Presidential political affairs adviser Pakinam Al-Sharkawi spent several days in Washington during her recent visit to the US as the head of the Egyptian delegation to the 57th session of the UNESCO Commission on the Status of Women which convened in New York. Al-Sharkawi, who was accompanied by President Mohamed Morsi's foreign affairs adviser Khaled Al-Kazzaz, stressed the Washington stop was not a substitute for a visit by the president. During her speech, Al-Sharkawi presented herself as the deputy of Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, which stirred a wide controversy over when and how Al-Sharkawi was given the title. “Was she appointed by means of a secret decree or did she write the title on her Facebook page denying the real title?” prominent TV anchor Mona Al-Shazli said on Monday in her programme “Gomla Mofida”, aired daily on MBC Misr satellite channel. Commentators believe the purpose of the visit to the US capital was to ease any tensions with Washington against a backdrop of growing political strain, economic deterioration and mounting violence since the constitutional declaration announced by Morsi on 22 November 2012. Al-Sharkawi and Al-Kazzaz held several meetings with members of the Obama administration, including State Department officials, and with prominent research centres, such as the Woodrow Wilson Centre for Independent Research. They also attended a forum on interfaith dialogue organised by the Egyptian embassy in Washington and concluded their visit by meeting Egyptian community leaders in Washington, Virginia and Maryland. Al-Sharkawi said the US officials she met expressed understanding of Egypt's current predicament after being prey to “compound anxieties” — a term that she did not elucidate but which analysts took to refer to the state of instability that has raised the prospect of the collapse of the current regime which Washington sees as an intermediary between Hamas and Israel. The visit succeeded in relieving these anxieties, claimed Al-Sharkawi. US officials, she added, made it clear they understood Egypt was passing through the labour pains of the birth of a democratic process and they assured her Cairo was proceeding on the path towards the completion of democratic institutions. The Egyptian delegation was keen to turn the focus of its talks to US investment as opposed to aid. The delegation emphasised the need for investments in order to lay the foundations for a strong bilateral economic relationship and to alleviate any fears with respect to expanding the scope of economic cooperation. Al-Sharkawi was optimistic that US investors will soon return to Egypt. Also discussed, says Al-Sharkawi, were the measures Egypt is taking to improve its human rights performance. On women's rights Al-Sharkawi explained to her US interlocutors the president's initiative for the “Rights and Duties of Egyptian Women” and informed them of awareness-raising workshops, the promotion of parliamentary representation of women and the president's request to the National Council for Women to draft a code of honour for women's work delineating women's rights and duties. The president' political affairs adviser acknowledged that Egypt had problems but what was important at this stage is to formulate a comprehensive, multi-phased vision for solving these problems, starting with containment and then proceeding to mid-term and long range solutions. With respect to media coverage of events in Egypt, she hailed press freedoms won by the 25 January Revolution but felt that the public in Egypt was not getting a complete picture of the situation. She explained to officials that the press tended to focus on certain subjects while not according sufficient attention to others. She stressed that she was not suggesting that the press invented things but rather that by homing in, for example, on “spreading violence”, the press created the impression that this phenomenon was nationwide rather than limited to certain areas. She argued that a more balanced approach would create a more accurate picture. The purpose of the visit to Washington was not to defend or justify but to keep the channels of communication open with all parties, whether in the US or elsewhere in the world. At the same time, Al-Sharkawi said, unofficial diplomacy had a major role to play, especially in light of the US's international influence. Visits by political party representatives and university professors were a way to acquaint the US government and public with the situation in Egypt as it is, without embellishment or exaggeration. In Washington Al-Sharkawi denied that the current Egyptian administration had failed. Instead, she stressed its successes in pressing ahead with institution-building despite difficulties in the path to democratisation. Following the election of Egypt's first civilian president and the ratification of a new constitution by two-thirds of voters who went to the polls, the government, she said, was handling the economic situation by striking a balance between fiscal and structural reform and the demands of social justice. The relationship between the presidency and the army was a key topic in the talks between the Egyptian presidential delegation and US administration officials. Al-Sharkawi pointed out that, in the course of a year and a half, Egypt has met many of the criteria upon which democracy is based. She added that Egypt has begun to build a balanced civilian-military relationship making it possible for the concept of complementary roles to take root in the institutions of the Egyptian state. She said the army is a skilful professional institution that performed a role during the first transitional phase which ended with the inauguration of an elected president and the promulgation of a constitution that brought Egypt to the threshold of parliamentary elections. The mission of the army today is to protect national security without intervening in politics. Al-Kazzaz sounded equally upbeat about the Washington visit. He announced that there would soon be good news on the IMF loan to Egypt, announcing that he had visited the IMF headquarters in Washington in order to follow up on proposals the Egyptian government has already submitted to the IMF. Observers generally agree that Pakinam Al-Sharkawi's visit succeeded in paving the political ground for a visit to Washington by Morsi and was a useful test of the American pulse with respect to the current situation in Egypt.
