Egypt Government Profile 2012

Egypt’s political outlook is unpredictable. Parliamentary elections and presidential polls are due in 2010 and 2011, respectively. The elections will be a real test to the National Democratic Party (NDP), the party that controls the parliament. In 2009, the NDP held its sixth annual conference in Cairo with the slogan “Just for you”. The conference covered various social and economic policies of which support to the majority vulnerable, pro-poor policies and agricultural policies were key.

The year 2009 was characterised by a wave of public protests. Trade unions and syndicates of pharmacists, lawyers, teachers, doctors, factory workers, truck drivers, students and journalists have amount protested against the government’s tax increases or demanded higher wages or pay of the successful strikes was that of pharmacists against tax increases. Ultimately, the government agreed to meet their demands. The pharmacists’ nationwide strike was a protest against a Ministry of Finance decision to enforce a 2005 tax law retroactively. The ministry announced that it would collect tax arrears dating from 2005 and that pharmacists would no longer be considered small businesses for tax purposes and hence subject to a 15% flat tax compared with the tax of 7% they were used to paying. Another notable strike is that of the citizens of Egypt’s El-Alamein zone on the Mediterranean coast who protested against the continued presence of World War II land mines that cause the death of civilians. The protesters demanded that the developed nations provide financial help in removing the land mines.

Egypt held its first competitive presidential elections on 7 September 2005, following constitutional amendments ratified in a public referendum on 25 May 2005. These amendments constituted the majority substantive reforms during Mubarak’s presidency. With these reforms, Mubarak succeeded in both relieving external pressure and undermining the opposition’s major demands. Until then, the presidential candidate was nominated by a-thirds majority of the People’s Assembly and confirmed in a national referendum. The hegemony of the National Democratic Party (NDP) in parliament ensured that the nomination of President Mubarak would never be challenged, and until 2005, he had been the only candidate to run in successive presidential elections since 1981. Egypt’s constitution places no limitation on the president’s term in office.

In the September 2005 elections, a total of 15 candidates ran for direct election by the voters. As a 2005 policy brief of the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies put it, “The president, like other candidates, had to go to the political marketplace to ask for votes, explain his program, and respond to evaluations of his policies. The awe of the Pharaoh has gone, and the humanity of politics has become possible.” However, retrospectively, this expression of what became known as Cairo Spring seems rather optimistic. The amendments include provisions that limit their real impact. For example, only parties that are represented with additional than 5% of seats for additional than years in parliament have the right to nominate a candidate (none of the legal opposition parties has additional than 5% of seats). Independent candidates need 300 signatures, including 65 from the People’s Assembly and 25 from the Shura Council (both dominated by the ruling NDP) inclunding significant support from representatives of the 26 governorates). Thus, these amendments have changed nothing. President Mubarak won his fifth term with a majority close to 88% (93% in the last uncompetitive vote in 1999). The Ghad Party’s Ayman Nour came in second with 600,000 votes.

Egypt’s bicameral parliament dates back to 1980. In both the People’s Assembly (454 seats, 444 elected by popular vote, 10 appointed by the president) and the Consultative Council (264 seats, 176 elected by popular vote, 88 appointed by the president) the ruling NDP currently has a-thirds majority. From now on, the nature of this majority requires further explanation. Out of the 400 candidates fielded by the NDP in the 2005 parliamentary elections, only slightly over 100 won. Therefore, the NDP could only fasten the majority within the People’s Assembly by reintegrating large numbers of candidates who ran and won as independents (a good example of the mechanisms of patronage). The participation rate in elections is low (24% of registered voters in 2000; 26.2% in 2005). The dominance of the NDP is further strengthened by the fact that President Mubarak serves as both chief of national and leader of the NDP. Parliamentary and local elections are regularly manipulated in favor of the ruling party. During the 2005 campaign, the government arrested 1,000 people on accusations of different forms of violence. These were as well the first elections under total judicial supervision. They were as well monitored by civil society organizations. However, a constitutional amendment in March 2007 ended the supervisory function of the judiciary for elections and transferred it to an electoral commission. The commission, however, is elected by the chambers of parliament, in which the ruling NDP has the majority.

Members of parliament are elected on a regular basis by direct, secret and universal ballot elections. Parliament can be dissolved by a referendum called by the president. The constitution does not mention the principle of free elections. Although article 5 of the constitution states that Egypt is a multiparty system, the Political Parties Affairs Committee, which manages the entry of new political parties, has been very restrictive. Since the constitutional amendment in March 2007, article 5 now clearly states that any party founded on a religious basis is forbidden. This is a tailor-made article to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist movements from becoming legal parties. Furthermore, the president appoints ten members of the People’s Assembly. Thus, much of the apparent pluralism in Egypt’s parliamentary elections is cosmetic.

The 2005 elections changed Egypt’s political picture. The NDP lost some of its power. The illegal Muslim Brotherhood, whose candidates ran as independents, increased its representation in the People’s Assembly from 17 seats in 2000 to 88 in 2005. At the same time, the legal secular-liberal opposition (the Wafd, Tagammu’, the Nasserist Party, and Al-Ghad) and minority representation (women and Copts) lost ground. The majority of Coptic members of parliament are appointed by the president rather than elected. In the 2005 elections, Coptic representation decreased from seats (three elected and appointed) to seats elected and appointed).