Al-Ahram Weekly Issue No. 250 7 - 13 December 1995
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

Reflections

Private Politics

By Hani Shukrallah

Brother strove against brother, families and clans were split asunder, the NDP ran fiercely against the NDP, and, in one of the most heated and violent electoral battles in contemporary history, a score and more fell dead and dozens were injured. It is interesting therefore that only in a few urban centres, particularly where strong Islamist candidates were running, was the polarisation along ideological and political lines. For the most part, ferocious electoral battles were engaged not over politics, but business opportunities.

Three main features of the election may illustrate this point:

- The ten-to-one scramble over Assembly seats (4,000 candidates competing for 444 seats) seemed to signal a revival of the parliamentary spirit in the country. But the great bulk of these spirited candidates ran as independents, and most of them were renegade members of the ruling NDP, running against their party's official candidates. As for the country's 14 legal political parties, as well as the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, the total number of candidates they were able to field fell short of covering the 444 seats available. Alternative political and ideological platforms (assuming that all opposition party candidates not only had them, but campaigned around them) accounted therefore for a mere fraction - some 10 per cent - of the campaigning.

- The great paradox in the '95 elections lies in the fact that the competition between politically disinterested candidates was no less heated, or violent, than that between political opponents, including the election's arch-foes, the NDP and the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, one of the fiercest competitions in the whole election - boasting its first incident of violence, back at the start of the campaign - was between two leading members of the ruling party: Adel Sidki, brother of the prime minister and official candidate of the NDP, running against local party boss and multi-millionaire, Atia El-Fayoumi. El-Fayoumi won in the first round.

- The third pronounced feature of the election, and the subject of extensive commentary by analysts and columnists, is the enormous amounts of money spent on the campaign. While commentators have differed on the extent of violence, levels of participation, degree of fairness, etc. compared to previous elections, few would dispute the fact that these have been by far the most expensive elections ever held in Egypt. And by far the largest part of the millions spent on the campaigning came not from the political parties - including the NDP - nor even from large business conglomerates backing certain candidates who will defend their interests once they win a seat. For the most part, they seemed to come from the businessmen/candidates' own pockets. Why, one may well ask, should a shrewd businessman, who has little interest in politics or legislation, squander some five million pounds to win a seat in parliament? This while keeping in mind that Egypt's entrepreneur class has, in the past couple of decades - recession notwithstanding - come to expect extremely lucrative returns on investment.

General election '95 may go down in Egypt's history as the true herald of the nation's entry into the age of liberalisation. But just as liberalisation of the economy is synonymous with privatisation, so it seems is liberalisation in the realm of politics.

Last Wednesday was above all the day of the rising class of Egyptian entrepreneurs - the favoured winning horse on which USAID, scores of international agencies and the lonely, and largely newly-converted ideologues of liberalism in Egypt, have long banked. It is this class, we have been told repeatedly, which will instill vigour into the economy and genuine pluralism into politics. But as it turns out, the one 'liberal' idea which the many money-squandering, head-bashing, ballot-box-snatching, heavy campaigning entrepreneur/candidates seem to have had in common last Wednesday, was that it was parliament itself that was due for privatisation. Liberalisation with a twist.

Whatever the results of yesterday's second and final round of the election, we are now certain that the coming parliament will be characterised by a very weak opposition presence. No more than 13 per cent in the rather unlikely event that all opposition candidates taking part - including those of the Muslim Brotherhood - will win their contested seats.

Our hopes then must be pinned on those who, irrespective of their politics, have made it to parliament to do politics - MPs who view the house as a public domain, a state body, not a private club where members can doze off between deals.

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