Opposition and independent MPs are intensifying their barrage of 'questions' directed at government ministers. Gamal Essam El-Din reports Undeterred by what they called "a host of deliberate and arbitrary measures" aimed at stripping them of their basic supervisory powers, opposition MPs have decided to challenge Prime Minister Atef Ebeid with more embarrassing interpellations (questions that must be answered by the government), bringing the number of interpellations that have been submitted so far to an unprecedented 33. The new interpellations, submitted by independent MPs Ayman Nour, Adel Eid and Hamdi Hassan, raise five issues: the alleged rigging of the 8 January Damanhour by-election; torture and ill-treatment in police stations as a "phenomenon"; corruption in the agricultural sector; the "observable increase" in the numbers of mentally disturbed persons, presumably as a result of economic decline; and the increasing number of citizens living under the poverty line. A People's Assembly session on 25 January will be devoted to setting up a timetable for these five interpellations to be addressed. The stormy confrontation that took place between MPs and Ebeid on 11 January, however, has left the political scene in a jittery mood, triggering a heated exchange between the press and parliament at the same time. Parliament Speaker Fathi Sorour is now facing virulent criticism from two opposite directions: the pro-government press severely lambasted Sorour for what they said was an increasing tendency towards enabling opposition MPs to intimidate Ebeid and members of his cabinet, tainting their image in the public's eye; at the same time, opposition MPs are saying that Sorour deceived them by choosing not to inform them in advance that the government would be ready to respond to their interpellations on corruption in the banking sector, which they said gave their detractors a chance to defame them in front of their constituents. Sorour's nervous reaction to the attacks was to warn that "press criticism of the Assembly and its deputies must be within accepted bounds." The remaining interpellations will probably make matters even more charged. Seven of these interpellations are directed at Deputy Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister Youssef Wali, who has faced just one interpellation (in March 1994) since his 1982 appointment. Parliamentary observers agree that two recent developments have emboldened opposition MPs to take Wali to task. Firstly, Wali lost much of his power after leaving, last September, his influential post as secretary-general of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). Secondly, last September's arrest of Youssef Abdel-Rahman, former chairman of the Principal Bank for Development and Agricultural Credit (PBDAC) and Wali's long-time right-hand man, on charges ranging from accepting a $3 million bribe from a French firm to import its pesticides to poisoning unsuspecting farmers with toxic chemicals, has undermined Wali's standing. The deputy prime minister will now have to face charges of corruption in the agricultural sector and alleged consorting with Israel. MP Eid, one of Wali's sharpest detractors, alleges that Wali continued to give his protégé Abdel-Rahman more power, appointing him to no less than 30 high-level ministry posts, in spite of his reputation for corruption. The anti-Wali charges also hold his ministry responsible for dumping huge quantities of contaminated meat from India onto the local food market, as well as turning PBDAC into a tool to oppress farmers rather than help them. Housing Minister Ibrahim Suleiman is next on the list of targeted officials, his ministry being charged by leftist MP El-Badri Farghali and independent MP Kamal Ahmed with awarding contracts to private engineering consultancy offices with whom Suleiman has close ties and tilting the ministry's policies, in general, in favour of the wealthy. On 11 January, Ahmed stunned Suleiman by bringing out two big bags that the MP said were filled with documents allegedly incriminating Suleiman. "I challenge you to respond to the charges contained in these documents. Unless you respond to them at once, I will be forced to turn them over to the prosecutor-general," threatened Ahmed. Port Said's deteriorating economy is also a prominent feature of the five interpellations the government will be facing. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the interpellations revolves around the fact that a relatively large number of opposition MPs have become daring enough to raise a variety of thorny political issues with the government. The first was submitted by Ragab Hilal Hemeida, the Liberal Party's sole MP, and directed at Ebeid. The interpellation concerns the government's heavy- handed intervention in the internal affairs of political parties. These unfair practices, according to Hemeida, are largely to blame for a delay in democratic reform "at a time the entire world is moving rapidly towards democratisation". Following the 11 January confrontation, Hemeida was severely attacked by the pro-government press for using false information in his interpellation to Ebeid. Seif Mahmoud, a maverick independent MP, has also submitted an interpellation about the alleged rigging of municipal elections. According to Seif, municipal elections were manipulated by the government and security forces in favour of the NDP. This, Seif added, enabled the ruling party to win 99.9 per cent of municipal seats. Two of the interpellations, meanwhile, are somewhat unusual. The first, submitted by leftist MP Abul-Ezz El-Hariri, is about the government's decision not to charge former Interior Minister El- Nabawi Ismail for deliberately concealing information about the assassination of late President Anwar El-Sadat. According to El-Hariri, Ismail admitted in a television interview that he knew in advance that Sadat would be a target of assassination on 6 October, 1981. El- Hariri, a fierce critic of Sadat who was arrested and stripped of his parliamentary membership by the late president in 1978, told Al-Ahram Weekly that unraveling the secrets of an Egyptian leader's assassination is as important as opening up the secret files related to the 1967 defeat. "It is not a matter of whether you were an opponent of Sadat or not. We all have to seek the truth regardless of old enmities," said El-Hariri. Another somewhat unusual interpellation was submitted by independent MP Ayman Nour, who claims that the severity of political oppression and economic recession under Ebeid's government have caused a marked increase in the number of Egyptians falling prey to mental disorders. Nour cites Ahmed Okasha, a prominent psychiatrist, who said the number of Egyptians suffering from depression rose from 1.5 to five million in the three years that the Ebeid government has been in office. Eid, meanwhile, is also directing two of his harshest interpellations at Interior Minister Habib El-Adli. The first one claims that the 8 January by-election in Damanhour -- the provincial capital of the northern governorate of Al-Beheira -- was manipulated by security forces in order to ensure the defeat of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Gamal Heshmat. Eid said his interpellation is supported by a video tape of television coverage provided by the Qatari-based Al-Jazeera channel. The footage, said Eid, clearly shows the arbitrary measures used by security forces to bar citizens from voting. Eid's other interpellation lambasts the Interior Ministry's police officers for systematically torturing citizens. The MP is supporting this claim with reports issued by several human rights organisations about abuses in police stations and the failure of the Interior Ministry to implement tens of final court verdicts in favour of ordinary citizens.
