Who will be the candidates? Who will support them? Gamil Matar* examines the potholes that will have to be negotiated in constitutional reform Egypt is waking up. Suddenly the idea that anyone can run for president has become the subject of both earnest conversation and good-natured humour. Even a child can dream of becoming president, some jest. The impossible has become possible. People are thrilled just to contemplate that now, if an ordinary citizen gets involved in politics, builds up a following and alliances, collects enough money from lobbies and interest groups, works to acquire the appropriate leadership skills and develops a thorough enough understanding of society's problems to form a viable political platform, then he stands a hope of one day becoming president. One corollary of these theoretical musings is that in the future the presidency will no longer be occupied by persons who happened to be in the right place at the right time -- i.e. they were recruited into the upper echelons of a revolution or military insurrection. Egyptian citizens seem finally to be obtaining the kind of political equality enjoyed by many other people in the world. They will be able to vote freely, nominate candidates freely and, if they set they mind to it and work hard enough, reach the highest office in the country freely. No wonder people of all ages and political orientations are jubilating. Jubilation means optimism, which means more productivity which means economic progress and social stability. Yet for all this to happen -- for this dream to become our new reality -- we have several obstacles to overcome before presidential nominations open. The foremost problem is time. Electoral laws and regulations will have to conform with the constitutional amendments, and this will all have to happen within a matter of weeks. This does not give much breathing space to those political parties, syndicates and other civil society organisations that hope to put forward credible candidates. It will be very difficult in this short space of time for parties and candidates to recruit staff, organise and launch their campaigns and obtain the necessary funding. If they fail proponents of the status quo -- and there are quite a few out there who are nervous at the prospect of multi-candidate elections -- will be able to say that they did what they could to establish democracy but the society they were dealing with was simply not mature enough to take up the challenge. There are people of this sort in every Arab country and they are not about to take the blame for the barrenness of the political field. No society produces public leaders out of thin air. Society must acquire some experience of the type of politics that engages the public in the selection of its representatives within a framework of guarantees for the respect of civil liberties and human rights. When officials from the ruling establishment and the state press go around asking people who they think might be a viable presidential nominee it is impossible not to feel unease. Most people faced with this question are either going to refuse to comment or say that such a person does not exist. This is why we can begin to forecast what will happen in the time left before nominations open. In fact some have already predicted the public attitude towards any rival candidate. He will be the object of censure and ridicule, because no rival candidate to the incumbent, under the current circumstances, will be publicly judged fit to occupy the post to which he aspires. We will encounter the second obstacle to a smooth transition to democracy in the period between nominations and the run up to elections. This is when beneficiaries of the status quo will move to put the breaks on the political reform process in such areas as political party activity, legislative and local councils and civil liberties. They will argue that we have to do these things gradually in order to give the people time to absorb the shock of the great historical leap we have made. Already, even in the midst of the popular elation that followed the president's speech on the proposed constitutional amendments, some official media outlets began to plant the idea that this reform is a magnanimous gift to the people from the president or a major concession on his part. In all events, they add, people have nothing to worry about because the president is bound to win. In the face of such propaganda, one cannot help but wonder what inspired this constitutional reform to begin with. Was it to placate the West, which is increasing the pressure for democratic reforms? Was it for purely domestic consumption? It has been said that recent events in the region indicate that American pressure on several regimes has reached the "bone- cracking" phase. If this is the case, this is not because the US wants to overthrow these regimes but rather to compel them -- through some rough arm-twisting if necessary -- to improve their image in the eyes of their own people and to revive participatory politics after years of induced coma. The third difficulty resides in the nature of the Egyptian political system. Political analysts have long held that no one stands a chance of becoming president unless they are supported by the military establishment. Some have taken the proposed constitutional amendment as a sign that a new phase has begun in Egypt's political development, one in which presidential candidates do not have to rely on the military. But if this is the case, who are candidates supposed to rely on? We know, and the army and the ruling party know, there are no political parties in Egypt with the popularity, autonomous capacities and finances to enable them to support their candidates to bring them within reach of the presidential office. And in recent years we have seen the rise of a religious establishment of a completely different order to the one that has existed for the past two centuries. This establishment consists not only of an official arm, as represented by the clergy on the government payroll, but also of all the Islamist trends, moderate or otherwise, visible or clandestine. It is as impossible now to continue to ignore this formidable religious establishment as it is to ignore or deny the influence of the role of the military establishment. If some at home or abroad imagine that even a popular figure can field himself for the presidency without the support of either -- or preferably both -- of these two establishments, they will soon be disillusioned. The same applies to those who entertain the fancy that the Egyptian business community, even if supported in part from abroad and by the ruling class, is strong and mature enough to produce a viable candidate and, either independently or in alliance with other parties, carry that candidate into the presidency. * The writer is director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Research.
