Prescriptions for Egypt's Smooth Democratic Transformation

Prescriptions for Egypt's Smooth Democratic

Transformation

Introduction: In January 25th, 2011, the Egyptian youth, who forms the majority of the Egyptian population, launched a revolution that ended Mubarak’s autocracy in eighteen days. The protests that packed streets and major squares all over Egypt were motivated by the dream of democratic transformation that would consequently lead to better socio-economic development and open space for more rights and freedoms. As soon as they were done with bringing down the dictators, Egyptians found themselves faced with the tough question of what it takes to build up democracy. As a reputable think tank with long history of studying democratization in Egypt and the Arab world, the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies (IKC) launched a research project to help the Egyptian people understand the essence of democratization. With the generous funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) we started a number of roundtable discussions, public opinion polls, and academic research to promote public debate on sensitive issues related to the subject of democratic transformation in Egypt. The fruit of this important work, starting October 2011 and ending September 2012, is published in this book. The book is composed of four chapters. Each chapter is covering a crucial point that is required to ensure a smooth process of democratization that matches the special characteristics of the Egyptian society. The first chapter looks for the preferred political governance model for Egypt. It questions whether the Egyptian social and political needs would be properly met through a presidential or a parliamentary system. The research includes an analysis of the political development in Egypt and comparative studies of multiple experiences in democratization as well as an analysis of public opinion data. While writing this chapter, we consulted members of the Constituent Assembly which was formed by the dissolved parliament in early 2012. The second chapter compares between the several electoral systems that takes place in different countries all over the world, in order to choose the most appropriate system for political development in Egypt. We wanted to help decision-makers then to choose the best electoral system that would fit the nature and demographic distribution of the Egyptian population. We have invested our long experience monitoring Egyptian elections since 1995 to suggest the best system to avoid rigging and encourage more citizen involvement. The third chapter focused on the role of civil society in the post-revolution Egypt. We studied how the civil society played a crucial role in paving the way for bringing down Mubarak, through educating people about their human rights and encouraging youth to practice their right to free expression either through traditional or new media channels. Then, we discussed how the role of the civil society should be re-defined to fit the new era and help Egypt succeed in the tough mission of becoming a liberal democratic state that relies on institutionalism and constitutionalism and values individual rights and civil freedoms.

The fourth chapter tries to answer the most complicated question of how the economic profile of Egypt after the revolution would enhance or hinder the socio-political democratic transformation. Although the revolution was not primarily launched out of economic depression, one of the prominent slogans of the revolution called for “bread, freedom, and social justice.” The high aspirations of the Egyptian people for economic improvements were destroyed on the hard rock of reality only few months after the revolution. Therefore, we investigated to what extent policy-makers who were leading the country through this difficult transition understood the need for economic development as an integral part of political liberalization. Then, we suggested a number of actions that should be taken to save Egypt from economic failure through balanced liberalization. Egypt is a very important player in the Middle East and North Africa Region. Helping the country with such a long history and large size of population to apply democratic practices, would definitely change the whole region to the better and increases the level of peace and stability all over the globe. Dalia Ziada IKC, Executive Director October 2011

Entries for Constructing the New Egyptian

Political System

By Dr. Gehad Ouda

Ibn Khaldoun center for development studies Entries for Constructing the New Egyptian Political System

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Introduction In spite of the momentum of the general controversy concerning the constitution of

Egypt after the revolution of the 25th of January 2011, which raged with the beginning of the drafting of the new constitution, it was observed, through analyzing the general current discourse concerning the constitution, that all the parties involved in this dialogue are busy with issues that take the whole process away from the desired objective. They do not put into consideration the main issue that should be addressed; the transmission of the political system in Egypt to become a modernist civil democratic political system, in a way that helps to solve the problem of governing which the country is suffering from nowadays.

This paper aims at putting the issue of the constitution in Egypt in its right context

wishing to help in driving the general dialogue around the constitution, putting it in the general context of the development of the political system in Egypt. The main purpose of this paper is to highlight the structural constitutive dimension of constitutions in a way that shows the role constitutions play in building political systems, developing them, and show how it is possible to achieve this in the Egyptian context. This can be achieved through working on producing a constitution that is generated from the reality of the Egyptian political culture and in the same time generates values and concepts that help in developing reality.

This process requires dealing in a critical way with the theoretical approaches governing the current political constitutional thoughts and at the forefront the Structural-functional approach, not only in its classical draft, but also in drafting the different events and introducing new methodological tools that help in finding theoretical and practical solutions to deal with the problems that hinder the drafting of a new constitution. It will also help in generating values and principals out of the intellectual heritage of the environment we deal with and direct all of this in generating practical solutions for the problems facing the democratic transition in Egypt and the mechanisms and institutional preparations required to achieve this. This paper depends on two main hypotheses:

The first thesis: in this paper is that the construction of a political system must rise

from the travail of interactions and struggles of the political culture and its compatibilities and express them. The political culture is the infrastructure of the political system. The lack of this crucial factor in constructing a political system transforms the system into a piece of modernist engineering with weak infrastructure that is easy to be uproot and then the country enters repeatedly into a period of stray and false awareness and the nation becomes alienated.

This saying does not mean, in any sense, to adopt the argument of returning to the

religious and doctrinal origins considering them as the objective of the true believer, because this, in my opinion, reflects an imposed and authoritarian consciousness. We present, through this paper, the concept of “Practical Rationalism”, which is different from the “Applied Rationalism” that was addressed by Gaston Bachelard, the French philosopher. The practical rationalism is different from applied rationalism. What we need in our political

http://udel.edu/~jdeiner/strufunc.html

http://udel.edu/~jdeiner/strufunc.html


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culture is the construction of a political system that is able to generate practical concepts and practices that help in building development, secularism, and liberalism. In my opinion, what is considered to be practical rational proceeds what is considered to be an action of applied rationalism.

Bachelard defines “Applied Rationalism” as a result of the interaction of four

knowledge concepts: the first is that there is nothing to be considered a steady mind that governs all the patterns of our knowledge and we can say that the mind is one of the results of science. Secondly, there is nothing to be considered a comprehensive approach because the approach is like the mind; constructed subsequently out of the real work of the scientist. Thirdly, the reality of science raises the ability to build models with different shapes and on top of them the mathematical models. Fourthly and finally, the element of information comes from the interactions of the development of the phenomenon in its struggle with the everyday life.

This clarifies, consequently, why we consider practical rationalism is necessary to come first. Practical rationalism comes, according to international concepts, in two shapes: the first is what Pierre Bourdieu, the French sociologist, described practical rationalism as the structure of the relations that develops in the history and the context common sense. In this context anything that is practical is considered reasonable and anything that is reasonable is considered common. Moreover, what is common rises from expressive attributes from principals that generate distinctive and distinct practices. The second shape of practical rationalism comes from the legacy of Isolationists in “Ilm El Kalam”, or the study of speech and Jurisprudence as the practical mind is considered to be the entity capable of mental differentiating between the good and bad in the proof and the cognition. In this paper here, we will build a conceptual construction that will make us create something politically practical or create a scope for practical mechanism from the political aspect of the country and the society as follows: first, the ability that is represented in the tool that the man uses to achieve his free will and his choices, either if he practices them or not. Secondly, the responsibility that means that man should be responsible for his actions and this makes him practically free. In other words, his actions should be coming out of his free will and his personal abilities. Thirdly, there is the causality which indicates that reasons always occur because of human reasons. The reason is always the conductor to the causative factor or the reason is generated out of another reason as the action generated; meaning the causative generated has to be linked to the doer not to the resulting. Here, inference, which means that he knows the things inferred, was separated from sense, which means sensible perception until he knows the sensible thing. Therefore, knowledge would be the result of the inference leading to it and the sense causing it. Fourthly, it is necessary to differentiate between freedom and responsibility because the free choice of man does not mean he lacks recognizing the necessity of being responsible. Here we recognize the difference between the idea of necessity and oppression. Oppression expresses the state of the impossible freedom, responsibility, and necessity and this context it comes to express a constrained rationality.


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The second thesis: in this research paper is that the liberal culture has been oppressed authoritarian and sectarian since the twenties of the last century and up till today. This research seeks to build the scope for liberal social potentials in the context of a political system. This research is divided into three parts. The first addresses a critique of the idea of political functionality as it expresses systems that reflect relations in the political culture that have been settled on the doctrine of freedom and free choice and it does not reflect the controversial and possibilities of the relation of the individual, the benefit, the group, and the system. Secondly, to build entries from inside the Egyptian political culture to make room for the logic of freedom, free choice, and responsibility, and finally towards building a liberal constitution.

The first section: from functionalism to political culture constructive First: Criticizing the Constructive Functionalism Theory The constructive functionalism theory occupies a prominent position among contemporary sociological theories. We would hardly find a researcher in sociology or anthropology except if functionalism is clear in his works, interpretations, and approaches. Moreover, functionalism is the most widespread trend in studying social phenomenon.

Functionalism is an intellectual trend in sociology that consists of two interrelated elements represented in an imaginary model of the society and a systematic frame to analyze the society. The Structural concept is the intellectual foundation of functionalism. This concept has entered sociology through two sources; the classical source as represented in the functionalism opinions in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century and the contemporary source represented in the structural theory.

