Tag: egypt

The NDP conference

It’s hard to drum up the enthusiasm to blog about the National Democratic Party’s annual conference, which started today. It’s not exactly like anything earth-shattering is likely to happen, and the interest in Egypt’s ruling party’s attempts to reform itself (which started a few years ago) has dwindled amidst the clear reversal of the dynamic of reform that was launched last year and the depressing failure of reformist movement to achieve much concretely — not to mention the secular opposition’s electoral failure, the recent judges’ crisis (which they lost some time this summer, by the way), and the general crackdown on Muslim Brothers, bloggers and activists. Some would add to that the abandonment of Egypt’s democrats by the Bush White House, which had previously egged them on, in favor of a “US-Egypt Strategic Dialogue” and the generally deteriorating regional situation (these are worth arguing about another time._

It’s interesting that last year the NDP did not make a big fuss about its conference (despite it being an electoral year), leaving the limelight to the presidency to make its bid for re-election. Even the slogan of the 2005 conference, “Crossing to the future,” was taken from the presidential campaign. What a difference that was to 2003 (“Citizenship rights”) or 2004 (“Priorities of reform”) — party conferences that were much-touted as a sign that Egypt was changing and proposed interesting ideas about civic rights (in 2003, largely unimplemented) and major economic policy shifts (in 2004, complete overhaul of tax law, major changes in customs and duties, introduction of various economic laws). Of course these conferences were also largely about the rise of a “Gamal Gang” inside the NDP and the decline of old party bosses such as Kamal al-Shazli in favor technocrats, businessmen, and a new generation of supposedly much more sophisticated party bosses.

So what can this week’s conference (“Second wind for change” — who comes up with these slogans?) really be about? Gamal’s role in the party and in Egypt’s future seems assured now, his internal enemies seem to have lost, the party no longer needs to prove its democratic credentials to the world now that the democratization fad has passed. Well, I will argue that this conference is the most “domestic” one the NDP has held so far, even if it has again invited a selection of the top Egypt experts in the US and Europe to attend and observe the chrysalis of Jeffersonian democracy on the shores of the Nile. The agenda has to a large extent been set by the Egyptian media, the sole survivor (for how long?) of 2005’s remarkable political opening. The main issues the NDP will be addressing are answers to the critiques put forward by the media, most notably:

  1. What is the party doing to implement President Mubarak’s electoral promises on political reform?
  2. What is the party doing to implement President Mubarak’s electoral promises on job creation and the improvement of average Egyptians’ lives?
  3. What is the party going to do about the string of transportation disasters that have hit the country?
  4. What vision does the party have for Egypt’s role in the region and the world?

What’s been announced so far is that 2800 party members will attend and that there are 28 policy papers that will be discussed. Safwat al-Sherif, the SecGen of the party and the last major “old guard” figure still in a leadership position, has stated that there will not be personnel changes at the top like in past conferences. (But then again, he is the leading candidate to lose his job.) Masri al-Youm has announced that 58 NDP MPs have sent a memo of protest to President Mubarak to voice their concern that the party is being hijacked by businessmen and stating that the party is being run by three people around Gamal who are using the same strong-arm tactics as the old guard (my guess: steel magnate and MP Ahmed Ezz, Secretary for Information Ali Eddin Hilal, and Secretary for Youth Moufid Chehab, but I’m not really in the loop.)

Question one, on political reform, will probably be the big showcase of the conference. Amendments to articles 76 and 77 of the constitution are being discussed and could be presented to parliament by the end of the year. Everyone is already expecting the wording of the amendments to be disappointing, as were last year’s amendments to article 76, but I have not seen any details yet. Whatever the changes, the important thing is that they will be tailored to suit Gamal Mubarak’s eventual accession to the presidency and that they will not include the greatest constitutional reform that could happen to Egypt, the introduction of term limits. It seems there will be some other minor measures, such as moving to end the position of the “Socialist Prosecutor,” a Nasser-era holdover, and some changes in the Supreme Judicial Council. There are a few other measures, but these can be discussed in due time if they are mentioned.

The real bombshell is that, according to the press and NDP statements, the ruling party will move to end judicial supervisions of elections. Leave it to the NDP to take as the main lesson of its dismal performance (for official candidates) in last November’s elections, of the prevalence of open vote buying and random violence, and of the interference of police and security in favor of its candidates that it should reduce the only positive thing about the election — that the judges did an excellent job and reported fraud where it occurred. On the laughable pretext that electoral supervision takes judges away from their caseload and slows down the judicial system (which is extremely slow anyway), they are ready to remove the only semi-independent supervision of the election that carries moral and legal authority (electoral observers and party monitors don’t really). That will be worth analyzing in full should it happen, but there can be no clearer sign of Egypt’s growing authoritarianism at this point in time — or that the judges really lost in a more fundamental way than most people are willing to admit.

