Whose democracy?

While NDP MPs were determined to celebrate Egypt's "democratic achievements" opposition MPs and political activists questioned what these achievements actually were, Gamal Essam El-Din reports

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Fathi Sorour

The People's Assembly met on 15 September to celebrate International Democracy Day, so called since a 1997 initiative by the International Parliamentary Union to set aside one day a year to celebrate democratic achievements.

Addressing Tuesday's meeting, assembly speaker Fathi Sorour told MPs that, "democracy is the best way history has found to guarantee freedoms and respect for the rights of citizens". He argued that Egypt has come a long way in achieving democratic ideals: "The constitution was amended in 2005 to allow citizens to choose their president in multi-candidate, open and free elections rather than in a yes-or-no referendum that had been in place for almost 50 years."

"In 2007," Sorour added, "a further 34 constitutional amendments were introduced to strengthen the supervisory and legislative role of parliament, enshrine the principles of citizenship, impose a ban on parties based on religion and reinforce decentralisation in local councils."

The same constitutional amendments, he added, strengthened the independence of the judiciary by abolishing the post of socialist prosecutor-general and restricting the mandate of state security courts. Sorour also claimed the creation of election commissions to supervise parliamentary and presidential elections "was a significant step in ensuring the integrity of polls" before going on to lament low turnout figures. "Parliament has high hopes that the march of democracy will continue until we see healthy participation in political and parliamentary life," he said.

Sorour cited recent legislation reserving 64 parliamentary seats for women as an example of human rights advances, along with the creation of the National Council of Human Rights (NCHR), the National Council for Women (NCW) and the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM). He then went on to warn that the UN Security Council and some world powers, the United States particularly, "exploit democracy and human rights issues as a pretext for meddling in the internal affairs of other countries."

"Take a look at Israel and see how it violates the basic democratic and human rights of Palestinians and how UN agencies and US reports ignore these infringements," said Sorour.

Opposition MPs and democracy activists take a very different view to that extolled by the speaker. Mahmoud Abaza, chairman of the liberal-oriented Wafd Party, pointed out that Egypt remained very far from adopting internationally- accepted standards of democracy and human rights.

Abaza blamed the National Democratic Party (NDP) for worsening democratic conditions in Egypt.

"We suffer from chronic rigging of elections. In the meantime international organisations like Human Rights Watch, Freedom House and Transparency International all rate Egypt low when it comes to human rights and corruption," he said. Abaza cited the continued application of the 28-year-old emergency law and the proliferation of civilians referred to military tribunals as two repressive measures that disfigure Egypt's reputation in the international arena and constitute "an appalling record for the first Arab nation to create a national parliament". He urged the ruling NDP to accept international monitoring of parliamentary and presidential elections as "the only plausible guarantee for ensuring the integrity of the vote".

Mohamed Abdel-Aziz Shaaban, sole parliamentary representative of the leftist Tagammu Party, said that while "Egypt had an adequate constitution and legislation sadly they remain no more than words on paper".

Nasserist MP Kamal Ahmed accused the NDP of turning Egypt into a police state "that denies freedom of speech and the practice of democracy and will not condone the rotation of power". Ahmed slammed the 2007 constitutional amendments for cancelling full judicial supervision of elections, thus opening the door wide for even more flagrant rigging of the vote.

"As long as the ruling NDP insists on monopolising political life and using the security apparatus to intimidate activists there is no point in talking about democracy," he concluded.

Moufid Shehab, Minister of state for legal and parliamentary affairs, conceded that "Egypt still has a long way to go before it becomes a beacon of democracy in the Arab world and the Middle East". He did, however, argue that this should not blind people to the very real advances "achieved by the ruling regime of President Hosni Mubarak on the road to democracy and human rights".

NDP MPs seemed intent on answering any criticism of their own party's performance by pointing to the even worse record of Israeli practices against Palestinians.

"Israel arrested several members of the Palestinian Legislative Council and sent them to prison since 2006," said Saad El-Gammal, chairman of the People's Assembly Arab Affairs Committee.

El-Gammal went on to attack the US and the UN for double-standards in dealing with violations of human rights in Palestine and Sudan.

"While they ignore Israel's human rights abuses in Gaza and the West Bank they are seeking to commit Sudanese President Omar Hassan El-Bashir to international trial for alleged crimes in Darfur," he said.

Ahmed Kamal Abul-Magd, deputy chairman of NCHR, complained that senior state officials had yet to come to terms with the severity of human rights abuses in Egypt: "NCHR's annual reports reflect this fact and have repeatedly pointed out that officials, especially in the Ministry of Interior, have a great deal to do if they are to improve the record of human rights in Egypt."