As long as Egypt has no permanent government, the new People's Assembly will act like a fire brigade duplicating the work of the caretaker administration, writes Ahmed El-Tonsi* Amid an escalating security crisis, an appalling economic situation and a volatile political order, the People's Assembly has had the time and the will to overcome dangers threatening the lives of thousands of Egyptian patients. Rather than take steps to improve the entire healthcare system and expedite the long-awaited health insurance legislation, the assembly has directed its valuable energies to speeding up the importation of an out-of-stock medicine, protamine, for patients undergoing open heart surgery. According to the WHO, Egypt has the highest out- of-pocket spending as a percentage of total healthcare expenditure of the whole Middle East and North Africa region, while it has the lowest government spending as a ratio to total healthcare expenditure. In other words, there has been an ongoing social catastrophe requiring an immediate bailout plan to at least partially address the growing inequalities that people have been subjected to, bearing in mind that social justice was one of the cardinal slogans of the January Revolution. By the same token, one can identify the inspection tour carried out by the assembly's health committee of a prison hospital as a continuation of its work on what could be described as low-hanging fruits that attract the masses while representing a short-term move of limited, if any, interest to the volatile political scene. It is not uncommon for legislatures to be involved in the details, while missing the wood for the trees. Nevertheless, such distorted priorities, as well as the narrow scope of the issues, should not now be the case in Egypt with its overwhelmingly detrimental socioeconomic conditions in the aftermath of the Revolution. Moreover, it should not be the approach of a majority party that has been seeking to implement its electoral platform, which the people supposedly voted for, given its pertinence to Egypt's situation. A month has elapsed since the first meeting of the new People's Assembly, and the majority party has not been able to demonstrate a comprehensive vision to address the interacting political, social and economic features of the current debacle. This could have been expected and even accepted from any newcomer but not from the most organised political force in the nation that has been in opposition for decades and has now finally won a landslide victory in Egypt's fairest-ever elections. Put differently, the Islamist trend should have had a stabilisation programme for immediate implementation to tackle the declining conditions of the healthcare system, instead of acting on individual issues raised haphazardly. In the case of protamine, for example, the energies of the Assembly should have been dedicated to raising funds sufficient to start a fully-fledged reform process in the healthcare system, while leaving such minor or sporadic issues to the caretaker government. Such issues should not be the major concern of the parliament in the aftermath of a popular revolution that has sought to redeem the people's rights that were abrogated under the former regime. The issue, then, about such a reform programme among a broader array of similar plans addressing the development of Egypt is does the parliamentary majority have a real vision for the new Egypt? In the absence of a comprehensive plan of action developed by the leading party, the People's Assembly will work like a fire brigade duplicating the same role as the caretaker government while voluntarily relinquishing its primary role as the lawmaker. The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) has Islamist references, and it is unimaginable that the Party has not had such a comprehensive plan. For decades, the Brotherhood has used the slogan of "Islam is the solution," and it might have been expected that this slogan would now be translated into specific and measurable steps carried out according to a clear timeframe. Years in opposition should have offered the Brotherhood, and also the Party, the knowledge and experience needed to lay down such a plan of action. Specifically, the FJP should now announce its plans to address the economic recovery, an urgent crisis that requires full transparency. However, this has not happened, and instead the Party's statements have emphasised the need to restore economic productivity and the importance of social justice. These could have been revolutionary slogans, as they were during the January Revolution, but they should not be relied upon by what is now the leading party in the legislature and one claiming an Islamist orientation. The notion of social justice should have been in place from day one, with an action plan dealing with its different dimensions. Yet, it seems that the Brotherhood, as well as its Party, did not have any such readymade prescriptions. Some members, including Brotherhood leaders, have argued that the new majority Party needs a grace or honeymoon period to get started, alluding to the first hundred days of the incoming American president when Congress and the press keep their criticisms of him to a minimum. However, in the Egyptian case the analogy is incorrect as the first hundred days of American presidents are usually spent trying to get bills through Congress that might face opposition later on in the term. In mentioning this example of the one-hundred-day grace period we should also remember Roosevelt, who passed the New Deal bills within his first one hundred days as president. This US notion of a grace period is not what we are witnessing in Egypt now, where the legislature has been torturing the caretaker government while offering limited, if any, input to legislation that could be of strategic or even tactical value. Moreover, the FJP has not given such a honeymoon period to the cabinet of Prime Minister Kamal El-Ganzouri, which has recently completed two months in office. It could be argued that the FJP is only the leading party in the legislative assembly and that it has not formed the new government. But there can be no logical explanation for the party's reluctance to form a government either alone or in coalition with other parties. If the Party does not transform its leading position in the parliament into government, then how will it implement its plan of action? If it continues on its present course, it will be only supervising another temporary government that has a limited timeframe and mandate. The FJP should start forming the next government now. The present caretaker government has become seriously demoralised, and it has been hard for it to perform its tasks after the drastic conditions that surrounded its formation and the crises that have happened since it came to power. This is not to mention the daily confrontations in the People's Assembly that have further blurred the already ill-defined image of the government and its members. El-Ganzouri's government cannot be held solely accountable for the present impasse, since it is essentially a caretaker government. On the other hand, the performance of recent caretaker governments has been below popular expectations for many reasons, and a need has emerged for a different kind of government not restricted by its nature or by its predefined timeframe and mandate. The Egyptian bureaucracy, perhaps the oldest on the planet, has not yet been touched by the January Revolution, though it has sensed the circumscribed nature of the caretaker government, putting the latter into an exceptionally