The United National Front for Change (UNFC), an umbrella grouping of official opposition parties and political organisations, emerged amid the fervour of political mobilisation that few had predicted when Article 76 of the constitution was amended. As such it is a positive sign. It is to be hoped that such alliances and fronts will be able to transform a political scene characterised by a fragmented opposition and the existence of a multitude of small actors into one in which a handful of much stronger groups will be able to present viable alternatives to the programme put forward by the ruling National Democratic Party. Successful democracies have always relied on the presence of two or three powerful political blocs. There are the Republican and Democratic Parties in the United States, the Labour and Conservative parties in the United Kingdom, the Gaullists and Socialists in France, the Democratic Socialist and Christian Democratic parties in Germany. In Egypt the situation has been largely unbalanced, with a single intimidating force represented by the National Democratic Party (NDP) and a large number of weak official parties. There is, too, the stronger unofficial opposition, represented by the banned Muslim Brotherhood and other weaker opposition forces. Against such a backdrop, the UNFC is a step forward. A healthy political system requires strong political groupings capable of competing with one another. One day, perhaps, three major political blocs will compete for power -- the NDP, a peaceful Muslim Brotherhood movement and the UNFC. The realisation of this dream may not be far off, though first we must rid ourselves of the Stalinist mindset that conflates dissent from the party line as a form of treachery. We could learn from the American experience, where parties operate as a framework for shared and dynamic interests, and even from our own partisan experience: the lessons are there for the taking and what they teach is that political parties are indeed national fronts, groupings of those with similar, though not necessarily the same, agendas and strategies to achieve national goals. The NDP currently serves as a base for both liberals and conservatives, some of whom are participating in a real democratic process based on competition and some others are unwilling to relinquish the experience of the Nasserist Arab Socialist Union. The case is the same within the UNFC and the Muslim Brotherhood -- different political orientations are linked by fragile threads that make political action fluid and open to change. Competing alternatives, though, cause conservative ideologues from across the political spectrum -- from within the NDP to the Muslim Brotherhood -- no end of worry. What they seek is to impose an illusory unity. They perceive dangers in the existence of choices where no dangers exist and it is their attempt to restrict choice that leads to stagnation. Let us opt, instead, for dynamism.