The historical roots of functionalism go back to the organic view of the society as

manifested in the thoughts of the pioneers, Marks, Comte, and Spenser. Afterwards the successive intellectual theories led to the contemporary functionalism. The functionalism trend was followed in biology, psychology, and anthropology before it entered into sociology. Biology, as a science that rotates around a main idea which is that each member and each part of the structure (the creature) has one or more functions that are necessary for the creature to stay alive. This was why biology regarded a living creature as a structure that consists of functionally related components. The same as biology, the theory of functionalism made the structure the basis from which any research should start. Functionalism has regarded the society as a whole that consists of a number of interrelated and interactive components that are also associated with the whole and each part of the society acts in a specific function.

This means that structural functionalism is based on the idea of the whole that

consists of different parts and each part plays its role. Each part depends on other parts in order to play his role. Accordingly, the functional support between different parts and between the parts and the whole takes place. The social operations, and the social relations generated from them, represent behavioral models generated from the feeling of the


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dependence individuals have towards each others and their needs to exchange feelings and to have interconnected thoughts and activities. This leads to the constructive linkages in the functional relations As an example of this, when we study a certain sect, we focus on three kinds of functions:

a- The function of the leader of the sect towards the society b- The function of the interrelated substructures inside the sect c- The function of the leader of the sect towards its individuals

This example clarifies that the recognition of social phenomenon requires discovering

the connection between the part and all the other parts or the other entire phenomenon. Accordingly, the emergence of the functionalism trend was a result of how the scientists viewed the society as one system that consists of a number of reactant components that support, affect, and modify each others.

The social function: means the role the system plays in the social construction (the

network of interrelationships of systems or units) which is explained sometimes as an attempt to recognize the extent of Interlacement and interaction taking place between the systems that compose the life of the society as a whole and the share of each system in maintaining the cohesion, continuity, unity, and structure of this society. The social function also refers to the contribution presented by the bigger society to the smaller groups it contains. Due to the complexity of social relationships, the functional analysis was a necessity and a basic analytical tool for researchers for studying the different shapes of social interactions and correlation. If the overall perception of the society is a necessary condition for the function, it is not enough to indentify its characteristics. This is because it is not enough to differentiate between functionalism and other intellectual trends in sociology and political sciences only through the idea of structure or even the concept of functionalism. Therefore, we regard that what distinguishes functionalism and indentifies its qualitative characteristics is what is used in this intellectual trend concerning qualitative methods to analyze social phenomenon that are included in the system or the structure. These methods are represented in the assumption that the phenomena being studied acts in a specific function in this system. This means it performs a noticeable influence in achieving the existence and the continuity of this system and the assumption that identifying the function which the phenomena plays is an explanation of the phenomena itself. This means that the functional explanation of the social phenomenon focuses on the studying the outcomes and the consequences resulting from the existence of the phenomena more than the focus on studying its reasons or the sources behind its emergence.

If the functionalism theory is important in studying the society, the issue seems to be

more complex when it comes to the study of contemporary societies which we can not deal with the structures inside them as paramount facts due to the big changes that take place in the societies nowadays. On the contrary, the primitive societies can be studied as absolute fixed societies that do not change except in a very slow pace. This was an important


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criticism point of the functionalism trend and its ability to face the issues of change and their variables. Many accusations were placed against the functionalism trend as a trend that focuses on the issues of balancing and integration and neglects the issues of change and conflicts. Perhaps this led to the emergence of methodological trends which reject the ideas of functionalism like the sociology of knowledge which was advocated by Thomas Kuhn, the Frankfurt School, and the Marxism trend. Some functionalists, including Neil Smelser, have tried, in our modern times, to develop a new concept for functionalism in order to accommodate the study of change which means that the functions carried out by a certain system come to a point where these functions are spread in other different systems. Thus a form of the social balance takes the place of another form that is more complex and until this replacement is achieved, the system will pass by a phase of tension and turmoil.

In spite of all this criticism, we can say that the functionalism trend was dominant at

the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century in a strange way which made functionalism become the methodology for most of the theoretical trends in sociology and it had a special characteristic; that it acted in the society as a functional social structure. According to this basis, the society was analyzed and their phenomenons were understood. Although there were several leaders for functionalism like Durkheim, Pareto, and Merton, it is never possible to speak about functionalism without referring to the writings of Parsons, the leader of contemporary functionalism.

The attempt of Parsons in this context was aiming at formulating a general theory

while the experimental trend was prominent in the social studies in the United States especially when he insisted that the comprehensive theory is one of the most important stents required by sociology. Moreover, Parsons tried to read the history of thought in sociology with a new vision that enables him to find one theory in stead of having many several contradicting theories. Parsons indentified a general plan that consists of the following steps:

1- Setting up a reference frame 2- Describing the realistic world in the light of this reference frame 3- Coordinating between a group of issues which summarize the relations between

phenomenon as these phenomenon exist in the real world 4- Connect these issues with each others in a theoretical structure that is closed from

the logical side.

Parsons have set up a reference frame of the theory of social action and he used this

reference frame in describing the basic images in which the social action is formed in the shape of structures or systems; the cultural structure, the social structure, the personality structure, and the behavioral structure. Afterwards, Parsons tried to interpret these structures, some of them, or the relations between different components that compose each structure. Parsons also stressed on the importance of achieving the balance between the images of the reference frame or between the components from which it is composed. Each imbalance that occurs in any of these components will lead to a defect in the society as a whole which will necessary lose its balance and the whole society would collapse. Parsons


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used to consider functionalism as a methodology to understand and explain social phenomenon the same way as in the natural sciences.

Therefore, the realistic phenomena do not gain their importance for any scientific

studies except if it is possible to put these phenomena s in the light of a reference frame. The function of the reference frame is that it indentifies the scope of the phenomena which science attempt to explain. This is done through the selection of some aspects of reality which are considered important for the specialization of one of the sciences. Just as in the case of for social sciences in which the role of the functionalism theory is to discover its nature and to realistically deal with it. Although the functionalism theory was exposed to much criticism, it can never be neglected or bypassed. On the contrary, it still interests many thinkers of the modern times.

The constructive functionalism approach: this structural method derives a functional

from the usages of functionalism, the models of systems in anthropology, sociology, biology, and political sciences. The structural functionalism approach has spread in many places in 1960 when it became clear that the means to study the United States and Europe were not beneficial in studying newly independent countries and there was a need to have a new approach. Structural functionalism is assumed to be integrated in a comprehensive socio political system by the country with clear structures inside the system.

The constructive functionalists aim at answering the following question: what is

main building block inside the political system? The objective of this is to know what the reality is and not to assume what it should be or do. Therefore, the constructive functionalists do not waste time in studying constitutions in the countries of the Third World if they find out that they are constitutions (structures) that have little effect on the political reality. This approach assumes that there are specific political functions present in all political systems. These functions are as follows: the political upbringing, the search for political benefits, and gathering the different interests, and political communications. These functions are part of the governing process and its practices. The other main functions which is supposed to be present in all political systems is the actual transition process that result in outputs, main operations to maintain the patterns, and several abilities; distributional, symbolic, est. The constructive functionalists agreed upon a comprehensive analytical model for political systems and the governing systems scientists started studying the systems in the Third World and comparing them on the basis of how different structures act in these functions in different political systems. The structural functionalism is based on the model of systems. The political system can be perceived theoretically as follows:


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For analytical purposes, the political system is considered to be a nation state. The environment consists of the shapes of interactions between economical, social, and political variables and events on the internal and external levels. The idea is that there are a number of actors in the national political system (political parties, bureaucracy, military issues, est.) in a way where each actor influence other actors and they also affect and get affected by the system. The political analyst has to identify the importance of these actors’ trends in a certain political system. This is done through analyzing the functions played by different actors. Moreover, any changes that occur in a system affect also all other actors, as mentioned above. The feedback mechanisms allow the inputs of the variable to continue flowing.

The constructive functionalists represents the analysts of advanced technological

systems as we find some cognitive bias towards the logic of systematic balance and this means the tendency to the points of the system stability. This cognitive bias tends to make the approach more comprehensive, prefers stability, and struggles against evolutionary changes or any radical or revolutionary changes. The problem that arises with the present model of the system is the problem of the boundaries of the nation state. In other words, in the real world it is usually difficult to exactly identify what are the boundaries between the systems and the nations which lead in some conceptual hardships in the analysis. Again in other words, the constructive functionalism historically generates sequences of extended crises.

It is totally clear that the reality we live in is not the reality advanced systems live in. In spite of the historical achievements of the functionalism approach in its constructive perception, it was a reason in the Third World, especially in the Arab World, from the practical aspect, for the erosion of the political system in general. This failure occurs due to the historical dichotomy of the functions and the social values. Maybe this occurs due to the


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methodological perception of the concept of modernity the same way it was transferred to the Third World and the Arab World. Modernity was understood as the quest to create dichotomy. On the basis that modernity presents the discontinuity of the traditional concepts and structures and the old practices, the past was interrupted or deformed in a way that we can not recognize in the historical sense. From the other hand, the Arab modernity has produced nothing but the distortion of the roles, values, and political operations. Therefore, we have inherited the current bitter reality represented in different images of nations and the unsuccessful administrative and regulatory systems because the reality has to be theatrically and practically rescued with the use of mind and the will of the individual. Secondly: the constructive interaction methodology as a political culture

We assume that the origin of understanding the society is in understanding the perspectives of the individuals who interact together. The theory of “social interaction” focuses on the way in which individuals interact together, respond to each others, and affect each others. This theory puts many concepts of psychology in the folds of sociology. It does not focus on social structure, the political system, social classes, or the struggle of the stakeholders. This theory directs its scientific efforts on studying everyday social interactions between individuals as they are the origin and the center of the social theory, not the state, the economical system, or social institutions. Through the social behavior of the individuals, the society exists and our life affairs are regulated. The society is established, stabilized, and changed for the sake of the individuals and not for the sake of the society itself.

