The economic component of the various parties' election campaigns leaves a lot to be desired, reports Niveen Wahish "Better jobs", "an end to poverty" and "social justice" are some of the promises that have been made by the candidates and parties in the run-up to next week's elections. But the various parties' campaigns have not given details of how these aims will be achieved. According to Ayman Mahgoub, a professor of economics at Cairo University, the parties "are just saying what pleases the crowds". A lack of social justice was widely believed to have been at the heart of the Arab Spring revolutions, along with complaints about political injustice and corruption. While the political parties putting forward candidates in the parliamentary elections address these things, they do not offer concrete programmes, Mahgoub said. None of them specify how unemployment should be tackled, or how inflation tamed. Although many say that agriculture should be the locomotive for growth, they do not say where the resources will come from to achieve such targets. Instead of clear commitments and timetables, what the parties are offering are vague slogans, Mahgoub said. It would have been better if the parties could have offered concrete programmes like those put forward by US presidential nominees, who typically present specific proposals on taxes, health and social security. Ahmed El-Ghandour, former dean of Cairo University's Faculty of Economics and Political Science, shares Mahgoub's opinion. In his view, the programmes that the parties are putting forward will not achieve what Egypt needs in terms of poverty alleviation and development. El-Ghandour gives the example of the Salafist Nour Party, which has spoken of "empowering the social economy" and its opposition to foreign aid with strings attached, preferring economic autarchy. The party has launched a national programme to eliminate poverty in 20 years, but it has not said how it will achieve it, El-Ghandour said. Meanwhile, the liberal Social Democratic Party has also set up social justice as a goal, aiming to achieve it through the encouragement of the private sector and market forces. However, El-Ghandour notes, there is little evidence in the party's programme that it can achieve development and eliminate poverty except by imposing further taxes, which would not necessarily take the country further in this direction. The socialist and nationalist coalition set up by other parties has announced that it is in favour of public and cooperative ownership, El-Ghandour said, but this could just be a reminder of the populist approach that led to widespread nationalisations after the July 1952 Revolution. Not everyone agrees with this analysis, however. According to economist Abdel-Khaleq Farouq, the socialist parties have more to offer than the other parties do. "They offer specific policies on the redistribution of incomes and development," he said, "and they want to reinstate the role of the public sector and its role in the production process." "On the other hand, parties such as the Wafd and the Liberals propagate the same policies that were adopted during the former regime, namely market mechanisms and neglect of the public sector. They also neglect the role of the non-governmental organisations that play a role in consumer protection and promise a redistribution of income that is not based on practical policies." The Islamist parties, Farouq said, claim that want to redistribute national income, "but this is mostly slogans as they do not offer a mechanism to achieve it." As for the projects adopted by some of the liberal parties, such as those put forward by the Ahrar Party, Farouq does not believe that it would be wise to adopt ideas that are still controversial. "The aim is to find projects that can be incorporated into government development policies," Farouq commented, adding that the building of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s had been part of a larger plan to industrialise the country.