difficult situation in enforcing its plans for reform. The bureaucratic web has become a real impediment to genuine reform, and apparently it emerged relatively unscathed from the Revolution. This bureaucratic web cannot be trimmed or even purged by a government that is limited in scope, timeframe, popular support and decisional latitude. Moreover, the pace and magnitude of the changes in leadership in many institutions have been tremendous, adding turbulence and lack of clarity to their working environment. The deliverables of any government operating here are likely to remain too late and too few. There needs to be an end to the current trend of temporary governments that are not able to do anything more than take short-term, reactive decisions with limited impacts, while deferring the major issues to the more permanent government to come. The result has been that the current governments look like administrative bodies assigned to running, but not ruling, the state. However, ruling is precisely what is needed since the January Revolution changed the landscape beyond the limited role of a caretaker government, regardless of the competence of its members or the prerogatives delegated to it by the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). A highly important change has been that Egypt has now elected a new legislature through fair elections, and thus the transitional phase has been concluded when it comes to the legislature as an institution of the new civil state. In other words, the justification behind the continuation of the caretaker governments has almost ceased to exist with the founding of the new legislature as the most important institution in the new state. Why should the country continue to be managed by these transitional governments, when it has been working on speeding up the transition to more stable and durable political institutions? Claims that the new constitution has not yet been drafted and the new political system, whether parliamentary or presidential, has not yet been decided do not hold either, since these claims were not considered in the case of the recently established legislature, which was elected before the long-awaited new constitution was drafted. Even the forthcoming presidential elections are being held without waiting for the new constitution. Egypt today needs a different kind of government, a representative one, that is formed on a broad and consensual basis that reflects the political realities emanating from the last parliamentary elections. The formation of the current caretaker government was not accompanied by a solid national consensus. Moreover, it has become subject to a declining level of consent, with various sectors viewing its inability to address the security crisis and the worsening economic situation as major liabilities. Any new government should be seen as a tool for building national consensus through the inclusion of representatives from different political trends, provided that they have the credentials required for the job at such a critical juncture. It is not necessary for the new government to reflect the relative weights of the various political trends inside the parliament. However, it should be formed under the auspices of the FJP, given the latter's leading position in the parliament and among the people. In her pioneering work on building consensus during the transition process, writer Noha El-Mikkawi mentions two mechanisms for achieving national consensus during transitions: arranging pacts or alliances and holding elections. In her view, the party alliances or pacts used in the Latin American transition experience helped build national consensus through moderating the political process and marginalising radicals. In the case of Egypt, there is a similar need to see the formation of a coalition government that could lead state and society to new frontiers beyond the parochial politics that have been the rule in the People's Assembly. Consensual politics should be pursued by the different stakeholders instead, and there is a need to build a national consensus, for example by finding a consensual presidential candidate. Identifying a suitable consensual presidential candidate could help to defuse political polarisation, particularly as this is expected to escalate during the drafting of the new constitution. A consensual candidate of this sort is not a confiscation of the people's right to choose their preferred candidate. Accountability is a fundamental dimension of the definition of a democratic system, and democracy is where rulers are accountable to citizens through the latter's regular electoral participation. However, in the case of the present caretaker government, its leader and all its members are appointees of the ruling SCAF, whose members in turn will lose their legitimacy at the end of the transition period before the end of June. In other words, the accountability of the SCAF and its government will soon expire. The only institution in Egypt that has been democratically elected and is now accountable to citizens is the legislature Whether or not the current members of the legislature will complete their terms after the new constitution has been drafted is a constitutional issue that has not yet been decided. However, the fact remains that the legislature will continue to sit under the new arrangements, whatever these may turn out to be. Another issue adding to the uncertainty is the probability that the current law governing the nomination of candidates for election to the People's Assembly may become constitutionally void, which logically will lead to the dissolution of the current parliament. The new constitution and the rulings of the Supreme Constitutional Court based upon it, both things that may precipitate new elections, will pose serious challenges to the new state and will require the newly established executive power to be able to perform its constitutional functions, as these are set out under the new constitution. Whatever happens, there should be an executive branch, made up of the president and the government, that is accountable before the electorate. It could be argued that the new government should be formed in the aftermath of a power transfer from the military to a civilian government and before the necessary drafting of a new constitution. However, even this requires a standing government that will be responsible for ruling the state after the SCAF steps down. Therefore, from an accountability perspective the new government should end the current ill-defined accountability inherent in the constitutional set-up of the transition process, in order to facilitate the smooth transfer of power and to safeguard against potential constitutional battles either with the new constitution or with the verdicts of the Court. Those now advising the FJP not to fall into the trap of forming a government too early need to reconsider their advice. Apart from playing at politics at a serious time, they need to acknowledge that steps should be taken to form a new and representative government. Claims of foreign conspiracies should give added impetus to such moves, rather than serving as impediments to them. Egypt's critical situation is more important than the careers of politicians or the situation of parties and political analysts. The leading party in the parliament should not refrain from forming a government, when everyone inside and outside Egypt agrees upon the need to build a solid national consensus. The heart of Egypt is definitely open. But it requires more than protamine to mend it. * The writer is a political analyst.
