What possible role for a parliament without an opposition, wonders Gamal Essam El-Din The two-round People's Assembly elections have resulted in just 16 opposition deputies gaining seats. Their share of the assembly has dropped from 25 per cent in the outgoing parliament to just 3.5 per cent. Egypt's oldest secular party, the Wafd, has six deputies, the number it had in the outgoing parliament. The leftist Tagammu Party was the biggest winner, raising its number of seats from just one in the outgoing assembly to five. Four smaller opposition parties -- the Ghad (Tomorrow), the Social Justice, the Geel (Generation), and Al-Salam (Social Peace) -- won one seat each. The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood was the biggest loser. In 2005 it secured 88 seats, or 20 per cent of the total. This time round it managed only one. The number of independent deputies in the new People's Assembly stands at 70 -- around 13 per cent -- up from five per cent in the outgoing assembly. Most are members of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) who decided to run in the elections as independents. There are a few exceptions, notably Mohamed Abdel-Alim Dawoud, a veteran MP who resigned from the Wafd party and is a ferocious critic of the NDP, particularly of Gamal Mubarak, the son of President Hosni Mubarak and Chairman of the party's influential Policies Committee, and of Ahmed Ezz, the NDP's secretary for organisational affairs. Out of the 16 opposition and Brotherhood deputies six are former MPs: Ragab Hilal Hemeida, the sole representative of the Ghad Party; Mohamed Abdel-Aziz Shaaban and Rafaat Seif of the Tagammu; Tareq Sabbaq, a veteran Wafd MP; Atef El-Ashmoni and Magdi Ashour, a former Muslim Brotherhood deputy. The new faces include four Wafd MPs, Mohamed El-Malki, Safir Nour, Magda El-Neweishi, Mosaad El-Meleigui, three Tagammu members, Ahmed Suleiman, Abdel-Hamid Kamal and Abdel-Rashid Hilal, one Social Justice MP, Mohamed Abdel-Aal, one Geel MP, Mohamed Al-Khawareili and one Social Peace MP, Tarek Salama. Al-Ahram political analyst Amr Hashem Rabie believes that the coming parliament will be weak not only because the elected opposition is so small but because many of the opposition firebrands who enlivened the outgoing parliament have lost their seats. The People's Assembly Information Centre reported that in the last parliament interpellations -- parliament's strongest supervisory tool -- were all submitted by non- NDP MPs. "Interpellations," the report said, "aimed at levelling direct accusations at cabinet ministers and taking them to task for questionable policy decisions and shady practices." Out of a total 145 interpellations submitted since 2005 Muslim Brotherhood deputies accounted for 87, independent deputies, mostly with leftist and Nasserist leanings, accounted for 49, while non- NDP opposition party-based deputies accounted for nine. Among the Muslim Brotherhood's most prominent deputies, who submitted interpellations that regularly made headlines, to lose their seats are Hamdi Hassan, whose questions embarrassed the government during Israel's war on Gaza, and Hussein Ibrahim, who drew public attention to the sale of natural gas to Israel. Although the Tagammu was the opposition's only winner, it lost its most experienced MPs, deputies who, by joining forces with the Brotherhood, forced People's Assembly Speaker Fathi Sorour to open debates over a host of controversial issues including corruption among police officers and the proliferation of monopolistic practices. Leftist and Nasserist deputies who lost their seats include Hamdeen Sabahi, journalist and chairman of the Karama (Dignity) Party; Mustafa Bakri, journalist; Gamal Zahran, professor of economics at Suez Canal University and Saad Aboud, a prominent Nasserist lawyer. Rabie does not have high expectations for the performance of the Tagammu in the new parliament given the internal divisions that continue to sap the party's energies. Most observers agree the Wafd was another big loser. Although it retained the same number of seats as the outgoing parliament four of its six deputies are new faces with no track record. Of the two remaining MPs, Tareq Sabbaq made little impact in the previous parliament, while Atef El-Ashmoni was actually an NDP deputy between 2000 and 2005. Leading Wafd figures such as its media spokesman Mohamed Sherdi and Secretary- General Mounir Fakhri Abdel-Nour failed to win seats. "Wafd Chairman El-Sayed El-Badawi wrongly assumed the presence of celebrities -- such as movie actress Samira Ahmed and former football player Taher Abu Zeid -- among the party's candidates would increase its popularity," says Rabie. The 70-member bloc of independents in the new assembly could now assume the opposition mantle, despite the fact many are former members of the NDP. Rumours are rife that they may seek to establish a political party. "They could act as moderate opponents of NDP policies, a kind of opposition from within the NDP's ranks that would replace the aggressive Brotherhood and leftist firebrand MPs," says Rabie. Former MPs from among the Brotherhood and leftist opposition have already floated the idea of forming "a parallel parliament". Osama El-Ghazali Harb, chairman of the Democratic Front Party that boycotted the election, believes that "the formation of a parallel parliament, including prominent opposition former MPs, leaders of dissent movements like Kifaya and anti-government representatives of professional syndicates and university professors, will be an effective way of countering NDP policies. "Without this parallel parliament," he says, "Egypt is fated to be a single-party state for the next five years."
