Following the successful completion of the second milestone in Egypt's political roadmap to the future (presidential elections), political forces began to forge alliances and coalitions preparatory to elections for the first parliament after the 30 June Revolution. The new parliament is to have greater powers than any enjoyed by an Egyptian legislature since the 23 July 1952 Revolution. Electoral alliance making normally occurs in most political systems. It is a phenomenon dictated by balances of power between political parties and forces. But such alliances acquire particular importance in transitional phases as they contribute to bolstering and enhancing democratisation. The many bilateral and multilateral political party alliances that Egypt has seen have generally coalesced as legislative polling day drew closer. In general, the point of creating political party alliances is to generate grassroots support and momentum behind specific political aims and issues of central concern to parties that share similar programmes or outlooks. In Egypt, alliance making has generally been a purely electoral tactic and the alliances ended as soon as polling day was over. Therefore, the phenomenon never succeeded in realising more solid and lasting gains. The first electoral alliance that emerged following the presidential elections in May and June 2014 was the “Egyptian Nation Coalition” announced by Amr Moussa who had chaired the Committee of 50 that had been charged with amending the constitution. About a month after it was created, Moussa told party chiefs that he was no longer prepared to continue to forge the alliance. Soon afterwards, another project emerged: the “Democratic Civil Alliance” consisting of the Constitution Party, the Justice Party, the Popular Alliance, the Karama (Dignity) Party, the Popular Current and the National Partnership Movement. Then the Wafd Party launched a third alliance called the Egyptian Wafd Coalition, consisting of the Wafd Party, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, the Wai (Awareness or Consciousness) Party and the Conservatives. Old-time political forces from the National Democratic Party (NDP) that had ruled before the 25 January Revolution had been looking on and soon they moved to revive their erstwhile influence through another political alliance. The “Egyptian Front Coalition”, as this was called, contained parties in which former NDP leaders are prominent members, as well a number of other parties, these being the National Movement, Masr Baladi, Tagammu (the Progressive Party), Masr Al-Haditha (Modern Egypt), Al-Ghad (Tomorrow) and a number of prominent public figures. Nor have Islamist forces been far from this scene. In spite of the decline in their influence due to the profound changes that have taken political environment, they are certain to take part in the forthcoming parliamentary elections. Already the Nour Party has declared its intention to field candidates albeit without entering into any alliance. Beleaguered by criticism from virtually every side, Nour has been accused of treachery by members of the pro-Morsi National Alliance to Support Legitimacy (NASL) for having supported the “coup” and betrayed Islamist forces, and it has come under suspicion from some secularist forces for its positions in support of the regime. Another Islamist party that will enter the parliamentary elections is Strong Egypt, headed by former presidential candidate Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh who had broken away from the Muslim Brotherhood soon after the 25 January Revolution but who opposed the 30 June Revolution. His party, which has stated that it will be contesting individual candidacy seats, could form the kernel for an alliance with Muslim Brotherhood members and, thus, serve as their backdoor back into parliament. As for the pro-Morsi NASL, its constituents are still studying the initiative submitted by the Salafi Watan (Homeland) Party for entering the parliamentary race. Most likely, this alliance will include in its lists third, fourth or fifth tier Muslim Brotherhood leaders who are largely unknown outside their constituencies but who have certain repute for social services they delivered locally. In addition to the foregoing a few other alliances have emerged, such as the “Veteran Fighters Parties,” the “Social Justice Alliance” and, in a somewhat original twist, some “regional alliances” that span several governorates. The abovementioned alliances and coalitions are not an attempt to align ideologically or to engineer political space. But they did not emerge from thin air. They were the product of two major factors that galvanised political parties and forces into forging alliances. The first is the Parliamentary Elections Law of 5 June 2014 and specifically Articles 3 and 4 of this law. The first of these allocates 420 seats to the individual candidacy system and 120 to the closed party list system. The second article addresses the geographic distribution of electoral districts and allocates four throughout the entire country to the list system of which two would consist of 15 seats each and the other two of 45 seats each. As the history of Egyptian legislative elections during the past three decades informs us, political parties move to ally with one another when the list system is used. When this system was adopted for the People's Assembly elections in 1984, the Wafd Party allied with