On The View From Egypt, Part One, Or, How Professionals Rig Elections
It has been but a few hours since Sarah Palin took the stage to have a conversation with Joe Biden, and of course the Nation has a ton of questions.
What will happen now? I don’t know...and I’m not even going to try to figure it out right this minute. Instead, we’re going to take a trip halfway across the world to a country that has been essential to understanding the Middle Eastern story, has been at the center of international conflicts time and time again...and has lessons to teach us that, if we learn them well, could make us a much smarter “Foreign Policy Nation” than we are today. The country? Egypt.
So grab your virtual passport...and after we arrive, there are a few people I want you to meet.
This is part one of a bigger story, and over the next few days I’m going to try to give you some recent history (well, recent for a country with a history that goes back 7,000 years...), along with an explanation of how political factions are aligned today...how some political factions aren’t even allowed to align...and a few words about the hazards of having an opinion in Egypt—even if it’s online.
Included will be a critical lesson: Democracy and Freedom, which we say we support, can lead to the election of people we don’t like...and that the true measure of a democracy is accepting—and sometimes even encouraging--those outcomes, even if we don’t like them. So before we can talk about Egyptian politics, we have to talk about...Egyptian Politics. The Constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt has provisions that pretty much guarantee that there will be no meaningful political opposition. We’ll go right to the Constitution itself for an explanation of how it’s done (where it appears, emphasis was added by me):
PART ONE The “State of Emergency” provision was invoked in 1981 after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat—and it has been faithfully renewed by his successor, President Hosni Mubarak, every two years since, most recently in May of this year. You may have noticed that political parties are regulated by law. Specifically, it’s Law 177/2005. Below is the important language (emphasis will again be added where I think it is needed):
Article 4: We will continue with the text of Article 8 in a moment, but before we do, some explanations are in order. The Shura Council is one of the two halves of Egypt’s Legislative Branch; and it serves a function somewhat similar to that of the United States Senate. Because Egypt’s National Democratic Party (NDP) controls Parliament and the Presidency, the Political Parties Affairs Committee (PPAC), who grants the license you need to form a political party (and can revoke it as well...) consists of the Speaker of the Shura Council, (obviously, an NDP member), two members of the President’s Cabinet, and six people appointed by the President. The obvious conflicts between this arrangement and what we would think of as a true multiparty system will be the focus of part two of this story...but for now, we return you to Article 8, already in progress:
...To exercise its competencies, the Committee may demand much documents, papers, data and clarifications at it deems as necessary, from the concerned parties as much time as it determines. It may also demand any documents, papers, data or information from any official or public body and it may conduct on its own or through a sub-committee of its own such research as it may deem appropriate. It may also commision [sic] any such official bodies as it may deem appropriate to conduct or study necessary to reach the truth about matters submitted thereto... These clauses tell us that the Government’s PPAC can start it’s own investigations of any party—and that Parties are not allowed, by law, to align themselves together in coalitions. I am often guilty of going too long in these stories...so let’s get to the end of part one. Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak and the NDP have created an ongoing quarter-century “emergency situation” that allows them to decide who can be a political party, that allows them to revoke the license of a party that they feel violates the rules they create...and because of the Constitutional mandate to protect “National Unity”, any political party that says the NDP is doing anything wrong is potentially in violation of the law. These rules create conditions that are impossible to satisfy, and as a result politicians, protesters...and even bloggers...are at risk for arrest and imprisonment. But that’s a story for another day—and to make the story better, when we get together next time we’ll be meeting one of those politicians in a very close-up and personal way.
On The View From Egypt, Part One, Or, How Professionals Rig Elections | 1 comment (1 topical)
On The View From Egypt, Part One, Or, How Professionals Rig Elections | 1 comment (1 topical)
|
Recommended Diaries
Recent Diaries
LET'S SAY GOODBY TO ADAM SMITH
By leduc (1 comments)
Farmers Feel Health Care Crunch
By The Country Doc (0 comments)
Douglas County Commissioner Dane Keane has been quick to say that his problems are in the past.
