Patriarchal legacy

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CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE: FULL COVERAGE

President Hosni Mubarak has just called for Article 76 of the Constitution to be amended so as to allow more than one candidate to run for president in direct and free elections. The move may seem unprecedented but it is not. Two centuries ago, on 13 May 1805 to be exact, the Egyptian people challenged the Sublime Porte and forced it to appoint Mohamed Ali as the country's ruler instead of Khorshid Bey, preferred by the Ottomans, or Mohamed Bey El-Alfi, supported by the British.

In Egypt's liberal phase, prior to 1952, the Egyptian public elected members of parliament and thereby decided which party would form the government, except on those few occasions when the palace imposed a state of emergency and appointed the government. The media says this is the first time Egyptians go to the polls to elect a president. Technically speaking this is true. But Egypt has selected its leaders in the past and can do it again.

The president has taken a bold step, and many argue that he should have done it earlier. But there were reasons for the delay, as the president hinted in his speech. Mubarak, for one thing, is a great believer in gradual reform. And few will deny that circumstances surrounding the Arab-Israeli conflict have often overshadowed Egypt's political scene.

Commentators argue that no candidate can pose a credible challenge to Mubarak at the moment. Egypt is emerging from half a century of patriarchal rule during which the president's charisma and the backing of the military hindered the search for political alternatives. In patriarchal regimes the leader is projected as father to the entire nation and the thought of his absence is often disconcerting. The public, as well as the opposition, have lived for long in this climate. There may not be enough candidates capable of catching the nation's imagination at the moment. Yet this is a historic opportunity and the nation must embrace it as such. The election has to be fair and free. It will test the nation's political maturity as much as it will test the candidates already waiting in the wings.