Amira Howeidy reviews the agenda of the reform movement following the president's agreeing to amending Article 76 of the Constitution Unlike the opposition parties that recently forged an alliance with the government, the end result of which appeared to be to defer any constitutional amendment, the grassroots political reform movement has reason enough to believe that its campaign contributed to President Hosni Mubarak's surprise decision to modify the Constitution and allow for multi-candidate presidential elections in September. As the debate rages on whether the move came about as a result of US or domestic pressure, it should be noted that the announcement came five days after the biggest yet demonstration against a fifth term for Mubarak was held in front of Cairo University on 21 February under the slogan " kifaya " (enough). Just four months ago it would have been inconceivable to publicly oppose, let alone stage a demonstration against the Egyptian president. That is until last December, when a group of leftists, Islamists and intellectuals decided to do just that. In February they staged a second demonstration, and then a third. Just as the movement was debating its next -- in some minds Don Quixotic -- step, Mubarak threw the ball right back at those screaming "enough". There will be elections. The Kifaya movement was taken as much by surprise as anyone. Certainly they had not expected to realise any of their goals quite so quickly. Until last week some members were floating the idea of nominating a presidential and a vice presidential candidate "on the same ticket", but only as a "symbolic gesture". "Now things have changed," says Abdel-Halim Qandil, editor of the Nasserist opposition party's mouthpiece, Al- Arabi, and spokesman of the Egyptian Movement for Change (EMC). "The names we were discussing when we were fighting that battle [to pressure for reform] must be reconsidered now that we have to propose a candidate who will actually contest the elections," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. While there is no consensus yet on a candidate, Qandil said that the general preference appeared to be towards nominating a middle-aged political figure, though he expected it would be some time before the issue was resolved. And if it is not, EMC might allow any of its many members to contest the elections. The movement is now debating whether or not it should pursue, "soften" or alter its agenda in the coming months. When it was formed a few months ago EMC proclaimed the slogan "no to renewal, no to hereditary succession" referring to Mubarak's expected renewal of a fifth presidential term and the growing influence of his 42-year-old son, Gamal, whom some suspected was being groomed to succeed his father. Article 76 of the Constitution -- the subject of Mubarak's suggested amendment -- stipulates that two thirds of parliament approve a single candidate before his name is put before the public in a yes/no referendum. Although some in the movement suggested toning down the campaign, Qandil says, the debate quickly tilted in favour of pressing for serious political and constitutional reform. A statement issued by the movement on 26 February took issue with modifying Article 76 while leaving Article 77, which effectively allows an indefinite renewal of presidential terms, untouched. The president's constitutional amendment, read the statement, will be rendered "futile and cosmetic" if it is not accompanied by raft of other reforms including guaranteeing full political freedoms, lifting the state of emergency, the release of political prisoners, the removal of restrictions on forming political parties and on the establishment and ownership of newspapers, and the provision of the right to strike and to hold peaceful demonstrations. "Public demonstrations will not stop," said Qandil. They are considering holding a demonstration -- outside Cairo -- on 21 March, the same day, two years ago, that Egypt witnessed the large-scale anti-war demonstrations that many see as granting political activism a new lease of life. Demands for constitutional reform are hardly new. For over a decade groups of political and human rights activists, academics, intellectuals and politicians from across the political spectrum have worked on projects for political and constitutional reform. They mostly took the form of "initiatives for change", and have included national charters, democracy committees and coordination committees involving opposition parties and civil society organisations. Although the government consistently ignored them, such endeavours surfaced sporadically, only to end in oblivion. But all this changed following the US-UK lead war on Iraq in 2003. Opposition parties began to escalate their demands just as Gamal Mubarak began his meteoric rise through the NDP's rank and the reform campaign increasingly came to revolve around modifying the Constitution to allow for the election of the president and a limit of two terms in office. The political map broadened to include new players -- catalysts of the anti-war movement, intellectuals, political groups the government refuses to recognise -- who launched an aggressive reform campaign last September. The Popular Campaign for Change (PCC), which comprised 15 political and human rights groups, insisted the political establishment represented "an obstacle for change". "When you launch a campaign a year ahead of the presidential referendum it is bound to accelerate pressure," PCC's Ahmed Seif El-Islam, director of the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre, told the Weekly. "There was external pressure, but things weren't exactly rosy here and we weren't singing Mubarak's praises," he said. "Modifying one article in the Constitution is a positive step, but our demands haven't been realised," said Seif El-Islam. PCC will hold a meeting on Saturday to assess their options in the light of the Mubarak announcement.
