President Mubarak's recent statements about a new electoral law have sparked speculation that parliament will soon be dissolved. Gamal Essam El-Din reviews the rumours On his return from a short visit to Saudi Arabia on 26 September, President Hosni Mubarak told Egyptian journalists that a new electoral bill which aims to increase opposition parties' representation in parliament is under discussion. "There is no need to amend the constitution. The constitution should not be considered an obstacle in the way of democratisation. Elections are open to all parties. This is in addition to the fact that a new law is being drafted to ensure that parties gain a greater representation in parliament," President Mubarak said. President Mubarak's announcement on the necessity of drafting a new electoral law was the second in two weeks. The first was made during the general congress of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), held from 15-17 September. Kamal El-Shazli, minister of state for parliamentary affairs and the NDP's assistant secretary-general, affirmed that President Mubarak had asked that a new electoral system be devised to ensure that elections are characterised by integrity and are free of acts of thuggery and attempts to buy votes. The NDP's political pundits said the proposed law aims at introducing a "mixed electoral system" that combines the individual candidacy and proportional representation systems and ensures equal opportunity for independent and partisan candidates. The adoption of such a system would replace the individual candidacy system followed for the past 12 years. Official announcements about a new electoral law provoked controversy in political and parliamentary quarters. MPs, particularly those of the ruling NDP, fear that a new law might be the first step towards dissolving the People's Assembly. "In general, MPs agree that as soon as this proposed law is passed, the existing parliament will be rendered invalid and be automatically dissolved," an NDP MP, who asked not to be identified, told Al-Ahram Weekly. Other observers, however, are more confident that the current parliament is not in jeopardy. To support their prediction that the assembly is headed for dissolution, NDP MPs point to a number of recent events. The People's Assembly, note some parliamentarians, may lose a number of its members owing to dozens of legal cases contesting the legality of some deputies' membership. Should many of those MPs lose their seats, as some parliamentarians expect they will, such an exodus would necessitate the calling of general elections, they say. The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC), where these cases were filed, ruled that the membership of some 40 MPs should be considered null and void on the grounds that they failed to fulfil the prerequisite of performing military service. People's Assembly Speaker Fathi Sorour has referred SAC's rulings to the Supreme Constitutional Court for a final judgment. Many of the reforms adopted by the NDP at its recent congress, opined one NDP MP, who spoke to the Weekly on condition of anonymity, were aimed at reducing the influence of the so-called NDP-independents who won seats as independents but later rejoined the party to give it a majority in parliament. Consequently, the MP suggested, the party is eager to keep up the momentum and rid itself of these MPs. "The party's leaders do not want to give NDP- independents a chance to one day call in the favour that they did for the party. That's why they think it would be better to dissolve the existing parliament and devise a new electoral system aimed at obliterating the phenomenon of NDP independents for ever," said the MP. During a question-and-answer session during the NDP congress, Gamal Mubarak, the son of President Hosni Mubarak and a member of the party's General-Secretariat, said "the party will never allow the phenomenon of NDP-independents to happen again." "In the past, some MPs violated the party's instructions and contested elections as independents against the party's official candidates. They did this because they knew the General-Secretariat would not punish them. We hope the new electoral law will instill discipline and order in the party's ranks and make MPs more aware of their duties," Gamal Mubarak said. The NDP's newly-formed Policy Secretariat, headed by Gamal Mubarak, is expected to discuss the proposed electoral system law. Opposition and independent MPs also highlight the cases of corrupt NDP MPs in their predictions that parliament is headed for dissolution. Cases in which NDP MPs have been implicated in corruption, say opposition and independent parliamentarians, have tainted the party's image in the eyes of the public. Consequently, opposition and independent MPs say that internal reform will be extended to include the party's performance in parliament. As Nasserist-oriented independent MP Kamal Ahmed put it, "Improving the party's performance in parliament requires having a new parliament with more efficient, upstanding and devoted NDP MPs." Others disagree. Chairman of parliament's Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee, Mohamed Moussa, believes that whatever the Supreme Court decides with respect to MPs who did not do military service, it will not cause a constitutional crisis or expose the assembly to the possibility of dissolution. "I think that the failure of some MPs to fulfil the military service prerequisite and their loss of their seats is insufficient grounds for dissolving parliament. This problem can be solved by simply holding by-elections in the disqualified MPs' constituencies," he said. Shawqi El-Sayed, a prominent lawyer and deputy chairman of the Shura Council's Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee, said the implementation of any new electoral law is way off in the future. "This means that the dissolution of parliament should be ruled out at the moment." El-Sayed said that the Shura Council committee formed in July 2001 to debate the possibility of drafting a new electoral law has been moving at a snail's pace. "This committee has so far held just five meetings. There was considerable support among the committee's legal experts for a mixed electoral system that combines the individual and slate systems and ensures equal opportunity for independent and partisan candidates," said El-Sayed. Some MPs say that President Mubarak would resort to dissolving parliament only in the event that the Supreme Constitutional Court issues a ruling requiring this. Such a view is supported by President Mubarak's most recent statements on the matter in which he said, "I do not believe in change just for the sake of change. I do not even believe in change every now and then or occasionally."