In this context, the sociologist, Erving Goffman, showed the social life as a theatre

where individuals play their different dramatic roles. While George C. Homans introduced the idea of exchanging the reward and the punishment as one of the results of how individuals affect each others. The reward represents the acceptance and the punishment represents the rejection. Harold Garfunkel adopted the idea of researching the roots of the social behavior. This means that if we want to understand the social interaction of individuals, we have to go below the social ground to understand how individuals build their trends and how they justify their social actions. On the other hand, George Meade insisted on believing in “the symbolic interaction” as symbols represent other things that we understand. The words are symbols representing specific symbols that we can realize. The same goes for signals, facial expressions, rules, and law as all of them are symbolic things with other intended meanings. The social interaction does not occur among individuals except through symbols like languages, writings, and traffic signals. Individuals do not understand the world directly except through a third way that has a meaning. The responses and effects among individuals take place towards this meaning. The words, the written letters, and the traffic signals do not have a meaning on their own but they are symbols that represent other meanings understood by individuals. The world we live in is symbolic and our social life needs explanations that we do not understand except through symbol.

However, all these contributions could not solve the problem of the transition from

the individual level of interaction to the creation of a collective level of any form of interaction. In this context, the structural theory was created as a solution for this problem.


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The primary assumption and the main entry is the recognition of the sociality of the human relations as the basis for the social formations from the historical perspective. This recognition opens the door to different methodologies for the history of modernity. The world we live in is relative from the angle of the vitality of the relations between the individuals and the groups. This means that the relations are created by us. This definition was created in 1989 and it deals with the mechanisms of establishing interest and its development on the individual level and the collective level. Here the individual appeared as the creator of his future as an existential (ontological) issue with empirical dimensions due to the unprecedented revolution in the field of technology and communications. The individual is the one who has a free will and the interaction between individuals usually happen through establishing social principals and rules and they change on their own. From the social rules, social relations are created and they are always changing because of technology and due to the disappearance of cognition of the logic of the primary constant interest. In this context we should not understand the material considering it as a physical issue mainly, but as being preceded by individual and collection conceptions, visions, and cognitive perceptions.

The constructivist theory: the constructivist regards the human behavior and the

social structure as two inseparable entities with a necessity to correlate together. In this context the drafting of principals, words, governing rules, practical applications, indicating operations, and pluralism are entries to produce social structures. The same goes for ideologies in the analysis of the reason behind their existence and not for analyzing the reasons behind their emergence. The constructivist theory does not focus on analyzing the interests and situations but it works on explaining the origins of the world.

The governing logic, as a methodology, in the theory is the viewing of the human

element as social agents that, through their interactions, go through a process of social selection and make arrangements of conflict. The dialectical constructivist recognizes the possibility of progressing in two opposing directions in the same moment, the fact that generates a dynamic constructivism empowers change gradually inside the structure. In other words, the individuals regulate the relations, and the relations allow the individuals to make changes, and the changes become multiple.

In the second part, we will see how the liberal social agents drafted a perspective for

the individual and the collective interests and thus the multiple changes view came to life. The second part: entries to establish a liberal political culture First: Ahmed Lotfy El Said: in the origin of the crisis of liberal political culture

The first existential principal for Ahmed Lotfy El Said is the necessity and inevitability

of providing an atmosphere that allows the emergence of the logic of social contract. As being proved by the thinkers of enlightenment, he says” the people contracting together get compromised among themselves, individually or combined, on a social charter, expressive and implicit, publicly and silently. They pledge to waiver their rights, all of them or part of them, for the benefit of a general public body that total will and have full Sovereignty over


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everybody. This body is expressed through a group of norms, rules, and laws that it sets up and enacts by itself which distribute the rights and responsibilities of its members. Those thinkers of enlightenment believe that the social contract is the fruitage of rational thinking, the desire for peace, and the cooperation to face dangers in the natural situation. It also transfers the human from the natural situation to the synthetic situation; meaning the situation of the civil society that has a political entity where the social rights replace the natural rights and the “ownership with rights”, which is recognized by the society and protected by the law replaces the ownership by “occupation” that depends mainly on the De facto situation that is in a stance of disputes and conflicts. Since the social contract has two parties; the ruler and the ruled, the balance and the stability of any society is based primarily on the balance in the relation between these two parties in the equation.

Ahmed Lotfy El Said regards, in the frame of a criticizing vision, the basis of this

relation became the distrust between the two parties of the contract; the ruler and the ruled. He says in his book; “Principals of politics, literature, and sociology”, “the government of Egypt was based on tyranny since the early ages and until today. The interest of the ruler was noticeable in all the laws he created and all his other deeds and sometimes these rules would also work for the benefit of the country by coincidence and without intention”. Lotfy El Said explains this trend from the side of the employers of the rule. “The government always consisted of foreigners with other religions, languages, habits, or manners that are different from the people of the nation. This was why the people were very conservative and cautious that the government would be really sincere and the government was far away from deserving sincerity. These sensitive issues and feelings remained in the nation for long periods of time and inherited from the fathers to their sons. It ruined the lives of many people and it wasted the mental freedom and the moral courage which is a quality of humans. All these reasons generated distrust between the ruler and the ruled.

Ahmed Lotfy El Said continues and asserts that the most important fortress of the

social contract is the relation of trust. He also mentioned the reasons behind this in the frame of his precise analytical vision through the observation of the behavioral patterns of the society as he says: “no body would be pleased to view most of the people living in villages exerting a lot of efforts to prevent an accused person from getting condemned. Not all the reasons behind this is the occurrence of a near crisis and preferring injustice before justice, but to consider that the government and its followers do not aim at the public good and benefit so people start standing in the face of its rules and decrees believing that this would achieve justice.

If we believe that the process of the social organization is greatly sensitive towards

the relations of power. If we think that our society was subject to colonialism from another society that was much more powerful, it is illogical to expect that the process of social organization and its outcomes of standards and social values would target fulfilling the needs of the original inhabitant only, but it is more logical that the process of social organization will be governed by power to achieve the interests of the colonist. Therefore, the values that arise in such conditions would be twisted and distorted and they would focus on fulfilling the short term needs on the individual level (in order at least to preserve the lives of the individuals). However, these values would neglect fulfilling the long term needs on the level of the society as a whole. (Meaning preserving the existence of the


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society, its systems, and institutions that work for the benefit of the people). We site, in this regard, the values and the behaviors of the Egyptian society that Lotfy El Said have monitored and analyzed in the frame of this vision that is considered to be among the secretions and the results of the estrangement that occurred between the people and the government as expressed by Lotfy El Said himself.

In the 21st of December 1907, Ahmed Lotfy El Said prepared the Egyptian

constitution according to the vision of the “Omma” political party demanding for Egypt’s independence form occupation. He travelled as part of the Egyptian delegation demanding for independence to the peace conference that was organized in Versailles in 1919. His vision was that “Egypt was for the Egyptians”. Lotfy El Said was sophisticated and advanced in the way he thought. He is the one who insisted to define the “Egyptian” considering it a specific nationalism that dates back to the ancient times way apart from the dependency of the Islamic caliphate which was considered by many of his contemporaries as one of the origins of Islam and that demolishing this concept would demolish the religion of Islam itself. This was why Lotfy El Said has suffered greatly from religious institutions, either the official or non-official ones. Such issues, addressed by Lotfy El Said, were considered a taboo that burns anybody who would address them. However, Lotfy El Said had enough courage to engage in such battles.

The refusal of Lotfy El Said towards the Islamic university was because of what he

called “the nationalism chaos”. He also rejected the concept of the “Islamic world” or the “Islamic Ummah” through which the authority of the Turkish Ottomans was established and according to this concept they controlled Egypt and ruled over the Arab World. Therefore, Lotfy El Said considered the principal of “Arab unity” a logical extension to the notion of the “Ummah” that the Turks processed. He was interested in education as an objective more than independence itself and many researchers agree with Lotfy El Said. According to the articles he wrote and the opinions he used to express, he views religion in a special way according to the sayings of the European Renascence, that everybody has the free choice of his religion, and homeland is for everybody. There are no differences between an Egyptian Moslem and an Egyptian Christian as all of them are Egyptians who have the same rights and there should not be any vituperative words of or a second class citizen. An Egyptian is “someone who has no homeland but Egypt.” His opinion in religion was that “the Islamic society is not better than the non-Islamic society”

When Lotfy El said became the president of the university, he said “I am not an

advocate for teaching a particular religion or a certain moral rule as the general education is based upon the good and the evil. He added that “the religion belongs to the conscience of the individual and not to the institution. The religion and the language do not determine the basis of this nation and that the relations between nations do not depend on unity, but it is based on mutual benefits.” It seems that the rationality of Lotfy El said was due to the fact that he was the student of Gamal El Dine El Afghany and Mohamed Abdo who taught him the principal of the sanctification the mind.

