Egypt's elections vied with the trial of the century and the NGO raids at home, while Syria's Arab League observers and Sudan's travails dominate regional news. Doaa El-Bey and Gamal Nkrumah report Newspapers followed the advent of the new year, the start of the third and last phase of parliamentary elections, the trial of the deposed president Hosni Mubarak and the raids launched by police on human rights groups and civil society organisations. Al-Akhbar on Tuesday had 'Prosecution starts arguing its case in the trial of the century'. Al-Ahram on Monday bannered 'Human rights groups form team to answer to charges'. Al-Wafd on Monday wrote 'Human rights organisations crisis is deepening; lawyer describes decision to close down some of them as void; human rights activists describe it as serving religious political parties'. And Al-Masry Al-Youm on Tuesday headlined 'Political activists call for demonstration on 25 January against the military council's violations of human rights organisations'. The editorial of the official daily Al-Ahram said that if 2011 was the year of the Arab Spring, 2012 which has just started presents a challenge to the Arab Spring. Egypt will be facing various challenges in 2012, the edit elaborated, namely completing the building process of state institutions in a democratic way. The process would include holding the third and final round of the parliamentary elections to form the first post-revolution parliament, to be followed by the Shura Council and presidential elections. The other challenge that would come within that context, the edit added, is the drafting of a constitution that would be the new social contract between the people and the authority and would draw a new picture of Egypt. However, the biggest challenge in 2012 lies in the ability of the authorities to resolve the energy-draining problems facing Egypt at present especially in the economy and security, in addition to starting political, social and economic programmes that would achieve the slogan of 25 January Revolution: "Dignified life, liberty and social justice". Mahmoud Ghallab pointed to the importance of the third phase of parliamentary elections in creating a needed balance in the parliament. He wrote that the countdown for holding the first session of the post-revolution parliament on 23 January has started. Thus, the third phase of the parliamentary elections which started this week is the most important in the longest election process that Egypt has seen, beginning on 28 November last year. He ascribed the importance to the fact that it would draw the final picture of the presentation of each political party in the parliament and identify the party which would take the most seats. "It is best that the political parties are presented in parliament in a balanced way in order to avoid the dictatorship of the majority when taking decisions. That was the reason behind the weakness of the previous parliament under Mubarak," Ghallab wrote in Al-Wafd, the mouthpiece of the opposition Wafd Party. Closing the gap between the top two or three political parties in parliament, he explained, would strengthen the role of the opposition and provide room for different viewpoints. And that would produce decisions and laws that present the majority of the people. Creating a balanced parliament is now in the hand of the voters of the third phase. Thus, Ghallab called on them not to bow to religious or sectarian slogans or propaganda and vote for the political trend that would guarantee a balance in parliament. He suggested the Wafd Party which he described as a moderate party capable of preserving the identity of the state. The police raid on human rights groups instigated different reactions. While some writers regarded it as legal, others criticised it. Mohamed Barakat noted that there are clear contradictions in the stands of the human rights groups which objected to the sudden raids by police who accused them of receiving foreign funding and working in Egypt without permits. These groups, Barakat elaborated, claimed to respect human rights, laws and transparency. But their actions contradicted with these claims because some of them were working without official permits, a clear violation of the law. They also gave themselves the right to obtain money from abroad ignoring the laws and regulations that governed their activities in Egypt for years. They also rejected transparency or a revelation of the nature of their work, their budget and whether they are obtaining money from abroad. Barakat concluded in the official daily Al-Akhbar by emphasising that he did not aim to denounce these organisations or claim that they are acting against the interests of the country. But he said he was after transparency, justice and the rule of law. Hassan Nafaa wondered who took the decision to break into the offices of human rights groups and seize some of their properties. Some claimed it a legal step taken by the judge designated to investigate the issue of foreign funding, while others said it was done after direct orders from the ruling military council. Nobody knows, Nafaa explained, what the objectives of raiding these organisations were. Was it to get information that the judge could not get otherwise or to spread fear among groups that are doing unwanted activities from his own point of view. No matter what the objectives are, the exaggerated use of power instigated strong reaction from the European countries and the US which threatened -- as usual -- to stop US aid to Egypt. These reactions led to an immediate change in the position of the Egyptian authority which promised to return the money and documents that were seized. "The Egyptian authority lost its case and was defeated twice: first when it took the wrong decision to raid NGOs without consulting the consultative board and second, when external pressure forced it to change its stand," Nafaa wrote in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm. It is the right of every state, he explained, to take whatever measures are needed to organise the work of human rights organisations and guarantee they will not be funded or penetrated by foreign parties. In the meantime, these steps should not prevent the organisation from carrying out their various tasks. However, Nafaa expressed concern that the Egyptian government had lost the battle because any talk about foreign funding will not be credible after these silly raids which were launched against certain organisations that were critical to the practices of the ruling military council, while leaving other organisations which were also allegedly getting foreign funding or working according to external agendas.
