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.

Hamzawy/Herzallah paper on local elections

The Carnegie endowment has a new policy outlook paper out on the recent local elections in Egypt, written by AmrHamzawy and Mohammed Herzallah. It´s called Egypt’s Local Elections Farce: Causes and Consequences. I want to provide you with the link now, and hopefully comment on it later. The paper can be found here(10 pages pdf).

There is much to say about the elections, not the result in itself, but the way the election process was obstructed prior to election day. The significance of this election compared to previous elections of the 52600 seats on local councils that was up for grabs last Tuesday was in the neccesity after the constitutional amendments in March 2007 for any independent presidential candidate to be able to compete in the future presidential elections( the next one in 2011) to have the endorsement from , both the upper(majlis ash Shura) and lower(majlis ash Shaáb) houses of parliament as well as support from at least 10 members of local councils in 14 of 26 different Governates.

This backdoor to the Precidency is today the only chance for an organization like the Muslim Brotherhood to be able to field a candidate in the presidential elections for the forseeable future. For that reason it was in my view the wrong decision by the Ikhwan to boycott the elections. Yes it´s true that they wouldn´t have a chance to achieve that goal with the 20 candidates they would have been allowed to field in the end, compared to the 7000-10000 that they were planning to participate with in the first place, or the 500 or so that actually managed to register their names, but was overruled by the authourities anyway. but to boycott and to openly ask people to boycott the elections , in a election with somewhere in between 5-10 percent voter turnout does not constitute an effective approach to the problem. Furthermore they are letting their constituency of voters who proved so loyal to them in 2005, down. People who climbed ladders and qued for hours , despite the prescence of security forces whom tried it´s best to obstruct likely ikhwan woters from casting their wote, images very vividly remembered in our collective memory, but for some reason that is beyond my comprehension overlooked or not comnsidered important enough to reconnect with by the Muslim Brotherhood itself.

The weapon of electoral boycott should only be used as a last resort , and could only be useful as a concerted effort by the opposition in it´s entirety in my view. It´s something that the opposition has used much too often in the past, to the point of it being counterproductive. In this case it´s even impossible to meassure the effect of the boycott. You don´t stand a chance of using the moral card of democracy if you are giving up on whatever limited avenues to participate that is open to you.

The approach should have been to compete in thoce electoral precincts that was opened to Ikhwan candidates, and hope for MB mobilization to work it´s magic, while after the election fight the legal battle as to whether the election was free and fare or as Hamzawy/Herzallah argues on the contrary a farce.

These are the key points in the paper:

Key points:

• Current social and political unrest in Egypt is not the consequence of reform driven activism like that of 2004 and 2005, but a reaction to worsening economic conditions by independent and discordant activists. The regime’s repressive response—using security forces and various coercive methods to preempt or smother strikes—has failed to stabilize the street. The decentralized nature of these protests makes it more difficult for the regime to contain them, but also prevents the formation of a cohesive opposition movement with clear objectives.
• The regime has consistently failed to resolve the problems of relentless inflation, high unemployment, and crippled welfare system in the country. Minor steps taken by the government continue to fall short of the comprehensive social and economic reform needed.
• The Egyptian regime’s return to authoritarian methods impairs organized political opposition in the country, which in turn erodes the prospects of sustainable national and political recovery. But opposition forces are also partly responsible for their present condition. Their lack of credibility and discipline has undermined their ability to establish a reliable opposition front.
• The Brotherhood’s last-minute boycott of the local elections revealed the movement’s lack of consistency in its strategic thinking. The Brotherhood’s decision to boycott these elections conspicuously contradicts its previous commitment to advancing reform through political participation at all costs.

Reflecting on the Brotherhood’s boycott, the authors strike a cautionary note on the consequences.

“To the degree that the movement intended to retaliate for the regime’s flagrant actions, its decision may not pay off. After all, keeping the Muslim Brotherhood out of the local councils was the intention of the ruling establishment in the first place. What’s more, the movement is setting a dangerous precedent that the regime will certainly keep in mind: through sufficient political persecution and repression, the authorities can count on the Brotherhood to take itself voluntarily out the political equation,” they conclude

Khairat al Shater military trial verdict tomorrow?

On another related matter, another chapter in the hikestep nightmare will be written today. The military trial of Khairat al Shater and his 39 co-defandats will supposedly recieve their verdict today. Lets hope for the best. In a couple of hours we will hopefully know. For the time being one could perhaps find a small , but very limited joy in the fact that Abdul-Jaleel al-Sharnoubi, the editor in Chief of the Arabic language Ikwhanonline website was freed on bail four days ago.