“Could it be that the presidential elections last month were held in a country other than Egypt, or that the voters were not Egyptian?”
“Could it be that the presidential elections last month were held in a country other than Egypt, or that the voters were not Egyptian?”
The pertinent question was posed by a young woman who appeared stunned at the political turmoil in Egypt all last week, when thousands of Egyptians poured into Cairo’s Tahrir Square and other squares and public spaces in Egypt, boiling with anger.
The sentence exploited
But why the anger? The direct cause was dissatisfaction with the court sentence pronounced against the former president Hosni Mubarak and his aides.
Mubarak was handed a life sentence for failing to stop the killing of protestors during the 18-day 25 January 2011 Revolution which ended with the former president stepping down. But he and his sons Alaa and Gamal were cleared of corruption charges. His Interior Minister Habib al-Adly was also sentenced to life imprisonment, but six other senior security officials were acquitted in the same case. The judge described the evidence as weak, generating speculation that Mubarak and Adly may themselves win their appeals.
The sentence was swiftly exploited by various political streams and movements in Egypt, who deemed it ‘lenient’, in an attempt to rally voters to their side in the final round of Egypt’s presidential elections, due on 16 and 17 June.
Prominent among the protestors were the Islamists who support Mohamed Mursi for Egypt’s new president. In Tahrir, they egged the protestors on, claiming an Islamist rule would bring about justice. Supporters of the other presidential contender, the liberal Ahmed Shafik who is nonetheless seen as fuloul—a remnant of the Mubarak establishment—retaliated that the sentence was evidence that no-one was above the law. Other contenders who lost the first round of the elections, prominent among whom is Hamdeen Sabahi who came out third in the first round and who joined the protestors in Tahrir carried on the shoulders of his supporters, attempted to make a comeback to the political scene.
Free will of the people
Even before the sentence, however, the Islamists and the liberal forces who claim to represent the 25 January 2011 Revolution declared their anger at the results of the first election round which placed Shafik as a finalist in the presidential race.
Yet the fact cannot be overlooked that in fair, democratic presidential elections the free will of the people picked two out of 13 contenders to face off in the final run: the Islamist Freedom and Justice Party’s (FJP) Mohamed Mursi and the independent liberal Ahmed Shafik. In a voter turnout of 46 per cent, Mursi topped the poll with 24.3 per cent of the vote, followed by Shafik with 23.3 per cent. The leftist Hamdeen Sabahi third-placed with 20.4 per cent; the moderate Islamist Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh came fourth with 17.2 per cent; and former Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa fifth with 10.9 per cent.
Last week, Sabahi teamed up with the Islamists, Mursi and Abul-Fotouh, and claimed the election of Shafik was not valid since he should have been disqualified by a law that was passed after Shafik was accepted as a presidential contender. The law, which bans those who worked under the Mubarak establishment from running for public office, is currently being contested before the Supreme Constitutional Court. The Sabahi-Mursi-AbulFotouh team said they would form a “presidential council” to rule Egypt. Mursi later withdrew, however, and was replaced by the last-ranking candidate in the presidential elections, the liberal Khaled Ali. They were hoping the public rally in Tahrir would coerce the ruling Military Council into caving in to their wishes.
It appeared to be of no moment whatsoever that more than five million Egyptians had voted for Shafik.
A pledge
Other civil forces had a different idea. They announced the issuing of the “Document of the Pledge” which determines the rules and commitments that these forces require the runoff presidential contenders Mursi and Shafik to endorse.
This announcement was made by forces united under the name United Civil Front. Prominent among its figures are Mohamed Abul-Ghar, head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party (ESDP); Ayman Nour, head of Ghad al-Thawra party; head of the lawyer’s syndicate Sameh Ashour; constitutional scholar Mohamed Nour Farahat; and economic expert Hazem al-Biblawi.
The document stresses the principles of citizenship, non-discrimination, rights and freedoms; confirms the separation of authorities and their independence, and incriminates pardoning figures of the previous regime. It ensures that al-Azhar is the only Islamic establishment to act as religious reference, and asserts the equal right of building places of worship and practicing religious rituals. It pledges not to restrain the peaceful circulation of power, and to oppose any political or legislative manipulations that would prevent it. It ensures a modern civil state while maintaining the second article of the 1971 constitution which states that Islamic law is the main source of legislation.
The coming president is further required to commit to the principle of the rotation of power and to assert the principle of the independence of the judiciary. In addition, the coming president should acknowledge the right of the Egyptian people to resistance and revolution in case these articles are not implemented or if the constitution, the people’s rights, and freedoms are widely violated.
The people’s will?
The document was an effort by liberals who said they were unable to vote for Shafik who is fuloul, and wished to force Mursi into making vows that would appease fears of Islamist rule.
“The Pledge was proposed,” said Ashour, “as an attempt to rescue the 25 January Revolution whose objectives, after 16 months of revolution, have not been fulfilled. It is not an attempt to bargain with the coming president over the rights of the Egyptian people.”
According to Yasser al-Sirafy, Professor of Law with the Cairo University, “The Document of the Pledge is only an attempt to get around the people’s will.” It has no constitutional or legal backing, Dr Sirafy said, but is a flagrant attempt to blackmail the “revolution’s candidate”, Dr Mursi, and favour the fuloul, Shafik.
Mohamed Idris, the strategic expert with Al-Ahram, hopes that the Military Council, both houses of Parliament, the Constitutional Court, as well as the heads of al-Azhar and the Church, would all sign the Pledge; otherwise it would be invalid, he explained. “Had Mursi endorsed the document and its principles,” Dr Idris said, “we would have reached the optimal solution for the current predicament.”
Non-binding
For many liberals, the Pledge appears to be the only way out. It is near-impossible, they say, to elect fuloul, and equally difficult to vote for an Islamist State. Yet the Pledge is non-binding, so what security can it offer?
“We have already started a six-step plan to render the Pledge a public document,” said Abdel-Ghaffar Shukr of al-Tahaluf al-Shaaby (Public Coalition) Party. The six steps centre on public endorsement of the Pledge through the media and the Internet.
Former presidential contender Moussa called for the establishment of a board of trustees for the Pledge, to follow up on the implementation of its provisions.
Until Watani went to press, Mursi had not endorsed the Pledge. Shafik said he accepted it as a whole, but that a few points it included needed further discussion. Most of what it stipulated, however, was included in his electoral platform, he said. “It is mainly about principles,” Shafik said, “that should be embedded in the constitution.
The final word, however, will be for the ballot box. No matter what discussions take place, what pledges or coalitions are made, or what protests are organised, Egyptians will declare their will—as they did before—at the ballot box.
WATANI International
10 June 2012