A proposed document of inviolable constitutional principles floated by the deputy prime minister may herald a new political civil war, writes Amira Howeidy Less than two months after the dust settled on the last battle over the polarising issue of how Egypt's constitution should be drafted and the government, with the support of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), is raking the coals. In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly Deputy Prime Minister Ali El-Silmi said he is in the process of discussing a document of inviolable constitutional principles with various political groups. Once there is "agreement" over the document it will be issued by the SCAF in the form of a "constitutional declaration" that will include the "criteria" for selecting members of the committee charged with drafting Egypt's new constitution. It is five months since the SCAF called for a public referendum on nine constitutional articles, eventually approved by 77.2 per cent of voters on 31 March. Article 189 of the amendments stipulated that the next elected parliament would mandate a 100 member assembly to draft a new constitution. The formula seemed simple enough: newly elected parliamentarians, in their capacity as representatives of the public, would oversee the process of writing a new constitution by selecting the drafting committee. The constitution that emerged would then be put forward to the electorate in the form of a referendum. Critics of the formula wanted the assembly formed ahead of any poll, and a constitution in place before the newly elected parliament convened. Though divided over the logistical details of how the assembly might be formed -- by appointment or election -- the "no" camp was more or less united in its motives: they did not want Islamists, who they feared would win a parliamentary majority, to have the final say over who would write the constitution. United during the 18 days of protests that toppled Mubarak, Egyptians were suddenly polarised between supporters and critics of the amendments. Though on the surface this appeared to be a secularist-Islamist divide, in reality it was more nuanced. On 31 March the SCAF included the nine articles approved by the public in a constitutional declaration of 62 articles intended to provide the constitutional reference for the transitional period and until a new constitution was in place. Two months later the "no" camp launched a campaign demanding a "constitution first" despite the referendum result. The campaign eventually waned as political forces cast their differences aside and concentrated on demands over which they could agree -- a speedier trial for Mubarak and his aides, the purging of the security apparatus and the trying of officers accused of killing protesters during the revolution -- ahead of the mass demonstration called for 8 July. The protest was followed by a sit-in in Tahrir, the first of its kind since Mubarak's ouster. In response, the SCAF made a televised statement on 12 July addressing some of the demands. Surprisingly, point number six in the statement stipulated that a set of constitutional principles would be issued in a constitutional declaration despite the fact that the 8 July demonstration and sit-in had made no such demand. The point was generally overlooked by the media as other, more pressing political developments, ensued; that is until Ali El-Silmi, ex-deputy chairman of the liberal Wafd Party and now Prime Minister Essam Sharaf's deputy for political affairs, floated the document this week. On 15 August Al-Masry Al-Youm published what it said was the draft presented by El-Silmi to both the Wafd and the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party. Consisting of 21 points, the document stipulated that the "Arab Republic of Egypt is a civil, democratic state based on citizenship and the rule of law" and that it "respects pluralism". Article two merely copied the existing reference to Islam as the state's religion and main source of legislation, though with the addition of a sentence giving non-Muslims the choice of adhering to their own religious laws in matters pertaining to personal status and doctrine. The bulk of the draft is similar to the document proposed by the "First Egypt Conference" group sponsored by Mamdouh Hamza, a secular businessman and vocal anti-Islamist, which held a meeting during the constitutional amendments debate in May. The document they eventually published included an article mandating the Armed Forces to protect the "civilian nature" of the state, in emulation of the discredited Turkish model. This article was missing from the draft published by Al-Masry Al-Youm. According to El-Silmi, once the SCAF issues the new constitutional declaration the next parliament will be bound to abide by it. He argued that this does not violate or contradict the articles in the constitutional referendum or the 31 March Constitutional Declaration. Tarek El-Bishri, the ex-judge who chaired the committee which drafted the constitutional amendments and then oversaw the drafting of the Constitutional Declaration, describes El-Silmi's argument as "absurd". "The people are the source of all powers," he told the Weekly, "so when the people vote yes in a referendum which put things in order, even SCAF does not have the write to override that." "The constitutional amendments are legally binding for the military council specifically because they were put to a public referendum," he added. The coming parliament therefore isn't obliged to adopt the constitutional principles that the government or SCAF consider supra constitutional, El-Beshri said. Mohamed Mursi, head of the Freedom and Justice party, says that while his party supports the content of the document that is being discussed it refuses to make it binding on the coming parliament and the constitutional assembly it elects. Freedom and Justice, which is also a member of the Egyptian Democratic Coalition of 34 political groups and parties, including liberals and leftists, issued a statement on 14 August rejecting the notion of inviolable constitutional principles but supporting a non-binding statement of what they should be. Hardline Islamist parties have adopted a tougher stand, rejecting the notion of constitutional principles out of hand. It is unclear how El-Silmi will proceed in the absence of the consensus he says he is looking for. But beneath all this lies a more pressing issue: why is the SCAF now supporting a process that goes against the constitutional declaration it issued on 31 March and which included articles that were put to the only fair public referendum in Egypt's history? Rabab El-Mahdi, a revolutionary socialist and professor of political science at the American University in Cairo, believes the military is seeking to "secure some powers" for itself in the Egypt that is emerging. Rather than searching for a safe exit from the political arena, it is trying to engineer a continuing political role in order to protect the privileges it has accrued over decades of dictatorship. It remains to be seen if the secular-Islamist polarisation will support or thwart such a scenario.
