Will the election results affect the role of American aid to Egypt, asks Gamal Essam El-Din Two weeks ago US Congress approved $1.5 billion in US military and civilian aid to Egypt for fiscal year 2009, which begins this month. The figure represents a 12 per cent reduction on the $1.71 billion of US aid Egypt was allocated in 2008. The figures reflect increasingly strained relations between the US and Egypt since 2005. In his second term in office, which began in January 2005, George W Bush urged Egypt to lead the region towards democracy just as it had led the way towards peace in the Middle East. Many Congress members have tried to condition military and civilian assistance to Egypt on improvements in Cairo's democratisation and human rights record and security cooperation with Israel. In December 2007, for the first time in more than 30 years, Congress enacted legislation withholding $100 million in US military assistance. In March 2008, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice waived the reduction as part of an agreement by Cairo to intensify security operations along the border with Israel and the Gaza Strip. Rice, however, remained dissatisfied with Egypt's progress on democratisation. In a meeting with young leaders on 8 October she said, "progress has not been everything in Egypt that we would have hoped for and we have had setbacks there." Egyptian observers agree that democratisation and human rights have become a sore point in Egyptian- American relations. Gamal Abdel-Gawad, an analyst with Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS), believes that the election of Barack Obama as US president will impact strongly on American military and civilian assistance to Egypt. "Obama is more concerned than McCain with democracy and political reform in the Middle East," Abdel-Gawad argues. "The Democratic party is more inclined than the Republicans to use American foreign assistance in shaping American relations." Abdel-Gawad agrees that the jailing of liberal politician Ayman Nour has had a negative effect on US-relations. Pressure exerted by exiled dissident Saadeddin Ibrahim may also have played a role in the decision to reduce aid to Egypt in 2009. According to The Washington Post, Ibrahim, a 69- year-old sociologist from the American University in Cairo, lobbied members of Congress to place conditions on aid to Egypt. But Abdel-Gawad stresses that the reduction came in response to a request from the Bush administration rather than because of any lobbying by Ibrahim. "In fact," says Abdel-Gawad, "Ibrahim's attempts to attach conditions to American aid to Egypt in 2009 have fizzled out." Abdel-Gawad believes the reduction was reached via mutual agreement between the Egyptian and American governments. A report by the Ministry of International Cooperation makes clear that in 1998 Egypt and the US agreed to reduce civilian aid to Egypt by $40 million a year over 10 years, meaning aid would have been reduced to $405 million in 2008. "At the end of 2008 the governments of the two countries agreed to start a further restructuring of aid," said the report. After Congress's 12 per cent reduction, US aid to Egypt now stands at $200 million for economic and civilian purposes and $1.3 billion for military interests. In a teleconference with young Egyptian activists in late September, Ibrahim said that his talks with a number of American Congresspeople had convinced him that though Obama has called for a complete change in George Bush's policies he believes that the latter's calls for democratisation in the Middle East will be maintained. Egyptian politicians have always objected to any conditions being attached to aid, and Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit has repeatedly objected to such moves. Egyptian legislators, especially those belonging to the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), have concentrated their criticism on the American government's and Congress's increased allocation of funds to political and education reform programmes. Mohamed Ragab, NDP Shura Council spokesman, told Al-Ahram Weekly that there is a belief among NDP members that in recent years America has been trying to use aid to Egypt to impose its own agenda. "They are trying to create an army of loyalists in Egypt under the guise of civil society and democracy activists, just as they did in the Ukraine and Georgia," argues Ragab. Senior politicians are nonetheless aware that US economic assistance was instrumental in rebuilding Egypt's infrastructure. Egypt became the second-largest recipient of American aid in 1979, after it agreed to make peace with Israel. Amer Kiani, the commercial attaché at the US Embassy in Cairo, told the 10th of Ramadan Association of Investors on 16 October that between 1976 and 2007 more than $58 billion in economic and military assistance has been given to Egypt. "This is the largest amount of American economic assistance that has ever been given," Kiani said. Legislators, however, have mixed opinions about the impact of US aid on Egypt. While there is little argument about the sums involved, the way the money has been used is a more contentious issue. Hamdi El-Sayed, chairman of the Health Committee in the People's Assembly, commends investment in urgently needed services such as waste water treatment and water supply projects and insists that, "American aid has also saved the lives of tens of thousands of children by helping to implement oral rehydration programmes". USAID reports in Egypt highlight the ways in which economic assistance has directly raised the quality of life for millions of Egyptian citizens. "Many of the improvements are apparent to the eye, such as added classrooms, renovated hospitals and clinics, a massive expansion of infrastructure and utility services and loans to small and medium enterprises," said one USAID report. "It has also helped open the Egyptian economy in terms of championing the private sector, business associations and non-governmental organisations." Critics implicate US aid in the spread of corruption and American infringement on national laws. Both supporters and critics, however, are agreed that the elimination of US assistance will have zero effect on Egypt. On 16 October the US ambassador to Egypt, Margaret Scobey, pointed out that US military and economic assistance to Egypt had fallen from 10 per cent of GDP in 1980 to less than one per cent. "The relationship between the two countries is now focussing on trade rather than aid," she said.
