Ammar Ali Hassan* on the steps necessary to capitalise on the holding of multi-candidate presidential elections Good, but not quite good enough: that, it seems, is the verdict of most analysts, at home and abroad, on President Mubarak's decision to allow multi-candidate elections. The decision ends the presidential referendums that have been in place since 1952, reversing decades during which the Egyptian people had no alternative other than voting for the single name in front of them. The writing was already on the wall. The regime could not have continued to withstand foreign and domestic pressure. The gap between the government and the people on one hand, and between the government and the US administration on the other hand, was growing far too wide. The US administration, under fire from the Democrats for backing "despotic" regimes in the Middle East at a time when it claims to be trying to bolster democracy in the region, was upping the pressure on Cairo. While it is futile to call into question the positive aspects of this decision it is important to realise that they could easily be nullified should excessive legal restrictions be adopted. This much, at least, was clear when the president announced his intention of asking the country's legislators to provide guarantees on the seriousness of candidates and to formulate guidelines governing the eligibility of candidates. The elections will be held on a single day, we are told, to ensure "stability". "Seriousness", "guidelines", "stability": they are words that have held back the course of democracy for decades. In Abdel-Nasser's time slogans such as "no voice is to drown the voice of battle" were all too familiar. More recently one writer close to the government, seeking to distance himself from those who call for reform, announced that "they are not us and we are not them". Guarantees are not bad per se. Those competing for public office, in even the smallest of villages, must be serious. Stability, cohesion and national solidarity are all things to which we should aspire. They cannot, however, be used by those who are formulating the necessary electoral guarantees to exclude opponents. The demands of stability and cohesion cannot be interpreted in such a way that they stifle political life. There is little reassurance to be taken in the performance of our legislative bodies and sceptics who fear that the president's announcement might be robbed of all substance are justified. Our legislators have too often acted as if they were tailoring laws to fit the interests of a small minority. The overwhelming majority of the current People's Assembly belong to the ruling party, and are biased towards it. Worse still, the president has made the approval of municipal councils a condition for contesting the presidential elections. The ruling party, as everyone knows, has a majority of up to 97 per cent on these councils. So scepticism is clearly in order. For one thing, the president's decision to hold multi- candidate presidential elections was hardly voluntary. Nor was it a gift to the public, a signal that the powers that be have become convinced that change has to come from above. Only two weeks before the president made his announcement he had characterised calls to amend the constitution as ill-judged. A few days later, the ruling and the opposition parties agreed to postpone any constitutional amendments until after the presidential referendum, slated for October. Now we are told that the nation is free to select its leader, yet efforts continue to vilify those asking for further constitutional amendments. For the presidential decision to have substance, and for the sceptics to be reassured, a few steps must be taken. The presidential term in office should be reduced to five years or perhaps even four, as is the case in the US. And the president should be restricted to a maximum of two terms in office. The powers invested in the office of the president must be limited. The office currently exercises a range of authority that borders on the despotic. The president is the focus of all decision making, at all times and in all situations. Simultaneously, the powers of the prime minister should be boosted and moves towards decentralisation pursued. The emergency laws must finally be abolished. For far too long they have rendered the entire population guilty until proven innocent, a situation that discourages people from defending their right to expression and dissuades them from asking for change. The emergency laws undermine the credibility of selections and cast doubt over their fairness. Candidates must also enjoy equal opportunities when it comes to communicating with the public. All candidates should have equal access to what is called the national media, which is in effect an in-house monopoly of the ruling National Democratic Party. Candidates should be allowed to use television, radio and newspapers to communicate their manifestos. Unless this happens the elections will be neither free nor fair, and their outcome questionable. Restrictions on forming political parties must end. Rotation of power must be endorsed by all. Whoever wins a majority in the legislative elections will form the government. What is more, independent candidates should not be allowed to switch allegiance after the elections if we are to prevent a repetition of events following the last legislative elections when independent candidates won a majority but were then pressured to join the ranks of the ruling party. An appropriate mechanism must be put in place to supervise the elections. Candidates must agree on the mechanisms necessary to ensure the fair vetting of voter lists, the counting of the vote and monitoring conditions at the voting booths. Nor is there any reason why foreign observers be excluded from this process. The Egyptian government, after all, had no problem sending observers to monitor the recent Palestinian elections. In the absence of these measures amending the constitution will be at best cosmetic, at worst a smokescreen for growing stagnation. Egypt is on the road to becoming a partial democracy. In order to embrace democracy more fully the military must be kept out of the political arena. It is time for civilians to run the show. * The writer is a political analyst.
