First International Day of Democrracy

Today marks the first UN International day of Democray, the decision was taken on Nov 8th 2007. It´s about time i would say.... Better late than never! I´m celebrating!

Mona al Shazly interview with Dubya

Here is the much talked about interview that 10 PM´s Mona al Shazly on dream TV did with George Bush earlier this week in the map room of the White house. It´s only 8 minutes and four questions. On the relations between the U.S and Egypt and the situation for democracy in Egypt. Israel and Palestine as Israel celebrates 60 years since the state came in to being and the Palestinians commemorate al Naqba. Then the question if he still believed in the ¨You´re with us or against us¨ dogma. And then the perception of many Arabs , that the U.S helped in creating the current situation and on how history will judge George W Bush´s legacy as President. The interview is in Arabic, but the White house transcript can be viewed here

I also throw in an interview with Mona herself on how this interview came about. This was done prior to airing the interview with the President.

There is a second part of the show after the interview, a discusssion with the Egyptian ambassador to Washington Nabil Fahmy and an interview with carnegie scholar Dr Amr Hamzawy talking about the interview and US policy towards Egypt, i will post it here as soon as i get my hands on it. There is also a two part interview with former American ambasador to Cairo , Francis J. Ricciardone in Middle East Progress that could be useful for context here(Part I) and here(Part II). The first part is on Egypt´s regional role and the second part on domestic issues.

Hamzawy/Herzallah part II

In April, Amr Hamzawy and Mohammed Herzallah wrote a Carnegie Policy Outlook paper on the local elections in Egypt. I wrote about it in a blogpost . Yesterday the
duo penned an article for WaPo´s Think Tank Town, with the title: Egypt's Unrest in Perspective.

A sample:

Remarkably, the regime seems to have abandoned the option of using political reforms to defuse socioeconomic tensions. Instead it has consistently tried to contain social strife through a combination of repressive measures that included arbitrary arrests, and minor economic conciliatory measures like expanding the welfare beneficiary pool and raising wages in the public sector. This stands in contrast to what happened in the 2003-2005 period. The political openings of those years followed the economic difficulties the country was experiencing as a result of the government's decision to float the national currency. Among the political reforms introduced in this period was eased control over opposition activities, constitutional amendments allowing multicandidate presidential elections, and toleration of political participation by the major Islamist opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood.

A similar wave of political reforms by the regime seems far less likely today, as a trouble-free presidential succession, anticipated for 2011, seems to surpass any other considerations. In fact, developments on the ground suggest that the regime has completely recoiled from the reform agenda and returned to old authoritarian habits.

In the next paragraph Hamzawy and Herzallah mentions the 34 amendments of the constitution(the most thorough change in the current constitution since it was introduced in September 1971), rushed through parliament, before taken to a referendum in March 207 as a serious blow to political reform. It was more than that, it was the Dance of Death for top-down controlled political reform for the foreseeable future, that is post-succession, presumably sometime after 2011. What was packaged and introduced to the people of Egypt as the single most important part of political reform, was in fact the complete opposite. It was an integral part in creating the political infrastructure for a de facto continuation of the dominant party within the ¨democratic facade¨ system that has been serving it´s purpose since the re-introduction to multi-party life in Egyptian politics in 1975-76. Creating a chimera of political reform within the existing system, while closing down practically all avenues for the Muslim Brotherhood, who runs in elections as Independents.

It will also limit other Independents from having a fair chance of getting elected. This will of course also have a side effect in terms of fixing the current problem within the NDP with renegade members of parliament not deemed necessary or good enough for re-election on the NDP ticket whom until now, has had the option of running as Independents against the official NDP-candidate in his constituency(the only reason for me chosing the masculine form is to show the lack of female candidates , despite the rhetoric of the higher NDP-officials) , and in many cases upset the official party candidate in the past two parliamentary elections of 2000 and 2005. Clearing the path for people with ¨new vision¨ .

Nothing in the last 14 months suggests a change in that patern, the way the two elections held after the amendments , Shura and local elections was conducted leaves in terms of obstructing the MB as well as the legal opposition from participating. The prolonged military court case of Khairat ash Shater and harsh verdicts. The way of dealing with the opposition press, bloggers, labour activists and facebookists is indeed no new policy. It´s the new vision , with the same old spectacles. If anything the patern has become clearer.

Thank you Mr President !

President Bush has left the Middle East after eight days , six countries and a occupied territory, that he expects to be on the verge of independence by the end of his term in office. I´m not going to dwell on the whirlwind tour right now, let´s save something for later.

I just want to share the transcript of the official statements from the last leg of the trip, in Sharm al Sheikh the press conference with President´s Mubarak and Bush at the four seasons hotel just hours ago, and the most interesting part was perhaps the fact that President Bush was paying tribute to Egyptian civil society, journalists, bloggers and Judges.

Progress toward greater political openness is being led by the Egyptians themselves, by pioneering journalists -- some of whom even may be here -- bloggers, or judges insisting on independence, or other strong civic and religious leaders who love their country and are determined to build a democratic future.

Mr President, let me take the opportunity to thank you personally for those kind words.

Those kind words together with the omission of Egypt among countries making progress in the major speech on democracy in the region that Bush gave in Abu Dhabi last Sunday, apart from these short sentences following below, and believed to be meant for Egypt is the strongest language used since the ¨the freedom agenda administration began backtracking on democracy in the land of peace after the Muslim Brotherhood won 88 seats(20 percent) in parliament elections in the Autumn of 2005.

Unfortunately, amid some steps forward in this region we've also seen some setbacks. You cannot build trust when you hold an election where opposition candidates find themselves harassed or in prison. You cannot expect people to believe in the promise of a better future when they are jailed for peacefully petitioning their government. And you cannot stand up a modern and confident nation when you do not allow people to voice their legitimate criticisms

The lines above could be read as a critique of the five year prison sentence of Ayman Nour, and perhaps, although not likely for the one year sentence of Talaát Sadat, both of whom were candidates in the Presidential elections in September 2005. Added to the list is also the current leader of the Wafd, who awaits a 30 day sentence as publisher of the party newspaper. You could also hope that the administration thinks of people like Khairat al Shater,third in rank in the Muslim Brotherhood and the rest of the group with him facing military court, although all of them being civilians in a long trial which has been dragging on for the most part of the year after the case was dismissed twice in civil courts, Or the hundreds that have been arrested from the same organization during the two years since the double election year in 2005.

Two words that was completely absent from today´s statements was human rights,although it was mentioned implicitly by President Bush , who thanked Egypt for their help in the war on terror. That is to say among other things render the U.S a helping hand in providing full board accommodation to V.I.P´s for longer or shorter durations at state of the art facilities.

The front page and leading article in the Independent of London looked like this on the 14th of January after the Abu Dhabi speech.



I will not ask or expect you to do the walk, Mr President, i´ve seen enough of how your administration works to know that short term security and stability always takes precedence over long term strategic thinking as well as to human rights, rule of law and democratization.

But once again, thank you for those kind words Mr President...

The first photo were the two Presidents is pointing out the road ahead towards democracy(Reminds of the photos of Barak(Not Obama) and Arafat at Camp David in the summer of 2000)is taken, with courtesy of EPA.