Ahmed Lotfy El Said believed that the loss of freedom is the main important reason

of backwardness and that tyranny is the origin of vices stating that the bad circumstances Egypt is suffering from was because of the lack of freedom. He asserted this when he said


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“we, as Egyptians, are in deep need to widen the field of work for the freedom of the individual so he can retrieve all the necessary characteristics of an advanced civil society”.

The main ideological properties of modernity, which represent in turn the properties

of enlightenment, as follows: 1- Depend on the abilities of science and human minds with the objective of treating the social diseases. 2- Secularism is the most important son of modernity. 3- Positivism is the method of modernity. 4- Asserting the concepts of the Egyptian citizenship and promote the slogan of “Egypt is for the Egyptians” and reject the concept of the “Ummah”. 5- Advocating for the use of the colloquial Arabic and stop using the classical Arabic. 6- In the political field, there was the concept of defending the natural human rights through the rule of law and to prevent the misuse of authority and all the procedures advocating for freedom of all forms.

The concept of freedom, according to Lotfy El Said, was the mainstay for

constructing a modern advanced society in order to become closer to the civilized western nations in an attempt to catch up with civilization. The concept of freedom, for Lotfy El Said, had many faces (Freedom due to the natural rights of the people – the political freedom, the freedom of expression…) The Features of Freedom in the modern thoughts of Lotfy El Said: The Meaning of Natural Freedom:

Regarding this matter, Lotfy El Said says:” Man is free due to his nature and he tends

towards freedom and towards advancement looking up to the ideal model and towards the easy means to reach it. He also added “freedom is natural and the tendency of people to gain it is necessary natural as well. This tendency becomes stronger with the vitality power and becomes weaker when the person gets weaker. The same way the stronger would not die because of hunger, he does not have the patience to live away from the ideal model of freedom. He noted, furthermore, “If we are asking for our freedom, we are not asking for much, we are only asking for the necessary nutrition of our lives. We ask for our right to exist. There is no soberer creature than this who is only asking for his right to live and for the means to live his life. Moreover, there is nobody who is less generous from this who assures that the living human being has his share in life”. He added as well “This natural freedom is useless if its effects are disrupted. The people who are imprisoned, prevented from talking, and prevented from writing, keep their freedom inside their selves, but they lose the right to make use of their freedom which means that they lose their civil freedom. Lotfy El Said does not find any meaning for freedom if it is not fruitful. This means that freedom is not functioning in the right way would be some sort of controversy. The Meaning of Political Freedom:

Its definition according to Lotfy El Said: it is that each individual fully participates in

the government of his country and that is what we call; the authority of the people. He says that “our political freedom is the guarantor of our personal freedom as it the patron for the appearance of the effects of our natural freedom. Being careful that we enjoy the effects of this freedom would mean that we always cling to seek gaining our freedom of speech and


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work. We cling to seek gaining our political freedom, which is all in all, as long as it is the only guarantor and patron in the society as it is a grace from god. Our freedom means our existence and there is no meaning for existence without it. Isn’t it the concept of our attention and caring towards the guarantor of our freedom, or towards our political freedom, means that we participate in the administration of our country to achieve the concept of the authority of the people. We have to exert all efforts and use all our time to gain this guarantor, but we have an excuse” The Meaning of the Freedom of Opinion:

Lotfy El Said says” I do not support the government in placing restrictions on the

freedom of press. However, I admit, on the other hand, that many of non journalists precedes the government in putting restrictions on themselves and they work as if the laws of press were set up for them. As if these laws dealt with the banning of their freedom of opinion. They are still, by the virtues of the law, free to express their opinions in official councils, non official councils, or any other occasions. The freedom of opinion is protected by the general laws as they do have an expensive price or they do not have a price at all. We cite the speech of those whose stature would allow them to ask the rulers about the conditions of Egypt and the degree of the satisfaction of the people concerning the circumstances in Egypt. We affirm to those people that ruling the country is fair enough that they should not resent from the effects of the freedom of opinion. The laws of the country protect the freedom of opinion. The person should not, for his own good, keep his opinion to himself, but he should express it freely and frankly whatever the cost for this is. What would be the case if he has the freedom of opinion that does not cost him anything.”

In conclusion, Ahmed Lotfy El Said failed to achieve his role in full as a social agent

and he only succeeded partly in the field of education as he was able, through being the president of the Cairo University and considered to be among the founders of the university, to establish some liberal habits in the university. Maybe this was due to the fact that the constructive dialectic was not functioning for his favor because the social agents who have the conservative political culture were stronger because of the deviation of the nationalism case to the populist track. In this point in time, there was a separation between the political power, as a carrier of authoritarian populist values, and the social power, as a carrier of values of high and middle classes liberty. They both started moving in separate tracks with none of them supporting the other until the occurrence of the coup of 1952 that unified the two tracks and the full construction of the tyranny populist authoritarian nation was completed. Secondly: Hussein Fawzy: the Liberal Introduction to the ignorance of Said Qotb

The problem of Hussein Fawzy, as a liberalist, crystallizes, in his inability to view the

constitutes of the Western civilization as a unified whole through the structural dialectic, we see that he had a clear stance. Concerning his belief in the “human endeavor to promote the globe” and his admiration of the western civilization achievement. However, during the sixties of the last century, he took a sharp critique attitude when this contradicts with the sense of nationalism or when it collides with the religious feelings. In his book “The Egyptian Sinbad”, which he wrote in the fifties over a period of many years, Hussein Fawzy identifies


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our comprehensive vision of the Egyptian civilization construction, as he criticized the journey of the Egyptian culture when they largely considered the material aspects of civilization, the constructions and the industry, since the reign of Mohamed Ali in the beginning of the 19th century passing through Refa’a El Tahtawy, the first emissary who recognized the importance of moral construction of people. He said “but in spite of this, we have dressed the Western civilization in the shirts of madmen. We inset the ills of the western civilization in its material form, in the tyranny of its people and their ugly greed. And so we had the means of the spiritual reform all mixed up and we lost the real constitutes of reissuance. At that time if we have believed in the intellectual, artistic, and scientific civilization of the west as an integrated whole that is inseparable from its material civilization, the reactionaries would have looked at us in rage and get accused as if we were rapists and colonizers. In that sense, we were not able to take the required steps towards the full natural development as this civilization and in the same time the reactionaries were not able to get rid of its tools and its materialistic devices. If we demand to benefit from the arts, advanced sciences, thoughts, and philosophy of the West, we were accused of blindly imitating the West and abusing authenticity and nationalism. This frustrating conflict that took place in the Arabian culture structure is still fierce. The historical events are evidences that we usually get stuck in copying the materialistic aspects of civilization and deform it without having the ability or the power to produce its isotopes. This is for a simple reason which is that we have never, until now, seriously taken into account the issue of the scientific participation in its deepest theoretical and practical levels and we have not established models (scientific communities) that gain the required funding the and necessary freedom.”

Here we see Hussein Fawzy pairing between the scientific and the artistic creativity

in his monitoring of the cognitive strategies shifts when he said in the context of the journey of his life “I travelled to France as a delegate filled with the meaning of the European civilization in its intellectual and artistic origins. I believed that the future of Egypt depends on the ability of achieving its constitutes of thought, science, art, and literature, not only in the copying of the scientific applications and technological experiences. The basis of technology is the mere pure science and the basis of pure science is the abstract thought which goes looking for the facts and the reality of things in a free scope. Our country has come out with a strange ides that is the lack of feasibility of theoretical researches and the pure studies carried out for the sake of science. Is it important to have a faculty of art in each university for example?!!! The meaning of this is to establish our national life based on imitating and copying, not on the evolution of the mind and the conscience and preparing them for creativity and invention. Creativity in the sciences is quite similar, in many ways, to the creativity in arts and literature. In both subjects, you are either an imitator copier, and there is no big value for your works, or you are a thinker, scientist, or artist, then you contribute in the construction of a national civilization with the foundation of thought and scenes and the basis of science and knowledge.

Hussein Fawzy adopts, in an Egyptian tone, the confiscate on the roominess of

structural dietetics as he says in his book, “Sinbad in the West”, “We, the Egyptians, are the most deserving to study civilizations because we are the most stabilized among the great heritage of humans that people humbly call (The Western civilization). This is not because it is a civilization that the west has celebrated, or inherited from his forebears, but because it


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grew and developed, according to the chronology, in Western Europe before it was imbibed and represented in the civilizations of Thebes, Memphis, Tyre, Sidon, Athens, Alexandria, Rome, Byzantium, Baghdad, Damascus, and Cairo. The civilization of today is mine as it is belongs to some Europeans. I am among its most important creators. How can I deny my self and my history and my efforts, philosophy, scientists, and thinkers of my grandparents, and their guests throughout history, to have this negative attitude towards this civilization today. This civilization is the plant of my hands, thoughts, and feelings, more than it is the plant of the Sicilian or Scandinavian. He continues saying: “Europe is our ideal to all what we need to achieve in our countries. Europe that I have defended and I still defend its civilization in spite of the reactionary movements that want us to view the sun while it is still rising while the procession is moving towards the west. He goes on saying “I don’t know if these organizations have defined backwardness using a scientific definition and I don’t think so. The observation, even in the larger countries, is that backwardness would be different in some respects or in some regions. We can also say that the underdeveloped countries may have some signs of advancement or at least in one of its regions, or one of its cities. Therefore, the underdeveloped countries are either countries that have never known civilization, which are quite little in our well connected world, or they are countries which colonization have dressed in the shirts of the madmen and made its people a ride for the prosperity of the cultivation of the colonist, his industry, and his trade.