By Dixie (0 comments)
Putting the Pressure on Our Federal Legislators
By Karen Backman (0 comments)
On The View From Egypt, Part One, Or, How Professionals Rig Elections
By fake consultant (1 comments)
WakeUpWalmart.com Skewers McCain in New Ad
By wakeupwally (0 comments)
The "YOU broke it, YOU pay for it" Plan
By Pen (1 comments)
Fire Harry Reid.
By dlaw (0 comments)
Moments of Truth
By Pen (0 comments)
The Deal is Done
By ktkeller (15 comments)
Permanent reusable protest sign
By eridani (4 comments) Related Links+ 7,000 years+ Constituti on + May + Law 177/2005 + Shura Council + grants the license + fake consultant's Diary Washblog RSS FeedsPolitical ContactsLocal MediaCoastal/Grays HarborAberdeen Daily World Chinook Observer Montesano Vidette Pacific County Press Willapa Harbor Herald KXRO 1320 AM Olympic Peninsula Peninsula Daily News Bremerton Sun Bremerton Chronicle Gig Harbor Gateway Port Orchard Independent Port Townsend Leader North Kitsap Herald Squim Gazette Central Kitsap Reporter Business Examiner KONP 1450 AM Sound and Islands Anacortes American Bainbridge Review Voice Of Bainbridge San Juan Journal The Islands' Sounder Whidbey NewsTimes South Whidbey Record Stanwood/Camano News Vashon Beachcomber Voice Of Vashon KLKI 1340 AM North Puget Sound Bellingham Herald The Northern Light Everett Herald Skagit Valley Herald Lynden Tribune The Enterprise Snohomish County Tribune Snohomish County Business Journal The Monroe Monitor The Edmonds Beacon KGMI 790 AM KELA 1470 AM KRKO 1380 AM Central Puget Sound King County Journal Issaquah Press Mukilteo Beacon Voice of the Valley Federal Way Mirror Bothell/Kenmore Reporter Kirkland courier Mercer Island Reporter Woodinville Weekly Greater Seattle Seattle PI Seattle Times KOMO TV 4 KIRO TV 7 KING 5 TV KTBW TV 22 KCTS 9 UW Daily The Stranger Seattle Weekly Capitol Hill Times Madison Park Times Seattle Journal of Commerce NW Asian Weekly West Seattle Herald North Seattle Herald-Outlook South Seattle Star Magnolia News Beacon Hill News KIRO 710 AM KOMO AM 1000 KEXP 90.3 FM KUOW 94.9 FM KVI 570 AM South Puget Sound The Columbian Longview Daily News Nisqually Valley News Lewis County News The Reflector Eatonville Dispatch Tacoma News Tribune Tacoma Weekly Puyallup Herald Enumclaw Courier-Herald The Olympian KAOS 89.3 FM KCPQ 13 KOWA FM 106.5 UPN 11 Cascade/Okanogan Ellensburg Daily Record Levenworth Echo Cle Elum Tribune Snoqualmie Valley Record Methow Valley News Lake Chelan Mirror Omak chronicle The Newport Miner Spokane/Palouse The Spokesman-Review KREM 2 TV Spokane KXLY News 4 Spokane KHQ 6 Spokane KSPS Spokane Statesman-Examiner Othello Outlook Cheney Free Press Camas PostRecord The South County sun White Salmon Enterprise Palouse Boomerang Columbia Basin Herald Grand Coulee Star Walla Walla Union-Bulletin Yakima Herald-Republic KIMA 29 Yakima KAPP TV 35 Yakima KYVE Yakima Wenatchee World Tri-City Herald TVEW TV 42 Tri-cities KTNW Richland KEPR 19 Pasco Daily Sun News Prosser Record-Bulletin KTCR 1340 AM KWSU Pullman Moscow-Pullman Daily News |