CAIRO: In defense of the much-debated charter that would govern the drafting of Egypt's new constitution, known as the “El-Selmi Document,” Deputy Prime Minister for Political Affairs Aly El-Selmi, expressed his position in an article published by Al-Ahram newspaper Wednesday. In the article titled “The truth about the constitutional principles,” El-Selmi claims that the majority of political powers have accepted the document, but only had reservations about controversial Articles 9 and 10, which refer to powers given to the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and entrusting it with “safeguarding Egypt's constitutional legitimacy.” El-Selmi attributed the fierce objection to the document by Islamist parties to the upcoming parliamentary elections. “Nothing is new in the document except for Articles 9 and 10. They agreed on the rest of the document in previous meetings,” he wrote. El-Selmi said that the document is based on an initiative by the Muslim Brotherhood and was originally titled “Together We Build” which compiled a set of guidelines agreed upon by political powers following two meetings last August. However, Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) as well as other Islamist parties boycotted the discussion of the updated document last week. Mohamed Farag, assistant secretary general of Al-Tagammu Party, approves of El-Selmi's document. “We have accepted the document but have reservations regarding Article 9,” he said, adding that there is still room for negotiation as this is not a decree. Member of Al-Wafd's Higher Committee, Essam Sheiha, explained that El-Selmi proposed the charter for “discussion but not as a declaration of a constitution,” noting that he accepted the criticism of Articles 9 and 10 related to the SCAF. “The door is still open for Islamist powers to enter the negotiations but rejecting the document on principle is unacceptable. El Selmi brought it forward for negotiations and amendments and additions are encouraged,” he explained. The FJP has called for the resignation of El-Selmi and Prime Minister Essam Sharaf's Cabinet “if they insist on the adoption of so-called constitutional principles or guidelines, setting criteria for the selection of the Constituent Assembly, considering such matters as binding, and issuing the same in the form of a new constitutional declaration,” the group said in a statement. Contrary to El-Selmi's claims, it was not only the Islamist powers that rejected the document. In a conference last week, 15 political parties and four presidential hopefuls also rejected it, including Al-Adl, Al-Wasat, the Revolutionary Ghad and the Labor parties, in addition to presidential hopefuls Mohamed Selim El-Awa, Ayman Nour, Abdallah Al-Ashaal and Amr Moussa. The political powers said that they refused the idea of window-dressing the charter and wanted to annul it altogether. "The idea of the charter is refused in form and content and the idea of amending any of its articles is also refused," El-Awa said at the conference, adding that it stripped parliament and the constituent assembly of authority since it gave SCAF the right to veto articles it disapproved of, to choose a new constituent assembly if the first one fails to draft the constitution within the planned six-month time-frame and denies parliament the right to scrutinize the defense budget.