Hussein Fawzy adds that “the difference between underdevelopment and

advancement is the “mental anxiety” that ends up usually with creation or invention and this is the main fuel of any civilization. The underdeveloped countries, even if it wears the dress of civilization, live as parasites of the civilization as these countries only imitate civilization or copy its tools in a strange passivity, not trying to create anything or develop anything from its side. Being passive is a very important factor in this regards as copying in itself is not considered a flaw if it is accompanied by the positivity of creation and invention. All European nations, even the greatest among them, imitate everything, every idea, and every civilization too. They even call scientists, thinkers, philosophers, and artists from other countries and entice them with all the temptations possible like politics, social, and money. However, they can never be called underdeveloped because it does not just copy these ideas passively but it invents something new everyday in all fields of life. Therefore, the advanced countries do not just wait for a foreign stranger to reclaim their lands or make use of their resources, but act as the main searcher, funder, and organizer of its social and economical conditions even if this meant to make use of some foreign consultants.”

Hussein Fawzy was among the supporters of the concepts of the civilization decline

and the civilization rise. He says “if we look at any civilization when it collapses, we will see that people are convinced that it was never possible to create or invent more than what has been achieved. The creativity and invention stop and the people start imitating the past and they start worshiping it. They start to simulate the predecessors in literature, arts, and everything else. This means that the mind stops working and that the civilization stops with it. Thus, we start entering into the dark ages. On the contrary, when the mind moves, this means the rise of the civilization, the renewal of ideas, and the rise of creativity, finding new solutions for the all the problems and lives of the people advance and thrive. Hussein Fawzy adopts the concept of Magdy Wahba that says that the break with enlightenment did not occur after 1952 when the people of the Third World observed the revolution of Egypt, but


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it occurred in 1956 when the war taking place in Suez ended the fascination illusion of Western Europe, the ally of Israel, invading our lands.

Hussein Fawzy really admired Machiavelli, especially his boo, “The Prince” and he

cited his opinion in that the ruler must be feared, not loved, when he confronts a choice. He believes that people do not have gratitude towards anything good, they always change their opinions, they are deceptive, they always avoid danger, and they are thirsting for more gain. If you deceive them, they start supporting you and giving you everything even their own children. When you seek support and help from them, they are not there for you. It is better not to believe their deceptive love. He also warns against the offense that the ruler would commit against his people, their honor, and their belongings, which is the most important among them because people forget about the murder of their son faster than they forget about their loss in properties or belongings. Machiavelli explained that if the most of the people were evil, the prince, defending himself, should be evil. The prince should act according to this principal whenever it is necessary with exerting efforts in all situations to show his nature. In the chapter specified for “How do the rulers keep their promises?” Machiavelli starts by confirming that the struggle for life should be governed by the law and that depending on power in the struggle of life is inhuman and that the ruler should not use the second option except when the first option does not work. The ruler should combine in his character the characteristics of a human being and of an animal. The Careful ruler should avoid keeping his promise if this means the occurrence of some harms or damages. He will not find hard at all, in the proper time, to find excuses for not keeping his promise and that if he trains on acting and pretending, it would be easy for him to deceive people.

When he returned to Egypt in the beginning of the thirties of the 20th century,

Hussein Fawzy became interested in the discussions taking place at that time like Westernization, the East and the West, and the Egyptians and Arabism. What is quite interesting is that we notice that most of his contributions went to the new magazine that was issued by Salama Yousef which was boycotted by most of the writers. This clarifies the truth of Salama Yousef and the fact that he agreed with the visions of Fawzy concerning the rejection he had towards the East and regarding the Western civilization as the highest stage of human mind development. Moreover, it is more human, spiritual, and rational superior to any state of mind that was ever achieved before as he says:

“It is a civilization that formed both the spiritual and the materialistic aspects

together and it advocates for the freedom of the human mind from any chains. Moreover, it helps the individual and encourages him to think freely. Thus it encourages him to study nature and philosophy. It tries to establish the principal of social equality and assists the individual to gain knowledge so he can be an active contributor in the enlightenment of the world. He also denounces the spiritual foundations of the East that leads the world towards negativity and reactionary. Fawzy considers the spiritual values as a necessary element in achieving development and advancement.

When he discussed the Arab Writers conference that was held in Cairo in 1957, he

described the attendants saying “those people have sincere Arabism because they do not view it in a doctrine, a denomination, or a gender. When I spent a period of my life studying one aspect of the Arabian Civilization in its prosperous period, the Arab unity appeared alive


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to me, as a complete comprehensive life. This period I have studies, from the 18th century to the 14th century, with the many books and resources I have found, ranging from East and the West of the Arab world, I felt the unity of the coefficients that interacted in the core of the Arabian civilization Hussein Fawzy says that “The Arabian Unity is more of an Islamic unity due to the fact that most of the Arabs are Moslems. This does not ignore the role played by the non Moslem minorities in establishing the Islamic heritage Edifice. We can never separate the large number of people who speak Arabic in the West and the East. The European colonialism used to prevent the communication between the Arabs and try to spate them as much as he can. However, when the Arabian nations gained its independence, we started get closer politically, culturally, and economically. This was embodied in the Arab League and the other organizations following it. We believe in all of this and we bless it with satisfaction. What we oppose is what is called the unity of the Arab world according to the slogans that were raised by the Egyptian leadership in the past few years. The experience Egypt has passed through, in that trend, which is the unification of Egypt and Syria was not promising from the very beginning since its first steps when Shoukry El Qoutly, the president of Syria, (he was among a big feudal) came to Gamal Abdel El Nasser in his most glorious periods after the withdrawal of the armies of the tripartite aggression, to ask for his help in the leftist pressures he was facing. The unity between the two countries was established within 24 hours without any studies or planning carried out and the results were not only problems but crises as well. Egypt, throughout its history, was a source of assistance and support to rescue the whole Arab world. The traders, students, and intellectuals from different Arab regions used to come to Egypt to be welcomed with support and hospitability. If a crisis or a famine occurs in any Arab region, Egypt would be always the first to present help and rescue.

He believed in the Arab unity that was established due to Islam and the Arabic

language, but he refused the political unification it transforms it is connected to the ruling systems, in his opinion. This unity is ephemeral and only the people of the Arab nations would stay and exist to embody the symbol of the Arab unity. According, in his opinion, there is nothing called the Sudanese Egyptian integration because Egypt and the Sudan always lived with one heart and one lifeline. He always believed that the efforts of the Arabian people to make use of the materialistic and human resources should be clumped for the well fare of the people. He sees that “every attempt to gather the Arabian nations on the basis of the political unity is doomed to fail because the personal factor is very important. The sons of the same region are more able to rise with their nations and indentify their country’s political, cultural, intellectual, and practical plans.

This is because they are more aware of the abilities, habits, and nature of their people. There should be a tournament between all the Arabian nation on the progress of civilization so each of us exerts his maximum effort for the sake of our small homeland and this will surly benefit our large Arabian homeland at the end.

Hussein Fawzy says, concerning his explanation of religion “in order to understand

the Egyptian character, its not obligatory for the researcher studying the history of Egypt to study the religious belief closely. This is because it was always the center and the axis of


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nationalism movements even before the year 1919. This study is not always easy because historians disagreed every time the Egyptians converted from one religion to the other. Emilino, the scientist of Coptic together with Leopold, which the paganism of the Egyptians collapsed when they knew Christianity. On the contrary, Jan Maspero clarified how long lived paganism was in the lives of the Egyptians proving this through the presence of many paganism temples in Egypt after the spread of Christianity until the 6th century. Emilino does not deny this, but he relies on the Coptic texts proving the quick spread of Christianity in Egypt in the 3rd century. Moreover, he states that paganism was fortified here and there in Egypt and most of its followers were Greeks and Romans and some small sectors of the Egyptians. Most of the Egyptians, on the other hand, converted to the religion of the helpless people and their resistance was based on protecting their spiritual entity and represents an important gathering focal point.

Hussein Fawzy asserts that religion alone is not enough to revive civilization as the

process needs a lot of money as well. He used the Italian example and how they achieved advancement. The Christian used to largely fund their churches so the treasury of the Vatican became full of money. The surplus of this great amount of money was used for the benefits of the Italian people. He believes that the same happened in the Islamic period as there was active participation in the Arabian civilization and it is the basis to return and retrieve our reissuance, with one condition that this reissuance copes with the modern civilization with all its scientific and social means.

As a conclusion, if the structural dialectic of Ahmed Lotfy El Said suffered from the

dichotomy between what is political and what is social, the structural dialectic of Hussein Fawzy suffered from the liberal deviation. It started not seeing the logic of individual liberal morals and it was lost in the admiration of authoritarian and become one-dimensional and it lost the logic of structural delicate. It virtually surrendered to the illusions of the Islamic civilization revival. The appearance of Said Qutb was normal and natural because the liberal social agent was secured with power above freedom and the free choice of the social existence.