I’ll skip the economic and job-creation initiatives because it’s the kind of thing that most people would like to see the NDP succeed in doing. Job creation is extremely important and I’m curious how they;ll ever reach the massive figures of new jobs that Mubarak promised in his campaign, even if the economic is generally doing better. It might be interesting to see whether Ahmed Nazif will push his pet program to replace or end subsidies, an important and controversial program. Otherwise here I think we can mainly expect to see Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieddin huff and puff away about how many companies he sold this year — but probably not answer serious allegations that these were sold below price and that someone along the lines pocketed a commission.

Question three, regarding the recent transportation scandals, should be a major issue unless the party leadership tries to shut it out. Since the Minister of Transport recently got a hefty chunk of change from the sale of the third mobile license to Etisalat specifically for this purpose, one might expect/hope that a concrete program to modernize the sector and improve safety standards will be adopted. It would certainly be good PR for the party.

That leaves us with question four, in my opinion the most interesting. It is the first time in the history of the NDP that national security issues are brought up. These are usually the sovereign province of the presidency, and most MPs and party apparatchiks are utterly disinterested in foreign policy issues, on which they can never have any influence (although I see today that the parliamentary committee on religious issues, composed of NDP and Muslim Brotherhood MPs, has called for cutting diplomatic relations with the Vatican over PopeGate. Did they ever do that with Israel, I wonder.) In a recent pre-conference speech, Gamal Mubarak made for the first
time a reference to “Egypt’s national security” and the need to discuss Egypt’s (dwindling) role in the region. Newspaper reports outlined seven main points:

  1. Egypt’s role in the Middle East peace process
  2. The restructuring of tools for a common Arab foreign policy, such as the Arab League
  3. Egypt’s relationship with the United States, notably with a view to influence US policy in the region
  4. Promoting Iraq national unity and the country’s Arab character
  5. Working towards a WMD-free zone in the Middle East
  6. Confronting the rise of Iran as a regional power by reviewing Cairo’s policy towards Tehran and encouraging it to act as a force for stability in the region
  7. Promoting Sudan’s national unity and territorial integrity

I think this whole dimension is entirely a reaction to the fiasco that was the Lebanon war for the Mubarak regime, and the growing frustration at Egypt’s collusion in US and Israeli plans for the region. The above plan basically outlines more of the same, with the difference that Egypt, once a regional power, is satisfied with defending its “near-abroad” in Sudan from regime change. And if there was ever a regime deserving of regime change, it’s Sudan’s (and no risk of creating a civil war there, there already is one!) and minor regional aims (hedging its bets on Iran, institution-building at the regional level, preventing the disintegration of Iraq). The rest of it is cods-wallop and essentially amounts to having a foreign policy that is subservient to the US. There’s an argument to be made that this is the best Egypt can hope for, and there is certainly a need for its proponents to make a compelling case for it. But they are going to have a tough time fighting the nationalist-populist line Kifaya, Karama and most other political currents are taking. And perhaps that is the whole point: keep’em talking about regional injustice, say that unfortunately there’s nothing you can do about it, and at least they won’t be talking about domestic issues.

One more thing: maybe, just maybe, the NDP will decide to pay its electricity bill.

Welcome to Egypt

Peekaboolite.jpg

Remember the survey at the beginning of the summer that suggested tourists are unhappy with the way they’re treated in Egypt? If memory serves, it blamed overcharging service industry types for many visitors making Egypt a once-in-a-lifetime experience. After a weekend trip across the Sinai, though, I think there may be another culprit, and I think the little fellow behind his clipboard might know who it is.

Snapped lounging at a highway check-stop making gestures all-too-familiar to women around Cairo, he didn’t want his picture to be taken and wasn’t about to offer his thoughts on the macro-economic implications of the country being overrun by half-trained goons, but I think his input is clear enough.

I’m guessing that there are quite a few people in government here who are familiar enough with Europe—if only Switzerland—to understand that being openly harassed, be it by well-armed soldiers on street corners or by beltagui with guns stuffed into their jeans in the middle of the desert, isn’t something that is going to encourage tourists to make a return visit.

Pity that taxi drivers and waiters are so much easier to blame.

A pardon for Nour?

I forgot to post this last week, but readers may be interested in reading a letter by Ayman Nour’s family to mark the one-year anniversary of the 2005 presidential elections, in which he came a distant second from Hosni Mubarak and most probably caused him to be sentenced to jail on 25 December of the same year. In the letter, fully reproduced below, President Mubarak is appealed to grant Nour a pardon. Previously Nour had refused to petition Mubarak for an appeal, and I am still not sure whether the administrative legwork to file for a pardon has been done or whether this a more informal, moral appeal.

It’s worth noting that US President Bush recently called for Nour’s release, as have opposition MPs in Egypt.
Continue reading A pardon for Nour?

Mubarak impression

It looks very much as if Hosni Mubarak has started to prepare himself for his new life, after handing over presidency to whomever.

