Former IAEA director Mohamed El-Baradei's controversial visit to the United States has provoked a backlash at home, Gamal Essam El-Din reports Mohamed El-Baradei, the former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and leader of a political reform campaign in Egypt, concluded a two-week visit to the United States. Although originally planned for delivering lectures on the IAEA's role in containing nuclear arms, El-Baradei seized the opportunity to rally Americans for the case of political reform in Egypt. In El-Baradei's words: "the primary goal of my visit to America is discussing the issue of political and constitutional reform with Egyptian expatriates and addressing Americans about political reform and change in Egypt and the Arab world." On 26 April, El-Baradei addressed a two-hour meeting of some 200 Egyptian Americans in Harvard University on "the future of democracy in Egypt". El-Baradei painted a bleak picture of political and economic conditions in Egypt. El-Baradei, also founder of the National Association for Change (NAC), explained that his agenda for reform aims at turning Egypt into "a social democracy" like the Western European countries of Austria and Sweden. According to Mohamed Abul-Ghar, a Cairo University professor and the NAC's coordinator for foreign relations, El-Baradei's Harvard address focussed on explaining the NAC's seven objectives. "These," Abul-Ghar told Al-Ahram Weekly, include "amending the constitution, eliminating the state of emergency, abolishing military tribunals, releasing political prisoners, [ensuring the] separation of powers, improving Egypt's record on human rights and issuing a unified law for regulating places of worship." Abul-Ghar disclosed that El-Baradei had assured Egyptian-Americans -- mostly Copts -- that his agenda stresses that all Egyptians, regardless of religion or sex, are equal in rights." Responding to a question about his relations with the Muslim Brotherhood, El-Baradei stressed that "the Brothers" should be allowed to participate in political life as long as they "abide by democracy and democratic rules". El-Baradei renewed his attacks against the 23 July 1952 Revolution, arguing that Egypt should return to the democracy it lost in 1952. He stressed that he is against the principle of "reserving a quota of seats in parliament for workers and farmers". "The best guarantee for all classes to be represented in parliament is to establish a democratic system and conduct fair elections," El-Baradei argued. He also underlined again that he would run in presidential elections "only if elections are free and fair and the constitution is amended to allow independent politicians to run." According to El-Baradei, "the US administration has no excuse [for] condemning the record of human rights violations in the world and keeping a blind eye on what happens in Egypt." Before he went to the United States, El-Baradei was keen to make as many press interviews with American media as possible. He told the Harvard University meeting that he is proud that his reform campaign and foreign press interviews "forced The Washington Post to publish three editorials about the case of reform in Egypt in a very short time". Continuing this strategy, El-Baradei made an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour on 28 April. Amanpour's programme, "The Power of the Interview", also hosted Saadeddin Ibrahim, the Egyptian-American sociologist, and Ahmed Ezz, secretary of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) for organisational affairs. El-Baradei told CNN: "It is not my primary goal to run for the presidency, but it is to see my country, Egypt, a country where I grew up, making a genuine shift towards democracy." El-Baradei launched a scathing attack against President Mubarak, saying "we have a president who has been in power for 30 years and we have had martial law for almost 30 years and this speaks volumes for the lack of democracy in Egypt." He added: "It is only a handful of people who have the right to run for presidency and so democracy is no longer part of the Egyptian lifestyle for over 50 years." El-Baradei also asserted that, "everywhere I go, everywhere I travel, there's massive support for change in Egypt." He spoke of himself as "a real agent of change, but for the regime, I'm a virtual person... I can't even have a headquarters and I can't raise funds but we have volunteers everywhere in the country right now canvassing for change, explaining to the people how [change] will impact on their economic and social life." Sociologist Ibrahim, who spent three years in prison before being acquitted of the charge of tarnishing Egypt's image, joined forces, arguing that, "El-Baradei is a charismatic candidate for the presidency in Egypt." "El-Baradei will have a good chance, and I think millions of Egyptians are willing to rally behind him," said Ibrahim, also calling upon "external powers to support him to ensure that presidential elections are marked with integrity and transparency, and in this case I think we will have a very good chance of changing Egypt." By contrast, the NDP's Ezz accused El-Baradei and Ibrahim of painting a false picture about Egypt, exaggerating the difficulty of competing in the upcoming elections. "My party, the NDP, has made it clear it welcomes El-Baradei to join the political fray," Ezz said, arguing: "our constitution anchors politics and political parties with clear political platforms." Ezz indicated that, "there are 24 parties in Egypt and any of these parties can field candidates in 2011." "Half of these parties, for example, have asked El-Baradei to be their official candidate of choice but he hesitates, preferring instead to run as an independent." Ezz described El-Baradei as "the biggest obstacle before himself". El-Baradei's visit to America has provoked a strong backlash in Egypt. Speaking before parliament on Sunday, Ezz strongly attacked "those who want to implement a style of American democracy based on staging street demonstrations and flirting with religious movements." Jihad Auda, a Helwan University political science professor and NDP member, agrees: "El-Baradei made use of his US visit to court the Obama administration and seek its support for his political reform and change campaign in Egypt." El-Baradei, said Auda, believes that "the US administration's criticism of the 6 April demonstrations and its call for free elections has caused a rift with the regime of President Mubarak and that this is a good time for him to catch fish in murky water." Responding to Auda, the NAC's Abul-Ghar stressed that, "El-Baradei's US visit was planned three months ago and it is the right of the NAC's leader to rally support among Egyptian expatriates for change in Egypt." Abdallah El-Sinnawi, editor of Al-Arabi, mouthpiece of the Arab Nasserist Party, told the Weekly that, "it was very bad for El-Baradei to call upon the US administration not to keep silent about human rights violations in Egypt." "This is a call for American interference in internal [Egyptian] affairs," argued El-Sinnawi, adding that "as long as we criticised the visits of the son of President Mubarak, Gamal, to America to raise his profile among officials there, the same thing applies to El-Baradei." "We believe that those who would like to run for the presidency should raise their profile here in Egypt and garner credibility and popularity among the Egyptian people rather than paying frequent visits to America to court the ruling administration," El-Sinnawi argued, also considering El-Baradei as "a reactionary man who attacks farmers and workers or the sons of the 1952 Revolution." Nabil Louqa Bibawi, an NDP-appointed member of Shura Council and a Coptic businessman, agrees: "El-Baradei made use of his US visit to court the Obama administration. He is fond of US television cameras and press interviews to convey his love messages to the US administration." Bibawi said, "the Egyptian Coptic community in America doesn't represent Copts living in Egypt, who strongly reject what El-Baradei said about the Muslim Brotherhood and their right in founding a political party."