Thirdly: Salama Mousa: Development as Human Liberal Globalization

Salama Mousa (1887 – 1958) is considered to be among the first Egyptian

intellectuals who advocated for a number of concepts and thoughts that highlighted the importance of unconditional openness towards the Western civilization. He was among the extremists of the second generation of Egyptian intellectuals who received the European thoughts. He was upon the generation of Taha Hussein, Mohamed Hussein Heikal, and others who adopted an openness vision towards the European Arabian civilization relations with many differences between their visions in details. Mousa was among these extremists, the same as Lotfy El Said. Mousa advocated for the use of colloquial language and Pharaonic and the abandonment of anything any thing that would hinder the integration with Europe. What Mousa has said goes into the same trend as he seek to criticize what Kipling said, according to the common understanding, that the East and the West are different to the extent where it is impossible to meet. Mousa describes these ideas to be colonist with the


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intention of increasing the differences between the two civilizations. The ideas were like the idea of the conflicting of civilizations that was widely attacked and criticized.

The criticism adopted by Salama Mousa does not mean not to recognize that there

are differences between the two. The Egyptian thinker regarded the importance to begin from this difference as the East depended on cultivation while the West depended on industry according to his own classification. Starting from this point, the difference would seem to be only the difference of the professions in stead of being a major difference linked to the culture or the belief that would be hard to change. “We are looking for what is really different between the East and the West; we will not find a different race, language, or religion. We would only find one aspect is that the East depends on simple agriculture while the West depends on automated industry and if they work in agriculture, they practice this with machinery. Mousa afterwards undermines the difference between the West and the East referring to “that the Japanese have the features of the westerns now concerning democracy, equality, and the freedom of constitution because they word in industry. On the other hand, the Spanish are to be considered among the Eastern in spite of their geographical location, origin, and religion because they work in agriculture. There is nothing like an Eastern civilization or a Western civilization, but there is a one civilization in the world in its agricultural phase in what we call the Eastern regions and in its industrial phase in what we call the Western regions”.

Mousa raises an important major saying: “the human being is the same, the mind is the same, and the civilization is the same”. It is true, there is only one civilization in the world today but this does not mean that everybody belongs to it in the same sense or contributes to it in the same way, and this is the important factor. The contribution of one person is different than the contributions of the other. If we recognize the difference between the Chinese contribution and the Arabian contribution we have to admit that it is a difference that rises from the differences in the culture (languages, religion, habits, est.). The differences in culture are a hidden factor that does not eliminate the human connections and links but asserts the human varieties and the multiplicity of contributions. “Westernization is the ferry that secularism used to reach the East. This westernization did not take place in a moment of dazzle, as dazzle fades away quickly and things appear in their mere reality. On the other hand, the westernization occurred in a moment of civilization blindness.” In this period in November 1925, Ataturk used to impose the hat as a headdress for the Turkish people and he prohibited wearing the fez. He spoke in the same language as Salama Mousa” we have to wear the outfits of advanced civilized nations and we have to prove to the world that we are an important advanced nation”

Salama Mousa spread an idea of development and he was enthusiastic towards

more than his professor, Shalaby Shamel, “the human has removed his first human factor to prove his animalism, his dirty appearance, and his ugly face which were covered under his despicable instincts and his dull stupid mind, and then he advanced to become a human. There is hope that the human would advance again and become more human. He can even become a superman. The biological development effect on humans had other non biological effects as there were some social and ethical effects that distinguished humans and proved his advancement in comparison with animals. In a society, in another society, other than the


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human one, the gimp deer would die in the jungle if he does not find assistance and protection from other members of his society. The same goes for the slow lion that would die in the jungle out of hunger. The same was the human when the laws of the jungle ruled his behavior. But when he advanced to become human, the gimp used to survive by the virtue of the ethical and social development of humans when religions emerged and encouraged people to distribute handouts and give food to the poor. Humans used to live through the outcome of their daily work. The human used to live though his hard work, but today, he lives with the virtue of his discoveries and inventions.”

Salama Yousef lived his live defending what he has written concerning development

in his early years, from his book “the superman” until the book “literature for the people”. His last criticism of Taha Hussein was when Taha Hussein said that literature of these days is cheap , that the writers address the majority of the people who are non well read or educated, and that the writers should go back to create the higher level of literature. The response of Salama Mousa was evolutionary when he said: “the problem here is not about the ease or the difficult style of writing, but in the royal literature; the literature of King Farouk and the literature of the people and their lives. Salam Mousa lived his life the same way as Jan Jack Rousseau and Maxim Gorky, to be linked and connected to the people and the public life.

Mousa believed in the human rights when he said that the issue of human rights, in

every society, and in every period of time, is not an intuitive question, although we regard it like this today. The issue is associated with the development of the human soul and the more he gets into history and into the world. It is something that is linked to the development of consciousness, thoughts, religion, literature, arts, and the forms of social political organization, which is facilitated in every period by how adequate the social production and the human production of his social existence, the conditions of their lives, their social relations, and their materialistic and spiritual treasures. The social production process, in its individual designation, has a class dimension first, then secondly a social dimension, and thirdly a main dimension. These dimensions are determined by the relation between essential human core, his social entity, and his individual features; the physical, the physiological, and the mental. If history is a selection of forms, then the human history is a selection of the forms of social conscience and a symphony based on the tunes of freedom.

The human rights, as well, is not an issue that concerns this nation or the other, or

these people, or another group of people, only if what is particular to a certain country would express an example of the general and the whole. Otherwise we would be dealing with a raciest ethnic ideology and tendency centralized towards the self which sees the general human attainment an anthropological characteristic of “god’s chosen people.” The entirety of this issue expresses the entirety of the human being, the creature that produces himself in history and in the world so that the history becomes his history and the world becomes his world. There is no use to discuss the human rights of the European, the human rights of the American, the human rights of the Arabian, or the human rights in the Islamic world except in the constitutional and legal safeguards that are provided, totally or partly, the national country, regional systems, and international organizations.


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On this level, the issue becomes a political issue associated with political philosophy, the ruling system, and the pattern of social organization in each country or a regional gathering. This calls for the separation, or the distinguishing between the three levels of the issue itself, with each separation works as a connection. The first of these levels is the intellectual/philosophical level and it is a general level with all the differences in its formulas, expressions. The generality of this issue is proved in the universalism of the mind, the entirety of the human spirit, and the religion of the one god. The second level is the political level specified by the nationalism culture which is particular for this nation or that. This is associated with the ruling system, the relationship between the society and the authority of the people in each country on its own. The third level is the rights’ level which is referred, from the procedural aspect, to the practical political behavioral patterns of the individuals, the groups, (solidarity), the ideological institutions, and the political authority.

To put the issue of human rights in logical/historical context and a realistic context, it

has to be put under the advancement argument. Any advancement argument refers to a development and growth argument, the development of the human work, since the human being has left his natural situation and went to his social situation, when the human work revealed its partial social trait and then its human total trait. This is because the particular partial individual is the direct expression of the total human being. The development of the technique which foundations is the merging between science and work and its principals. If we want nature to obey us, we have to obey it, in order to reach the contemporary technical scientific revolution and the development of the law and the civil society. Salama Mousa summarizes this issue when he said “Civilization has become industry today. The culture of this civilization is science while the culture of agriculture is literature, religion, and philosophy.

As a conclusion, maybe Salama Mousa was the first social agent for liberalism in the

international perspective. His social agent was rational and rebel for the sake of development. Maybe what helped him in this was that he rebelled on the ancient and traditional concepts of the church at that time. His refusal to tyranny was genuine as the absolute tyranny was expanded and the separation between the ruler and the ruled increased. The feeling of deep political alienation increases his unity and freedom became his only fate. He refused the connection between freedom and the ability of the country. He saw that this link is not necessary from the developmental prospective and any parallelism is considered tyranny in itself. The main saying of the life of Salama Mousa was that democracy is a civil system. Forth: El Sheikh Mostafa Abdel Razek and the building of the practical rational values

The first constitutive entry for El Sheikh Mostafa Abdel Razek was to consider the

meaning of Islam as not being derived from subjugation and docility. El Sheikh Abdel Razek saw that these opinions do not have any basis because what was mentioned in Quran concerning the word “Islam” and the words derived from it and were considered to be against Islam and contradictory to it are only three or four verses. The consensus of interpreters was to use Islam in a self acting meaning is correct in front of anybody who reads different interpretations. El Sheikh Mostafa prefers the correct point of view in his opinion. This is the lingual meanings derived from the word “Salm”, with different words,


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forms, and the real meanings generated from them, lead to the clearance of both the clear and hidden impurities and it means conciliation and honesty.

The second constitutive entry is that the different Islamic groups disagreed

concerning the meaning of faith and Islam. Some of them saw that they have different meanings while others saw that they have the same meaning, the same word, and that they are the same. El Sheikh Mostafa Abdel Razek commented on this disagreement saying” this disagreement concerning this issue, in its real sense, occurred due to the manifestations of these groups and their seeking of detailed researches rushing after the masses of opinions. This is why this agreement is totally unreal.