the Muslim Brotherhood. The same applied to the 1987 parliamentary elections, which featured an alliance between the Labour Party, the Liberal Party and the Muslim Brotherhood. In the first legislative elections held after the 25 January Revolution, in which two thirds of parliamentary seats were contested in accordance to the list system, four alliances emerged: the Democratic Alliance, the Egyptian Bloc, the Revolution Continues and the Salafi Parties alliance. The second factor is the constitutional authorities with which the forthcoming parliament will be endowed. Political parties and forces want a share in this parliament, which will have powers unprecedented for any legislative assembly since 1956. Under the new constitution, parliament will share with the president the power to choose the prime minister (Article 146) and the power to dismiss or reshuffle a cabinet (Article 147). It will also have the power to withdraw confidence from the president of the republic by a two-thirds vote (Article 161). Moreover, the powers of parliament are augmented by the fact that the second house of parliament — the Shura Council, which used to share some legislative powers with what was formerly called the People's Assembly — has been abolished. Although about half a year has passed since these electoral alliances were formed for the forthcoming polls, it is difficult to describe them as stable. None of the coalition projects mentioned above have even determined the format or provisions for their alliance. Perhaps the chief causes of their fragility resides in the institutional and organisational weakness of their constituent political parties, the lack of a grassroots backing as they do not represent the interests of a particular class or segment of society, the lack of harmony between political party leaderships, lack of clarity in identifying the aims of the alliance, internal disputes and tensions within or between member parties and a focus on personal interests instead of joint interests. The actual actions and behaviour of political parties involved in coalitions reveal that they do not meet or discuss things regularly, that they lack mutual trust, that animosities continue to prevail and that they feel little incentive to bridge differences and work together. It helps little that they have no written document identifying the parties and their particular roles and functions. Other common problems among coalition members are a high tendency to shift their positions, an excessive pragmatism that is sometimes indistinguishable from opportunism, and a willingness to hop from one alliance to the next in light of the perceived immediate gains to be won. Past experience also informs us that alliances between Egyptian political parties have two salient features in common. They become clear and distinct as soon as the polling date is set and, secondly, they vanish once the polls are over and the winning MPs take their seats. In addition to the purely tactical balloting concerns that motivate them, the ephemeral nature of these alliances is also due to a general shortage in the culture and awareness of coalition and consensus making between parties. Therefore, we can predict that the instability of the electoral alliances will persist until the law governing the designation of electoral districts is passed and the date is set for the polls, which will compel the political parties to make the necessary decisions regarding the candidates they file on lists. Nevertheless, forging coalitions and selecting candidates for the lists will be very difficult this time around, as the closed list system will apply to only four districts. Not only will political parties have to make decisions regarding who to field for a relatively limited number of seats (30 divided between two districts and 90 divided between two other districts), they will be required to observe certain criteria. Under the parliamentary elections law, electoral lists must provide for representation of Copts, youth, workers and farmers, women, disabled and Egyptians residing abroad, and the same criteria with the same ratios apply to the lists of reserve candidates. Moreover, while contending the 120 seats reserved for electoral lists as alliances, it appears likely that the individual members of the alliances will compete with each other over the seats that are reserved for the single candidate system. Political parties find it hard to coordinate with fellow coalition members in order to reach agreement over which of their candidates to field where, so as not to compete with each other over the same seat. In large measure, this is due to the poor organisational capacities of the political parties and the fact that they have to rely on political figures with existing connections among voters in view of the parties' lack of drive and machinery to support their candidates in their constituencies. It is also likely that many political leaders will field themselves as independents in view of the increase in seats open to individual candidacies. This will contrast sharply with the People's Assembly elections of 2011/2012 in which there was a considerable decline in the number of independent candidates, only 22 of whom entered parliament. This is only logical as two-thirds of the seats were reserved for the proportional list system at the time. The writer is a researcher at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
