The process of constitutional reform in Egypt started a couple of years ago and some observers have (wickedly) suggested that it was American pressure which got the ball rolling, in a Middle East which was becoming ever more unstable because of the Iraq disaster. There is no doubt that there is some truth in the hypothesis. But the process would probably have started anyway and for two converging reasons: worries which agitate Egyptian civilised society and to which the government has no answers, even through cosmetic reforms; the need to prepare Mubarak’s succession with his son, Gamal, all the while reinforcing the power of the National democratic party.
On the one hand, Egyptian society is filled with the buzz of rebellion and the birth of several parties and more determined and active regroupings of the opposition, such as Wasat (Middle of the sky), a party inspired by moderate Islam, and the famous Kefaya cartel (Enough!), seem to indicate that there are attempts at new aggregations and new paths. On the other hand, in the 2005 elections the National democratic party straight away had a partial, but nevertheless clear rest and a good 110 ministers of the opposition (out of 440) were elected, of which 88 Muslim Brothers as independent members. The National democratic party in fact control all the essential glands of power, but, a real multipartism, so to speak, could put the hegemony in the not so distant future at risk.
The fact is that today, the governing party can still sleep well at night, as the opposition is not a real alternative. There are many parties, but they either have little social roots (the majority) or are split by internal disputes, such as the nasserian party or the Neo-Wafd. The strongest seems to be the Tagammu’, left-wing party with Marxist tendencies, but there has always been a minimum and limited amount of consensus to this formation, especially amongst intellectuals. As far as Kefaya is concerned, in the West there is an idealised and partially false image of it. It is a very composite organisation, which include liberals, nasserians and even muslim brothers. As things currently stand it does not seem to represent a serious alternative; we will see what happens in the future. The only organisation which can represent a real alternative are the Muslim Brothers, which has stront social roots, but in Egypt parties which are explicitly religiously-based are banned.
The constitutional amendments approved by the parliament and recently subjected to a referendum (the fact that it was a farce of a referendum means nothing: not even in regular elections do a significant number of Egyptians turn up to vote) confirm and reinforce the exclusion of religious parties from the political arena. But this is not exactly new. Neither are the amendments which consolidate the presidential power new. The Egyptian constitution goes back to 1971, when Sadat was president: it is already authoritarian and presidentialist in its genetic patrimony, with the government answering to the head of state, not the parliament; with the head of state who has a lot of power in nominating and choosing the governments, even in the legislative fields where he has the right of veto on the laws.
The biggest and most contested news are in fact concerned with the amendments to articles 88 and 179. The first regulates electoral procedure. In recent years, to fight against fraud and corruption, the elections had been supervised by the magistrate. The new article 88 no longer assigns the supervision to the magistrate, but to a high committee specifically nominated by the government. It still deals with supervision, but it is evident that a body nominated by the government does not give the necessary guaranty that fraud will not be repeated (this time legalised) in favour of the National democratic party. This is where the magistrate’s protest stems from.
The revised article 179 gives a vast mandate to the forces of law and order to, in the event of those accused of “terrorism”, persecute and ignore the citizens’ constitutional rights to freedom or to habeus corpus. Not specifying which acts are defined as terrorist acts and allowing for, in practice, special tribunal institutions, the amendment appears to be a serious violation of democracy. Naturally, the main target are religious parties and organisations, especially the Muslim Brothers, who have been persecuted for years and this persecution could – legally – turn sour. The most serious accusation with regards article 179 is that of wanting to institutionalise the state of emergency in force in Egypt for 27 years, since Sadat was killed in 1981, and which has never been removed. The state of emergency with special police measures aim to combat “terrorism” would therefore be adopted in the constitution.
It is clear that the amendments are going in the direction towards consolidating the power of the National democratic party and of the more than likely future president (perhaps before the natural end of the mandate of Hosni Mubarak, 78 years old, in 2012), Gamal Mubarak. That the amendments change the current situation in essence, is not really true: if anything, they consolidate it, but they do not change it, seeing how the Egyptian political system is not even “democratic” now in the Western sense of the word. On the other hand, as things currently stand there are no real alternatives, apart from the Muslim Brothers; but the Muslim Brothers are constantly in and out of prison.
As far as this total exclusion is concerned, which Mubarak has been practicing since the beginning of the nineteen-nineties, when the threat of terrorism was most acute (but the Muslim Brothers were terrorists neither then nor now), whether it will be productive in the future still remains to be seen. Personally, I fear it will have the opposite effect. On the other hand, the positive aspects are still the free press (not completely but a significant part), the independence of the magistrate, which shows signs of intolerance towards control from above, and the life of society, which is becoming more and more open. As always, a lot will depend on the stability and economic prosperity: if the social injustices worsen, not even a state of siege could completely satisfy the masses.
Translation by Sonia Ter Hovanessian