The third constitutive views that many of the interpreters went wrong when they

wanted to find evidences from the Quran to defend their point of views. They ended up with meanings for Islam that are different than the meanings of faith. El Sheikh Mostafa sees that both words have the same meaning or at least agree in the same meanings. He proved his point of view through some evidences; the firs is that (the Quran decides is that the religion is the same in the massages of all the prophets which is believing in what should be believed in and the different rules and practical laws). The second evidence was through the interpretation of the Quran verses where the formula of Islam was mentioned. El Sheikh Mostafa outlined the opinions of the interpreters of Quran in these verses. These opinions stated that Islam, in these verses, meant monotheism and being Moslems for the sake of god. This requires that the word “Islam” was not mentioned in Quran except as a synonym of faith. The third evidence was that the Quran was called the followers of the religion of Mohamed, who believed in him, and this meant that the meaning of Islam and faith agreed together and never contradicted. The opinion of El Sheikh Mostafa, concerning the meaning of Islam and faith, was the same point of view of many Sunnites, especially Aby Mansour El Matreedy.

The Forth constitutive entry was through dealing with the problem of how man can

reconcile between his beliefs and his mind and how would they harmonizes together. If religion is based on ratification, does it contradict with the mind that is based on persuasion? El Sheikh Mostafa also addressed the effect of this relation on the Moslems. He discussed the attempt of El Kendy to reconcile between Philosophy and religion. He also mentioned the opinions of El Faraby and Ibn Rushed and summarized the point of views of philosophy concerning the reconciliation when he said “religion and wisdom, according to these philosophers, flood each others existing in the minds of humans through the effective mind. Thus, there is do difference between wisdom and religion according to their purposes, their topics, their sources, and according to the way they reach humans. The difference between philosophy and religion, according to El Faraby, is the approaches of philosophy are certainty, while the approaches of religion are persuasive. Ibn Sina sees that there is another difference between religion and philosophy which is that the destination of religion is to reach authenticity while the destination of philosophy towards authenticity is rather theoretical. El Sheikh Mostafa differentiates between the nature of religion and the nature of philosophy. The nature of philosophy is based on faith ratification and they originate from the heart. While, on the other hand, the nature of philosophy is based on observation and thinking and they originate from the mind. This is why he refuses the idea that philosophy would help religion and that it would be used as way to support it. This is because this


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negatively affects both philosophy and religion. The negative effect on religion is due to the fact that it discusses the beliefs, which are sacred emotions that affect the self, the same way as beauty, to the rational discussions and it’s containing. The facts of religion, as viewed by El Sheikh Mostafa, are emotions of the heart that fill the selves of believers and encourage them to sacrifice and fade away for these beliefs. On the other hand, concerning the attempts of evidences and the use of rational evidences, he believes that it puts these facts in the circle of controversy and rational contradictions that would impair their beauty and their dignity. The negative effect on philosophy is that it identifies traditional results for the introductions of Philosophy and makes its search towards facts directed towards one objective; to support religion. Philosophy begins taking a religious sacred form that does not appropriate with the freedom of research and criticism that cooperate together to achieve it.

The religion has its own approach and its base is the heart while philosophy has

another approach and its base is the mind. Thus, there is no contradiction between the religion and the mind as long as they cooperate together to achieve one purpose; to make people happy. If there no contradiction between them, the mind has a role to play in religion. The fifth constitutive entry represents the vision of El Sheikh Mostafa that the mind has a role to play in religion. El Sheikh sees that religion has two aspects; the origins that do not change and the practical rules that are different from one prophet to the other, these represent guidance if they are not copied. “Islam combined religion with laws and the religion was all fully expressed in the holy book of Quran. The people had nothing in their minds concerning the religion. On the other hand, the laws were set up by god and then the judgmental efforts were meant for the interpretations and the details of the laws” The Quran mentioned wisdom, praised it, and encouraged for its growth and development. El Sheikh Mostafa explains the wisdom that was praised by Quran as he says; “it is the wisdom in its lingual meaning, the beneficial science and the jurisprudence in the affairs of life indentifying the rightful concepts.

Regarding what was mentioned in Quran and the Sunna about the usage of the word

“wisdom” clarifies that the purpose behind it is the science that is associated with justice. He asserted that religion highlights the role of the mind in the practical laws as he said “it was mentioned in the Quran and the Sunna the appraisal of wisdom. This paved the way for the rational prospective in the practical affairs. El Sheikh Mostafa asserts that religion encouraged the freedom of thought and the high position of the mind. He confirmed this when he said “the minds were alerted and the negligence mist was removed away from the eyes of the people so they understood that religion is not indented as a chains on the heart or constrains on the thoughts. Religion, according to El Sheikh Mohamed Abdo, secured two great issues that humans were always prevented from; the freedom of will and the freedom of opinion. Through these two, the humanity was completed and the humans were ready to reach the degree of happened that god adapt them for.

The sixth constitutive entry, according to El Sheikh Mostafa, is that the enlightened

mind and the religion that is full of myths can never meet together in one mind. There was a revolution against the deadlock and a call to purify the wrong beliefs so that the human


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reaches the right beliefs and the proper behavior. The Moslem goes back to the simplicity of religion in his beliefs without exaggeration and he goes back to the behavior of the Moslems in the early days of Islam. All of these reject the extremism in the dignities and the holiness of the important Islamic figures that passed away and the idea of how some Moslems take them as a mean to reach the satisfaction of god so he can achieve their wishes. This belief is rather corrupt as Islam does not recognize having an intermediately between the Moslem and god. It asserts the direct connection between the human and god. He also rejected the holiness and the beliefs some people gave to some places as he commented on some of the stories told about the River Nile considering it one of the rivers of paradise as he says: “these meanings combined of emotions and beliefs would have been suitable for humanity in its childhood. The feelings of the people have developed to reach a much more advanced degree. They found that rivers and mountains can be symbols for their homelands and their nations”. E; Sheikh Mostafa has also addressed some social habits that were spread in the society that it turn to be a religious habit and then people start to believe it originated from religion in the first place, although they are ultimately wrong . These habits include kissing the hand to show respect to the religious people. El Sheikh Mostafa said concerning this matter “these people who give their hands to the mouths to spread the germs of diseases and sow humiliation in the selves of kind naïve people. According to these six establishing bases, El Sheikh Mostafa Abdel Razek creates a reissuance construction that is based on rationality as follows:

1- Religion regulates the relation of the human with his creator, his relation with himself, and his relation with his human brother and sisters therefore it is germane to life. Religion makes the human cope with his life and guides him. Religion is inseparable from life as it puts its constitutions. Human finds in religion the intakes for his life and the light that guides him to the right path. Religion, generally, as El Sheikh Mostafa says does not want out of the freedom and the happiness of the people except their goodness. Religion has a role in the life of the communities and it is not isolated from life but it is closely associated with it. It has its message concerning the organization of the life of the life of the community and coping with its development and advancement. Religion has left the matter of the organization of life to the humans according to its basic teachings. The conscientiousness door is open for those who have point of views and those who are narrow minded and the wrong interpretation of religion make people practice and believe in concepts that do not belong to religion and their stance prevent them from advancement. This is because they separate religion from life. In time that the correct understanding of religion does not contradict with the advancement in the social matters of civilization and urbanization. El Sheikh Mostafa said clarifying this: “It seems as if anything associated with religion from the social aspect is slow in coping with the current movement in urbanization. This is because these maters, if they do not belong to religion, their association with religion, from any aspect make them sacred and do not accept any changes except through revelation from god.”

2- El Sheikh Mostafa asserts in another occasion that there is no contradiction between religion and the social advancement. He explained the reasons behind social backwardness due to the wrong understanding of religion and the narrow minded point of views when he said: “it is as if we were created to feel that the benefits associated with religion in our


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social life is greatly backward on comparison to our steps towards advancement, though our steps towards this mean are lame.

3- There is no contradiction between religion and the practices of civilization and social development. The rejection of any new concept or idea in the name of religion is not based upon the right understanding of religion. In this matter, El Sheikh Mostafa tries to compromise between the old and the new concepts that do not contradict with the basis of religion and do not go against its purposes. The reforming massage of El Sheikh Mostafa was based on the reconciliation between the old and the new. He prepared for this matter like nobody else did and he was able to choose the most consistent ideas and the closest towards reconciliation from this discordant image of the argument. Using excellent taste, he was able to clarify, from the images of the old and the new, what is enough to form a portrait that suits our needs and requirements. With his tolerance, he was able to reconcile between the repulsive ideas of the old and the new.

4- Religion, as regarded by El Sheikh Mostafa, does not contradict with the aspects of civilization concerning science, arts, and history because of the importance of these subjects for men. We find that El Sheikh Mostafa opposes the point of views of the senior scholars and the opinions of the Wahhabism about these issues. El Sheikh Mostafa says, concerning this deadlock and the lack of consideration “We can contradict with the opinions of the senior scholars that assert that the tendency towards understanding science and arts is a type of disbelief. When we received the religion of the people of Najd who destructed many constructions with domes and all architectural elements that might have turned out to be important monuments throwing the soldiers with rocks and shooting them with bullets, we are satisfied with the religion of the senior scholars as it does not throw rocks or shoot bullets. Religion rejects all these claims. “Religion is deformed by these who desire to cause hatred, misleading, and restrictions on the mind and the soul.”

