubarak also appeared in the report's survey of NDP-inspired reform projects. After conducting interviews with high-ranking NDP insiders -- particularly those who are members of the Policy Secretariat, the body chaired by Gamal Mubarak which is generally thought to be the driving force of the NDP's new image -- the report warns that the party's reform project could be undermined. "By aiming to develop the NDP into a rejuvenated catch-all party of the centre, its new reformers have seemed intent on confining opposition forces to a very restricted role on the margin of political life," the report said. The opposition, meanwhile, should cease its "hostility to a Gamal Mubarak succession and dismissing [of the] NDP's reform agenda as a window-dressing for that scenario".
Another of the major debates generated by the war and the regional post-war climate focussed on Egypt's relationship with the United States. The report argued that Egyptians seized on the war to denounce what they consider to be apparent subservience to US interests. Many of those attending the 16 October discussion session expressed a growing concern among Egypt's elites regarding the US's true motivations vis- à-vis the Arab world. Ambassador Mohamed Shaker, vice chairman of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs (ECFA), warned that, "if anything was to happen to Syria, the situation in Egypt will be grave." Echoing the same concerns, a number of speakers, mostly diplomats, expressed discontent with US policies in the region. "The mother of all crises is the attitude of the West toward this region," said one retired diplomat.
In its assessment of popular sentiment towards the US, the report captured the attitudes of both elites and the Egyptian street. "Mistrust of US policy and concern at Egypt's dependence reached a peak during the post-war months," the report noted. At the same time, it was critical of the US administration for what it described as "heavy-handed admonition" for Egypt and other Arab countries to reform. "For a growing section of the Egyptian intelligentsia and political class, the cause of domestic democratic reform is increasingly associated with opposition to, rather than support for, US policies. Ultimately, the preconditions for the US to recover credibility as a promoter of democracy with Egyptian public opinion have less to do with its actions regarding democracy than with its regional policies."
Many democracy advocates were interested in the way the Egyptian state might respond to this kind of report. Prominent sociologist Saadeddin Ibrahim, head of the Ibn Khaldoun Centre, wondered "what steps the ICG had taken to ensure that decision makers in Egypt will heed their policy recommendations". According to Ibrahim, "change in Egypt is overdue."
ICG Director Robert Malley, a former Middle East advisor to Bill Clinton, said the ICG "takes it up with the decision makers". In fact, Malley had a busy schedule in Cairo, holding meetings with officials during which the group's policy recommendations were discussed. "We go to the endgame and push our recommendations," he said. "We get the ear of the political class in Egypt and work hard to ensure that our reports are accurate and that the government officials and Egyptian decision makers receive and read [them]."
