Reform moving backwards

Is political manoeuvring opening the way for the presidency to be inherited? It seems so, writes Ammar Ali Hassan*

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While everyone was quarrelling over reform of all stripes and colours, a surprise occurred that no one was prepared for. No one wrote about it or spoke of it until two weeks ago -- the two-year postponement of local elections with the claim that this forms a "step towards strengthening democracy in Egypt because it will grant some time in order to prepare a new law that will lead to increased decentralisation. Under the current constitution, local administrations do not enjoy any powers, and they must be set in motion to become local governments in the future."

First off, this postponement fully contradicts promises made by President Hosni Mubarak prior to the presidential elections held last September and damages the political reform programme the president formulated and whose implementation he asked all Egyptians to follow step-by-step. This postponement also raises doubts over the government's intentions in preparing a climate for honest political competition in the upcoming local, presidential, and legislative elections. It opens the door wide to never-ending suspicion that the postponement was intended to empty the political arena of any competition to the Egyptian president's son.

These doubts carry some logic, for the amendment of Article 76 of the constitution set a parliamentary quorum any political party or independent bloc must obtain in order to put forth a member for candidacy for the post of president. All the Egyptian parties failed to meet this quorum, while the legally banned Muslim Brotherhood not only succeeded in meeting it but even surpassed it in the People's Assembly. Remaining for the Brotherhood is to win 150 seats in the local elections and a few seats in the Consultative Assembly, a feat simple in comparison to the parliamentary elections, in order to be able to put forth one of its members as a candidate for the presidency.

Prior to the decision passed quickly in the People's and Consultative assemblies to postpone local elections, talk circulated in Egyptian opposition and independent newspapers of a scenario that had been prepared to pass power to Gamal Mubarak following two years of the current presidential term; that is, October 2007. Further cementing such talk was Mubarak Jr's ascension in Egyptian political life through his appointment as assistant secretary of the ruling National Democratic Party. This development is seen as an interim step to placing him in the president's seat in future elections in which no one will compete against him due to the results of the recent parliamentary elections on the one hand and the postponement of local elections on the other.

Such talk gains credibility from the authorities ignoring it and, rather than showing interest in responding, adopting approaches and styles of behaviour that actually support it. The authorities, indeed, are offering sources an opportunity to repeat and corroborate it, calling for people's reactions because such manoeuvres harm or undermine the republican system, or because Egypt is paying for them a huge price at the expense of its societal well-being, regional role, and historical image in the minds and hearts of Arabs.

The justifications put forth by the Egyptian authorities for postponing the local elections do not convince anyone. Promulgating a new law for local councils does not require two years in a country that possesses vast experience in the arena of public policy, and in which officials have at their fingertips scores of valuable studies on the development of local initiatives, expanding the powers of municipalities, and clipping the claws of loathsome and obstructive centralisation. There also exist ready conceptions of local administration among some political opposition parties, in addition to the possibilities of benefiting from the experience of other states.

Local councils in any country are the beginning and end of politics. They are the beginning in being the elementary level of education in democracy, in which citizens are trained in political participation and social cooperation. They are also the end in being the vessel into which is poured the political regime's ability to fairly distribute resources and burdens, as well as being testament to its performance in the political rearing and mobilisation of citizens in domestic and foreign affairs.

It seems that the Egyptian authorities are not concerned with these functions of local councils and are not currently dealing with them except as a new means by which to prevent the advancement of opponents. They are being dealt with as a means to provide an unwarranted opportunity to the ruling party to regain a public it has forsaken, to demonstrate its power in confronting the down-and-out opposition, and to possess unlimited power to hold onto authority as long as possible, while promises of political reform can go to hell.

* The writer is director of the Centre for Middle East Studies and Research, Cairo.