On Saturday, Egypt will vote on whether to adopt a series of amendments to its constitution that will curtail the powers of the executive branch and improve the rules for elections. But Egyptians have to vote for the amendments as a package, and it's far from clear that adopting them, as opposed to scrapping the constitution and starting from scratch, would provide the surest route to true democracy.
TAP talks with Northwestern School of Law professor Kristin Stilt, who is in Cairo observing the process.
How were the amendments proposed?
Before [former Egyptian dictator] Hosni Mubarak resigned, he said, I'm going to make amendments to certain key parts of the constitution mainly dealing with the presidential election, because at that point, he had said he was willing not to run again. But the way the constitution works, it almost made it impossible for anyone other than someone from his own party to be a candidate. Of course, that was rejected, and he ultimately resigned, but before he resigned, he appointed an amendment committee to look at these exact provisions.
Once Mubarak resigned, the military came in, and they appointed a different amendment committee that was more representative, although it's not that representative. That new commission was looking at the same provisions that Mubarak had admitted were problematic. So, the current amendment committee, while appointed by the military council, is, many will argue, essentially doing the work of the former president. They're fulfilling an agenda that was set by the former president -- they're not fulfilling an agenda that that comes from the people.
Who wasn't represented on the council?
The big effort to be inclusive was to let the Muslim Brotherhood have a member. But other than that, there really wasn't an effort to be diverse at all. There really weren't members from the liberal parties. There were no women. The judges that were picked were judges who were considered to be tight with the former regime. The head was Tarek El-Bishry, who is sort of an Islamist, an independent -- he was seen as someone who would be clearly not from the former regime. But by and large, people here view it as not as different from the kind of group that Mubarak wasn't chosen.
How was the original constitution adopted?
It was adopted in 1971 by Anwar al-Sadat. Interestingly, even though it had incredible powers for the executive, it was adopted over a three-month period, where an appointed commission drafted it, but then they went across the country and had these town hall meetings across the country to get people's input. The irony is that although that constitution was not the greatest, in some regards, the process was fairly inclusive or at least intended to look inclusive. Here with the amendments, there was no effort to get anyone's opinion other than those 10 people on the commission, and that's a point of real contention, amongst the people who are voting no. They were promised input on the amendments, and they got none. We don't even know exactly what the amendments say; we just have descriptions of what they will say, not the actual text.
What made this amendment process necessary?
The worst thing was the way the presidential election was described in the constitution. According to the old constitution, you already had to have a pretty big force in the parliament in order for your party to nominate a presidential election candidate. So it eliminated a lot of small parties, and parties that do not yet exist, from nominating a presidential candidate. Of course, the big obvious one was the Muslim Brotherhood and any party that might come from them. So that had to change. There couldn't be a genuine presidential election without that change. There are a couple of other things too, like limiting the president to four years and only allowing two terms.
How far do the amendments really go in making Egypt more of a democracy?
They only treat the most egregious provisions related to the presidential election, and they make it harder for the emergency law to be applied. But they were really only intended to deal with that one tiny issue: the presidential election. That was something that was so bad with the constitution that we could go forward with those in place. Of course, the opposition says this is crazy, we don't want to patch up this bad constitution, we want to start over, now.
What happens if the amendments get adopted?
If they're adopted, then we presume, although it's never been stated clearly, that the constitution will go back in force, with these amendments, and that the parliamentary elections will be held in a few months. A few months after that, the presidential election will be held. Once that's completed, the parliament has the power, if half of the members agree, to then begin writing a new constitution.
Why are some who support democracy supporting the constitutional amendments?
The amendments were drafted in a way that was completely against the whole point of the revolution, by a few people, no transparency, completely secret, presented to the public, take it or leave it, you have to vote for all of them yes or all of them no, the idea that you have to do it or bad things will happen. Even if, amendment by amendment, they all look decent, that's not the way this is supposed to happen. This is supposed to happen in a transparent, all inclusive process. Many people object to "patching up" what they see as a bad constitution. They want to start fresh in a proper democratic way.
So there's a lot of process-oriented complaints which I think are quite legitimate. There are also consequential complaints, and those go something like this: If we adopt these now, we've been in this mad rush to have parliamentary elections in a short period of time. The sooner we have elections, the less chance new parties will have to form and get themselves organized and gather people to vote for them. Earlier elections may just benefit the current powers: The former ruling party and the Muslim Brotherhood, who, although not a party because they were banned, has very entrenched support that they could bring to bear on an election process. It will shut out all these new parties, the new movements that are just now forming. They won't even have a chance if they rush to elections.
What if the amendments fail?
If they fail, the military council will have to come up with a new proposal, and presumably, they'll get the message that they didn't do it right last time, and they better figure out how to propose something acceptable. So maybe they'll do what a lot of people want, which is form or appoint or elect a broad-based council to draft a new constitution. There's an irony in a way, that a lot of people think what we need to do first is a new constitution and it's going to take a year -- they're willing to tolerate military rule until the new constitution is in place. So it's not clear what will happen if the amendments get voted down.
What do you think is the best-case scenario for democracy in Egypt?
Even though it will turn into perhaps a messier situation in the short term, I think a "no" vote is the best answer. I don't see these amendments, and rushing into a parliamentary election, serving the right purpose. I think there's a lot to be said for the fact that it's only going to help entrenched interests, and it's not going to give a real democratic process a chance. It's just going to reshuffle some names and add a new group in, the Muslim Brotherhood, but it's not going to be a real democratic step. That's probably the best result, but we'll see.
People want to get the economy back on track, and the military council has done a pretty good job of making people feel like if they vote no, they're voting for more uncertainty, but if you vote yes, you're voting for more clarity in the process, and a quicker turnover to civilian rule. They're scared, they're nervous, they don't want the military rule to go on forever.
