What next?

By Salama A Salama

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Political reform in Egypt will fail as long as it involves timid, partial measures. It will fail unless the demands for meaningful participation, oft-made by political parties, civil and professional groups, are fully met.

We need to encourage both equality of opportunity and a spirit of competition. We are in desperate need of guarantees for free elections. We need to persuade as many parties as possible that this is the time to participate in presidential elections. These are the challenges facing the National Democratic Party (NDP), in whose hands are gathered all the strings of the political process.

Those who think it is enough simply to banish the spectre of hereditary power are as mistaken as those who claim the nation should rest content with the amendment of Article 76 and wait idly by for whatever comes next. Wait for what? No one has the foggiest idea. The public needs convincing. It needs to know where the amendment of Article 76 will lead.

The perplexity of the public has grown in recent weeks. On the one hand are those who pontificate on television on behalf of the NDP Policies Committee, on the other people who say they want the scope of democracy expanded without being necessarily ready for the consequences. Between these two groups the light-weight media indulges in speculating about who the public wants as president and what will happen if some one else wins, as if this was the only important issue.

The nation is thirsty for participatory democracy -- this much, at least, is clear. But the door to the rotation of power is barely ajar. And reform involves rather more than appointing people from outside the NDP to the cabinet. It is about more than fresh faces. Establishing any meaningful democracy requires holding free and fair elections and that may well entail some political parties disappearing from the scene only to be replaced by others.

Recently, allegations have been made that several human rights groups have accepted foreign funding. The motives of those making the charges are clear: it is a blatant attempt to discredit the groups concerned. Human rights groups do not operate clandestinely. They go about their business in broad daylight, and their work bolsters the climate of democracy and freedom. Just compare the way they operate with the moral, financial and political corruption that governs even elections in sports clubs.

Non-governmental organisations operate under clearly defined legislation, a point on which the government was suspiciously silent. Despite weeks of allegations being hurled it was only a few days ago that the ministers of social affairs and international cooperation finally conceded that yes, civil society groups can receive grants from abroad, as long as they are registered with the ministry of social affairs. Oddly enough those members of the People's Assembly -- the body responsible for compiling the legislation in the first place -- who were most vociferous in their accusations did not seem to be aware of this fact. They should, perhaps, attend a few more sessions.

The government, of course, itself accepts foreign funding. Since this is the case can there really be any objection to civil society groups receiving the merest fraction of the aid the government itself receives, when that aid has been agreed by the ministry of social affairs? Access to foreign funding is not a state monopoly, after all. And people who commit irregularities in this country are easily detected, or that at least is the message that might be drawn from the experience of at least one political party the activities of which has recently come to the attention of the state. If we don't trust ourselves to handle foreign funding then let's forget about aid completely. Let's try and depend on ourselves.