Paper-thin parties

By Amr Elchoubaki

---

The recent amendment of Egypt's parties law was disappointing. It contained nothing but cosmetic change. Parties are no longer required to believe in socialist democracy, support the Egyptian- Israeli peace treaty, or endorse what was called the May revolution in Sadat's time. So what? A new party "should have programmes that offer an addition to political life in line with specific goals and methods". What on earth is that?

No political party has an eternal agenda. Parties change their course as circumstances change. The only judge of a party's programme is the public, not a government agency. A party's programme is not a school textbook that requires careful evaluation. It is something for the public to contemplate. Two parties can have the same political programme, but do things in different ways: old and new fashioned, for example. Some parties can be more forward looking than others, although they have the same agenda. Shall we stop younger generations from forming new parties so as not to step on the toes of older ones? Is this what our legislators want?

The bureaucracy, as usual, is churning out its own racketeers. We now have a certain class of individuals who know how to play the system. We have experts -- usually old hands -- who know how to deal with the Parties Committee and how to appeal to courts. Is this the kind of game we want to play? I would have thought that we need parties with public endorsement, not just the right papers. As it is, many people with ample public support have been unable to form parties, while others with the right connections have done so. Please tell me. Do we need real parties, or parties that look good on paper?

This week's Soapbox speaker is an analyst at Al-Ahram Centre of Political and Strategic Studies.

Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/750/op7.htm