Guidebook for a parliament of yes-men

 

Why has the government invited political parties to a dialogue about the election laws? Out of the three sessions which took place last week, I have attended the first one. What has come out of all this chatter and shouting?

 

It seems the government is unable to hold a dialogue that would produce meaningful results. Perhaps the situation has been deliberately mismanaged, so as to make the political forces appear unable to agree on anything.

 

Either the political forces have been trapped by the government, or they were aware of the trap and agreed to step into it, in return for a few seats in a parliament, which will not lead society towards true democracy anyway.

 

I participated in a similar dialogue about the Constitution a few years ago. It was held by the Deputy Prime Minister under the military council, following the ouster of President Mubarak. The result of the dialogue was complete freedom for the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis to devise the Constitution as they pleased. In the end, the Constitution was based on discrimination and segregation among citizens, paving the way for a truly religious state.

 

I also participated in government negotiations about the law of the House of Representatives. The government, having put aside all the suggestions, produced a law that gave 80 percent of the seats to individual candidates. This allowed all the men of Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafis, as well as the rich and the powerful to dominate the parliament again, in a tacit agreement to remain loyal to the executive power, so as to keep their seats and stay away from the snares of unconstitutionality, which I think the government has intentionally introduced in the election laws.

 

Egyptians are now suffering from the incompetence of the political forces, which demanded to amend the roadmap, so as to hold presidential elections before the parliamentary ones, producing a result deeply inconsistent with democracy, by granting legislative powers to the executive.

 

A good government knows the difference between dialogue, debate and rhetoric. Had the government been serious about the dialogue, it would have determined an objective, chosen the participants, expected results and set a timetable.

 

However, the participants did not know what they were going to talk about. Were they going to talk, as did the Transitional Justice Minister, about implementing the ruling of the Constitutional Court with regard to the unconstitutionality of Article III of the electoral districts law and its supplement about the individual-base constituencies? This does not require dialogue, because the court made it clear in its explanation as to how legislators can avoid unconstitutionality. 

 

Were they going to talk, as did the Prime Minister, about the three laws of the electoral system concerning the House of Representatives, the exercise of political rights and the electoral constituencies?

 

It was not clear what the government expected from the participants. It appears that merely inviting them to a dialogue was in itself the objective, similarly to the case of the previous dialogues, regarding the Constitution and the House of Representatives. Their intention was to create a media image of the government engaging in dialogues, while the “Deep State” was devising the laws back in the kitchen.

 

Had the government really wanted to discuss the future of legislation in light of the relationship between the government branches that was established by the Constitution, it would have presented questions for the dialogue to answer.

 

The first question would have been: Do we want a strong multi-party political system as stipulated by Article 5 of the Constitution, or do we want a system of weak political parties?

 

The second question: How can we use Article 146 of the Constitution to form a parliament with a coalition able to help the president form a government? The article, after all, gives a decisive role to the parliamentary majority in this regard.

 

The third question: Are those dialogues meant to discuss the technical aspects of the legislation? Or an electoral system that can help our political life and our parliament become mature, to act in accordance with the Constitution?

 

The fourth question: In light of the answers to the last three questions, what are the amendments that the political forces deem necessary to introduce to in the existing legislation, in order to render it fully constitutional, and to achieve a political vision of a democratic society, in which powers are equally balanced?

 

It seems the government and the political forces were aware of that, but chose to discuss technical aspects in a pseudo-dialogue, in pursuit of their own personal interests.

 

Perhaps because of the absence of an objective, or rather the presence of an ulterior motive, next to the well-known parties represented in previous parliaments, the government invited other nascent political forces that we have never heard of before, as well as public figures that never appeared to be interested in politics. Perhaps the only shared characteristic among them is their loyalty to the “Deep State.” Perhaps the government should have held separate dialogue sessions for each of those parties, rather than bring them together in the same session, so as to avoid the shouting and screaming that we have witnessed.

 

In any case, two opinions prevailed during the discussions. The first one addressed the three electoral laws, not only in terms of their consistency with the Constitution, but also in terms of their political relevance and validity for Egypt in terms of power balance, while the second one considered the existing laws to be adequate, stating that only minor adjustments are needed in case of electoral districts. The second opinion, which happened to be louder, was taken into consideration, although it came from forces that do not have any weight in political life.

 

In my opinion, giving only 20 percent of the seats to the absolute list system risks future unconstitutionality, since it is a waste of votes. If a particular list wins half the votes plus one and another one wins half the votes minus one, the first list wins and the second is completely excluded, which contradicts the philosophy of the list-based system and the right of citizens to political participation.

 

Certain law experts have claimed that the court found the list-based system to be constitutional, which is not true: the court said the redistricting and the allocation of seats were indeed constitutional, but the absolute lists are a fascist system that is incompatible with the foundations of a democratic state, violates the right to political participation and the principles of equal opportunity and equality before the law.

 

Dialogue is important, not with the government, but with the public, so it knows what is being schemed for Egypt. The plan seems to be to produce a parliament of deputies that render a service but have nothing to do with politics. Yet it may turn out to be a parliament in which one third of its representatives are opponents of the June 30 revolution, which may impede the approval of laws, including the presidential election law.

 

Under the military council, I tried with other lawyers to persuade the Deputy Prime Minister to amend Article 60 of the Constitutional Declaration, so that the Brotherhood does not form the Constituent Assembly on its own. But when he asked me if I presented this to the military council, I learned that it is not the ministers who take decisions in Egypt.

 

I will have more to say on that matter in due course.