CAIRO - Workers and farmers were not properly represented in Parliament under Hosni Mubarak, as most of their seats in the People's Assembly (the Lower House of Parliament) were occupied by businessmen. Egyptian farmers were second-class citizens in the previous regime. They became indebted to officials who provided them with carcinogenic pesticides. The Government also bought their crops for very low prices. It was a similar story with Egyptian workers, for whose products there was once a great demand in the Arab Gulf. But the previous Government was more interested in electronics than the honest labour of the skilled Egyptian worker. Meanwhile, Mohamed Ibrahim el-Azazi, a farmer, is planning to form a political party to allow the complaints of the workers and farmers to reach the ears of senior officials. El-Azizi, from Faqous in el-Sharqia Governorate, about 80km northeast of Cairo, is a graduate of the Faculty of Arts. “Starting in the 1990s, I tried many times to get approval for the party from Safwat el-Sherif [then head of the Political Parties Committee], but my efforts were all in vain. “The Government kept saying that its priority was to help the farmers, workers and low-income people. I believed it, but I was wrong,“ he says. “I came to realise that the former regime was only interested in power and money. The MPs who represented the workers and farmers wore suits, not the traditional galabiya. They were really businessmen posing as workers and farmers, who had become marginalised.” El-Azazi says that these same businessmen stole the farmers' lands in order to set up projects on them, while many of the farmers got into debt when they borrowed money from the Credit Agricultural Bank, which then increased the interest on their loans. “They were also forced to cultivate cantaloupes and peanuts, instead of strategic crops such as wheat,” he comments, adding that he already has 5,000 people interested in joining the party ��" the minimum number required by law. “I am now in intensive talks with agricultural co-operatives, factories, companies and unions nationwide, to get more people to join.” El-Azazi told Al-Akhbar semi-official newspaper that he isn't yet the chairman of this proposed party, because the chairmanship is something that will have to be decided by internal elections. “I would also like a lot of young people ��" the children of the farmers and workers ��" to join too, as well as their wives,” he added. “My proposed party has a plan to cultivate 20 million feddans (acres) of land with strategic crops including wheat, corn and cotton. I want to make our workers and farmers proud again, as well as improving their wages and living standards.”
