The constitutional referendum was the fourth and not the last act of the “Egyptian comedy” entitled fikr gadid, “the new way of thinking” to go on stage. According to official data, 75.9% of Egyptian electors said “yes” to modifying 34 articles of the 1971 Constitution. It is the second constitutional reform in two years. This is the heart of the regime’s new way of thinking: to reform Egypt starting from the reform of the constitution. The opposition do not like the reform plan established by the new way of thinking. Before the referendum, the parties of the “new left”, Wafd, Ghad, invited Egyptians to boycott the vote. As well as the niet of the opposition party, there were also 88 ministers of the Muslim Brothers and of the extra-parliamentarian circle Kiyafa (“Enough!”), the civil rights movement, born in 2004 and key player in the season of protests which preceded the farce presidential elections in 2005.

With news of the expected official results, the same opposition, compact, together with the judges, who had for some time taken on an opposing role, unveiled the new way of thinking, with proof of election fraud in a grand style which was registered even in the time of the old way of thinking, in a lifeless Egyptian political life. The opposition’s protest is mainly concentrated on three articles: article 5, which aims to clamp down on the Brothers, reaffirming the prohibition of creating religiously-based parties; article 88, which excludes the magistrate’s control on the elections, up until now the only guarantee of transparency; article 179, which offers further power to an already plenipotentiary raìs.

At a closer glance, this fourth act of the comedy does not seem quite so original. The preceding acts took place with the same actors and identical plot. Looking through the Egyptian press from the past few weeks, is like rereading the titles which have dominated newspapers of the opposition before each of the first three acts: the reform of article 76 of the Constitution, the presidential elections and the parliamentary elections. The reform in the air in the land of the Nile is the product of the new way of thinking, the new philosophy which the National Democratic Party (NDP), led by the President of the Republic Husni Mubarak, inaugurated in 2002, two years after the parliamentary election results in which, for the first time in a climate of “piloted democracy”, the NDP lost parliamentary seats with an absolute majority. This internal (unexpected?) change coincided with the new international climate of post 9-11, which was anything but favourable. Under variable pressure from Washington, which never reached anti-Syrian and anti-Saudi tones, after twenty years of almost complete political stagnation, Mubarak decided that something had to change in Egypt. Perceiving the ever greater internal dissent, Mubarak dedicated a series of reforms to the placet which came from above in a regime which had decided to undergo a series of surgical operations to give itself a face-lift. These were to especially please American allies, and were launched in their planetary military campaign. After all, it is a physiological fact that every regime must systematically give itself a face-lift.

Furthermore, time has shown that these reforms aim to attack the appearance rather than the substance. The change to article 76 of the Constitution, virtually, has opened up the candidacy to all Egyptian citizens. In fact, restricting small print even renders the candidacy of a professional politician almost impossible. All the limits of the new way of thinking can be observed in the models according to which the passed referendum unfolds: the regime’s military branch and the rigging got the better of the few voters. In the presidential elections in 2005 Mubarak won, thanks to a case of party politics (89% of the votes), phantom-opposition. Only Ayman Nur the young opposition, who now lies in the country’s prisons, gleaned a meagre 8%. But it is with the parliamentary elections, in which the Muslim Brothers have proved to be, at present, the only real political alternative, that the new way of thinking seems all the more stale. The elections recorded much irregularity, widespread corruption with the approval of the military, bought and rigged votes, and also scenes of guerrilla warfare when people in some villages were not allowed to vote. The press offices immortalised “model” Egyptian citizens who, in order to vote, ladder in hand, hurled themselves from the windows into the seats.

In fact, the fundamental “flaw” in the new way of thinking is the lack of realisation of Egypt’s actual impelling problem which Egypt needs to resolve immediately, which is not the increase of democratic practice. In a country where there is a new birth every 23 seconds, where more than half of the population survives with less than 40 euros a month and where in recent years the local currency, the ghinea, has lost almost half of its value compared to the dollar, people are more interested in the progress of the price of bread than in constitutional reforms or in participating in politics. Mubarak clearly understands the problems. The proposal of the Finance Minister, Yusef Botros Ghali, was to increase the cost of bread and flour and to abolish “food vouchers” (which allow citizens with low incomes, to get essential goods for free) in order to improve public debt, to which, Mubarak’s reply has been peremptory: “If we increase the cost of bread, we risk civil war”. Evidentally, Mubarak’s memory has gone back to the tragic events which attacked this Country in the Sadat era. In 1977 the increase of the cost of bread unleashed chaos. A curfew was proclaimed and the army threatened a coup d’état if the president did not immediately revoke the increase, decided upon to please the International Monetary Fund.

As Wahid Abdel Wagid writes in his editorial in the opposition newspaper “al-Misriyyun” a few days ago, “the NDP’s ‘new’ practice has turn out to be like the one before; it in fact resembles ever more the doings of the old pseudo Egyptian political organisations such as al-Ittihad al-Qawmi (The pan-Arabic union) in Nasser’s days. The political practice of recent years has wiped out the tenuous hopes of any real change inside the Country which might improve the future of the Egyptians, especially those less well-off. In short, the new way of thinking is defunct, may peace be with it”.

Translation by Sonia Ter Hovanessian