Glass half full

Amr Hamzawy, now a secularist member of the Egyptian parliament, returned to the Carnegie Endowment where he once worked on democratization issues today with a more optimistic version of what is going on in Egypt than the one I reported earlier this week.

Democratic transition is always messy, but Amr suggested four facts important to judging whether things are improving or not:

1.  Egypt is way behind its original timetable for transition, which called for turnover of the government from the military to civilians within six months.  It will take 17 or 18 months, provided the first round of the presidential election occurs later this month, as now planned.  Preparation of the constitution, which should have preceded the presidential election, will now occur afterwards, giving the new president the abundant powers the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces now exercises and influence over the constitutional outcome.  In addition, the constitution-drafting body has now been blocked in court, because of its legitimacy deficit. It did not include sufficient non-Islamist or women’s representation.

2.  Human rights violations continue “nonstop.”  Civilians are still tried in military courts, even more than was done under Mubarak. Military crackdowns on demonstrations are deadly and brutal.

3.  Egyptian politics are nevertheless dynamic and diverse, with citizens fully engaged.  There is currently a spirited debate on whether the presidential election should proceed.  There is also ample debate within the various political forces, with the Islamists far from unified.  There is no general moderating trend.  The Muslim Brotherhood (Freedom and Justice Party) is becoming more pragmatic on the constitution and rights, but more conservative on social issues.  The Salafists (El Nour) are very conservative on personal freedom but good on freedom of association and also on NGOs.

4.  Non-Islamist political forces are strengthening and cooperating more with Islamists, who increasingly recognize the importance of consensus to the legitimacy of what they do, including in constitution-writing.  There are plans for various non-Islamist parties to merge under the umbrella of Mohammed el Baradei’s constitutional party, something they could not do before the elections because they needed to test their relative electoral strength.  The Islamists will not benefit much from their current time in power, because they are not delivering on their inflated promises.  Their popularity has peaked.  The Americans are wrong to focus their attention so strongly on the Muslim Brotherhood.  The non-Islamist forces in parliament will soon deliver a liberal draft law on nongovernmental organizations as well as legislation against torture and sexual harassment.  Al Azhar, the most important religious authority in Egypt, has done papers on democracy and personal freedoms that are very good and will influence the political forces, which have generally endorsed Al Azhar’s views.

Of course there are many other shortcomings:  security sector reform hasn’t begun, rule of law is weak. Christians are not well-represented in the current parliament and some are leaving Egypt, but others are engaging more in the political sphere to regain lost ground.

Having ended natural gas exports to Israel, Egypt will maintain the Camp David peace treaty but no more so long as settlement activity continues.

There are difficult years ahead, but the Egyptian transition has not yet failed.