Out of his many options, he picked driving around DHL cars. No surprise actually, as he told the media in spring 2005 how much he has to sacrifice for serving his country, such as simply strolling Cairo’s streets.

I think we should understand that he is still very much into his old job, as you can see on this video clip, that has now been youtubed.

The NDP’s electricity bill

Last week, Al Masry Al Youm summarized a report issued by the South Cairo Company for the distribution of electricity, that put the outstanding electricity bill’s by the NDP as well as ten government-owned newspapers at LE22 millions.

The NDP economic reformers in cabinet can talk about attracting foreign investment forever, it will never take off as they desire if they don’t get these hidden subsidies and irregularities inside the state economy fixed.

(The fact that this report gets public probably indicates that the Nazif cabinet is serious about putting the state press on a sounder economic basis and cut corruption and mismanagement there.)

To pay the bills of their own party would be a good start, too. It’s LE 59258.

Muslim Brother’s political songs album banned

Rather amusing story from Fustat:

The former member of parliament for the Muslim Brotherhood, Mukhtar Nouh was planning on releasing his first CD with political songs, when reaching a dead end, in form of the entertainment cencorship committee.

The committee, refused to comment on why they decided not to give Nouh´s CD the license and the go ahead, but judging from this following quote, the critical lyrics is behind the decision.

“One song in the album talks about a ruler who tours his country every year. In one province, one of the citizens stops the ruler to ask why food, medicines and jobs have become so scarce,” recounts the bearded Nouh.

“The next year, another citizen asks the ruler the same question, but adds where has the first citizen gone!”

As Fustat points Nour is a middle-generation Brother. A lawyer and former treasurer at the Bar Association, he was arrested in 1999 and put on military trial at Huckstep army base over a long period before being sentenced in 2001. In the early 1990s, Nouh was instrumental — some say the key strategist — in the Brotherhood’s push in syndicate elections. He was released, I believe, in 2002.

If anyone has Muslim Brotherhood political songs, or any other interesting political songs, do let me know. I’d love to create an archive of Egyptian political songs (I have a pretty big Sheikh Imam collection, but would like Islamist stuff too.)

The first political assassination under Mubarak?

Mohammed Habib, the deputy Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brothers, has accused retired General Fouad Allam, formerly of State Security, of planning the first political assassination of the Mubarak regime.

Allam is recurrent media figure in Egypt, but also often used as a pundit on security issues by foreign newspapers. He also has something of a legendary status among Egyptian leftists, who say he was an orchestrator of the Sadat-era campaign to encourage the rise of Islamist groups such as the Gamaa Islamiya in the 1970s to counter the communist and Nasserist left. Personally I think both his knowledge about the current security situation is exaggerated — he is retired after all and I’ve rarely heard him say anything particularly interesting or new — and his role in some grand plan to crush the Egyptian left may be more legend than reality.

Quite aside from whether Habib’s accusation are valid or not, this kind of statement makes you wonder about the settling of accounts that might take place should there be a radical change of regime in the next few years. A lot of people have been complicit in a lot of bad things over the years, things no one knows about officially but many have heard of through Chinese whispers or stories activists and political junkies like to tell. One of the bizarre aspects of Egyptian life at this moment is that while all kinds of extremely serious accusations regularly fly around, there are rarely if ever any consequences. Investigations are not launched, the accused rarely sue for libel, accusations aren’t followed up. Much like the press itself, which shouts in outrage at the top of its lungs but never seems to have an actual impact on things, these allegations seem to exist in a media vacuum entirely disconnected from real life.

Battle of the Egyptian journos

Wael Abbas has put up a fantastic clip from the Orbit TV show “Al Qahira Al Youm” with Kifaya leader and Nasserist Karama newspaper editor (formerly Al Arabi editor) Abdel Halim Qandil engaged in a shouting match with Rose Al Youssef (a pro-Gamal Mubarak newspaper) editor Karam Gabr. Qandil calls the latter a state security informant while the Gabr accuses him of taking money from the Libyans. Which shows of partisan the Egyptian media has become over the last few years, and how bitter ideological rivalries can be — especially when one is an anti-Mubarak activist who was beaten up for his columns and the other is essentially a Gamal Mubarak stooge.

Via Hossam at 3arabawy.

Digital Egypt

I’m currently uploading Gigabytes of miscellaneous photos (demos, funerals, conferences, street clashes, scenes from the aftermath of terror strikes in Sinai, etc…) I’ve been taking since 2004, so that they would be available for websurfers. It’ll take me few days to get it all done hopefully. Meanwhile, keep your eye on my flickr account.

Israeli soldiers in Taba

(Up on insistence of the Israeli government, Mubarak’s regime allowed Israeli soldiers into the Egyptian city of Taba, to contribute to the rescue efforts. Photo taken on 8 October, 2004)