Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt | Party consensus repudiates meddling

At the latest national dialogue meeting, ruling and opposition party leaders launched a united attack against foreign intervention, and agreed to delay crucial constitutional issues. Gamal Essam El-Din reports

Senior ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) officials joined forces with opposition leaders at a national dialogue meeting on Tuesday night to lambaste "all foreign powers that are doing their best to meddle in Egyptian domestic affairs". The 15 political parties released a joint statement just ten minutes into the meeting, emphasising that "political and constitutional reform is purely Egypt's business".

The statement said, "foreign intervention in matters of democratisation is not only an intervention in domestic affairs, but a direct insult to our country, because the powers claiming to defend democracy and reform are the very same ones that have lost credibility because of their bias in dealing with local and Arab issues."

Although the statement did not single out the US by name, opposition leaders later said the word "foreign powers" referred to both the US and the EU. Wafd Party leader Noaman Gomaa said it was up to the national dialogue, which was initiated based on an invitation from President Hosni Mubarak, to find a way for "reform" to take place. Interestingly, Gomaa's party had held a meeting with outgoing US Ambassador to Egypt David Welch just the previous day.

Tagammu Party leader Rifaat El-Said told Al- Ahram Weekly he would not say whom "the words foreign powers refer to, but everyone who reads the statement will easily know whom we meant".

The statement's appearance just 10 minutes after the meeting began seems to indicate that it was prepared in advance, in a successful attempt to rally the political forces participating in the dialogue behind the NDP, as it tried to deal with mounting US reform-oriented pressure.

Informed sources told the Weekly that NDP Secretary-General and Shura Council Speaker Safwat El-Sherif spent Tuesday morning seeking out approval for the anti-intervention statement from the leaders of most participating parties. El- Sherif's assistant, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal El-Shazli, described the statement as a very crucial response to all foreign attempts to meddle in Egyptian political affairs. "It is a message to these powers that all forces, from all Egyptian political stripes, stand unified against foreign intervention," he said.

In his State of the Union address two weeks ago, US President George Bush singled out Egypt and Saudi Arabia, repeating his call for "Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East ... to show the way toward democracy." The arrest of prominent MP Ayman Nour inspired an avalanche of editorials and reports in major US papers like The New York Times and The Washington Post underscoring Bush's remarks, many calling for greater linkage of annual US assistance to Egypt (estimated at $1.8 billion) to progress on political reforms.

While the US media also urged Bush to fund civil society and human rights organisations calling for democratisation in the Middle East, the national dialogue statement trashed the idea of foreign funding for election campaigns in Egypt. El-Said told the Weekly that, "this part of the statement was necessary, because it is shameful for any Egyptian to accept this sort of funding." President Mubarak said late last month that unnamed powers had decided to allocate $80 million to funding such organisations in Egypt.

The dialogue meeting was also devoted to discussing constitutional matters. And just like the pre-drafted statement on foreign intervention, a statement on constitutional amendments was also issued, again crafted to show the NDP's success in rallying opposition leaders behind the idea of delaying amending the constitution.

El-Said told the Weekly that the opposition parties realised it was too late to amend the constitution this year. "Amending the constitution," he said, "requires a two-month discussion at the Shura Council, and then at least another two- months of debate at the People's Assembly before finally being put up for a public referendum. While opposition parties are not to blame for this delay, everybody knows who is responsible for putting this issue up for debate too late," he said.

Instead, El-Said said, the opposition wants the NDP to agree to swiftly form a committee whose role would be to discuss the proposed constitutional amendments, so they are a priority item on the new People's Assembly agenda in 2006.

Mustafa Moussa, deputy chairman of Al-Ghad (Tomorrow), the party whose leader Ayman Nour was arrested late January, agreed that the constitution could not be amended "overnight". It was in the country's interest, he said, for these amendments to be gradual.

Nasserist Party leader Diaaeddin Dawoud, who withdrew from the meeting just 20 minutes after it began, told the Weekly that he did not feel optimistic about the dialogue, despite the NDP's initial agreement with the opposition on amending the constitution.

In fact, El-Sherif said the parties had all reached a consensus that political and social developments did call for amending the constitution in order to push reforms forward and buttress the nation's economic development. "This consensus," El-Sherif said, "will be presented to the president, [thus] assuring that his final vision on constitutional amendments will aim to guarantee the nation's safety, and bring its reform aspiration to fruition."

Informed sources told the Weekly that NDP officials do not mind this committee, as long as the final say is left to the president. The constitutional amendments that will be submitted to the president will primarily include the opposition's proposal that the president of the republic and his deputy are elected in a multi-candidate direct poll, and that the president be limited to two five-year terms in office.

El-Sherif quoted Mubarak as having said, "the constitution is not a holy book, but we have to choose the right time to amend it."

The next dialogue meetings, said the NDP secretary-general, will be devoted to debating proposals to amend laws governing the People's Assembly, the establishment of political parties, and the exercise of political rights. A committee including El-Shazli, El-Said and Gomaa will be meeting soon to formulate these proposals, and discuss other issues related to economic reform.