5- El Sheikh Mostafa clarified the point of view of religion concerning the unity of humans and the equality between all people. There should be no differentiating between people that is based on gender or their belief in any religion. Thus, the principal of equality required for the establishment of joint cooperation is achieved. This will also decrease the degree of competition and bickering between the individuals of the human society, cease wars and conflicts, and the spread of love and respect principals between the people. The unity of human kind is based on the equality between people with the differentiation that is based on the good deeds and virtue. Concerning the opinion of religion in that matter, El Sheikh Mostafa says “God does not view people according to their nationality or origins. On the other hand, it is your good deeds that get you closer god. If there is somebody, among people, who is still judging people according to their color or origin, Islam does not approve of this. The world should be based on the fine ethics, good deeds, and the harmony between people.” The principal of equality should be achieved the rejection of all sorts of religious intolerance.

6- El Sheikh Mostafa thought that there is only one religion that has no differences in its basics and the ideas the prophets have spread, disregarding their differences, are all the same in its basics and core principals. If there are several practical laws, the origins of religion are the same, they do not change according to different versions, and the prophets


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never disagreed about them. On the other hand, the practical laws are dissimilar between one prophet and the other. They are considered guidance if they are not reproduced or rewritten, and if they are reproduced they are not guidance any more. El Sheikh Mostafa asserts that Islam renounces discrimination in religion and advocate for the unity and harmony of people. El Sheikh Mostafa said concerning this matter; “Mohamed was sent by god with the massage of Islam advocating for the unity of religion and for the harmony between people and he rejected all sorts of discriminations as cited in many verses of the Quran: And hold fast, all together by the rope which Allah (stretches out for you),” This is a explicit call for the unity of beliefs, an invitation to all people to worship god, do not get dispersed because of the different means and ways, and that religion should not be the reason for rivalries, hatred, and the increase of differences between people. El Sheikh Mostafa recognized the reason that occurs as a result of intolerance and its consequences of the dispersing and splitting between people. The reason behind this intolerance is the ignorance of the reality and the facts of religion and not knowing that science dispels this darkness. In spite of the fact that El Sheikh Mostafa believed in the unity of religions, he found it difficult to gather all people around one religion. However, he advocates for the concept that all people of different religions should get to know each others and cooperate for the benefit of mankind. He declares his point of view clearly when he said “the variations between religions have frequently dispersed many groups in the East, created inherited animosities, acted as an obstacle against mutual understanding and hindered the factors of development. This is because each group is unaware of the religions of the other people. They deny other religions in because they are unaware of it. When science eliminated the darkness between different doctrines, people starting getting closer to each other and this resulted in the goodness and blessings to the whole world. Some religious reformers thought that by following this mean, they can unite religions. On the other hand, we do not have much hope, we only thought that people from different religions would get to know and understand the beliefs of the others in order to cooperate for the goodness of mankind.

7- Freedom took many meanings and several images like the psychological freedom, the religious freedom, and the ethical freedom. El Sheikh Mostafa sees that “the real meaning of freedom lies in the undefeated behavior of will of the man.” This definition goes within the frame of the traditional philosophy. El Sheikh Mostafa has. El Sheikh Mostafa has noticed the hardships of the human choice problem both in the philosophical and the religious aspects and in all periods of time. El Sheikh Mostafa says” the human choice theory is dilemmatic in free philosophy and in theology. There were many supporters of the idea of the free choice of men and supporters of the idea of fatalism in all generations and each of these both sides of supporters had the evidences to support their opinions.” El Sheikh Mostafa asserts the hardships of the problem from the metaphysical aspect and he suggested that this issue should be studied from the ethical and practical aspects. He says that freedom is a practical need and one of the necessities of work as he says” we want for the goodness of mankind, that people would feel free and have the ability for the freedom of choice because this feeling stimulates the human activities and encourages him to work. This feeling increases the degree of self esteem in a human being and expands his hopes and wishes. I call, with the owner of the book of obligations, for the belief in freedom convinced that this belief would cause goodness even If all philosophical evidences prove concerning the theory of the human choice are incorrect. This practical aspect of freedom


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does not make it absolute, does not make it negative, it eliminates the absolute theories, and makes it a positive matter that is necessary for the work and an encouragement for it.

8- El Sheikh Mostafa recognized the importance of education for the right construction of an individual and for preparing him in the best way. Thus, he was always interested in education and in spreading its concepts and ideas. He was also quite interested in setting up education with the right rules that would develop the taste and the thoughts, the talents and the readiness, enlighten the mind and provide it with the light of knowledge. He called for the necessity of to give attention to the religious education that was featured with deadlock and the lack of development and innovation. El Sheikh Mostafa criticized the education curriculums that were followed in Azhar University and the way they taught there. These issues that Imam Mohamed Abdo, his tutor, tried to develop as he said “we view the concepts of the Sheikhs of this period concerning annotations and footnotes, what have been set up by El Sheikh El Attar, El Sheikh El Amir, and the details of their ideas, may god bless them with his grace, we think that we are citing different versions of the same book. El Sheikh Mohamed Abdo has tried to revive the old science and he was able to budge the people away from some of their old books and their approaches in teaching and it writing. However, all the efforts of this famous religious reconciler went with the wind except what some of his students have understood and believed in”

9- Religion does not contradict with science but in the contrary religion encourages the practices of sciences. El Sheikh Mostafa believed that religion is a friend of both the mind and the science. He thought that the education curriculum should be based on the attention to the upbringing of the scientific spirit and encouraging research, develops talents, to promote the mental level, and to develop the ability of creativity. The educational approach of El Sheikh Mostafa was the best proof for his ideas when he was a professor of philosophy in the Egyptian university. He was able to educate a generation of scientists and researchers. This was also the approach he followed in his writings in all the books and researches he wrote. He was also interested in the establishment of a religious education that is based on advanced sciences. When he became the Sheikh of Al Azhar, he achieved some of his reforming concepts and ideas. However, fate did not allow him to achieve all what he desired. However, he introduced some foreign languages in El Azhar and sent many missions from El Azhar abroad. Most of the deeds of El Sheikh Mostafa were considered to be the achievement of the massage of his tutor, El Imam Mohamed Abdo.

In conclusion, unfortunately, this constructive attempt was not very fruitful and this

because of the weakness of the social agent again. El Sheikh Mostafa Abdel Razek came from a family who believed in science and had their sayings in the Islamic jurisprudence. However, the problem was in El Azhar as an institutional social agent. The major problem was in the construction and the structure of institutions as a social agent. This was what the authoritarian culture tried to get rid of before 1952 and they worked to put obstacles in the way of achieving this. Thus, the Azhar institution worked on connecting the Azhar political culture with the culture of guardian, stability, obedience, and doctrinal justifications. This went on even more after 1952 and it became more authoritarian so the El Azhar social agent not become more conservative, or Salafists, but it started also opposing the mind.


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Fifth: El Sheikh Amin El Kholy and the concept of evolutionary renovation or in other saying, the rules of Sunni Interpretation

The main question in the thoughts of Amin El Kholy was how to achieve

development religious reforms? Amin El Kholy says “maybe the idea of innovation, which was appraised by the ancients where they wrote quite a lot about it, was not popular enough in the modern world as much it was in the ancient times. I don’t think it was famous among the leaders of religious reforms, which initiatives have started with the beginning of the modern history in the division of historians. The first initiatives of these ideas started in the East in the attempts of the Wahhabism in the Arabian Peninsula and the trends of the Moslems in India. The religion reformation forces in Egypt become more powerful with the attempts of Gamal El Dine El Afghani and his school that was headed by him. The principals of this school were spread in Egypt and other Moslem regions in the East and the West.” The significant factor in the sayings of the Sheikh was that renovation does not follow certain trends and that it is associated with contextual factors and conditions. The religious renovation in Egypt has a nature of its own that is different than the religious renovations in Saudi Arabia, for example. El Sheikh Amin El Kholy says” Thus, people who understood the thoughts of the ancients and their clear frank meaning of the different concepts starting rising. They started knowing that these points of views of the ancients was modified from one stance to the other and it was influenced by many materialistic and moral factors, the same way the livings and the moral objects are effected. By a law, it became constant in the science of today, in its whole and its general concept, with whatever the differences in the details of this evolution, its steps, its philosophy, its interpretations, and its explanations. When we gathered this evolutionary meaning from the thoughts of the ancients, we mention, like many times before, the field of modern contemporary religious reforms, and other reforms sometimes.

This example in their sayings: “ This power is similar to fresh water well, then the

water started running in the valley of life and many different items mingling with the water in the normal way like grasses, algae, and dissolved materials. Sometimes, these items would jam together, the fact that narrows the stream, slows the passage of water until the stream of water stops and stagnates in a certain time and in a particular place. If somebody views this water stream when it was running greatly, he would think that this was always its nature. While the fact is that it was always slow when it first raised from the water well. If he goes on observing this stream with bilge until he reaches his first water source, he will discover how sweat and fresh this water was and how it was good enough to cultivate plants and revive life. The renovation or reformation in the thoughts of the ancients is similar to this action of the attempts to find the first water source to drink from and guide the people towards it to understand that these sediments and obstacles are only temporary and if we remove them, the water will regain its freshness.

He goes on in the clarification of the concept of “evolutionary reformation” as he

says” we tell the people who believe in this simile that; it is good entirely to clarify the meaning of reformation or innovation. However, this is not based that the people would have to travel to live beside the first water source where they can find the fresh water. This


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would make the people exert the efforts only to go back to the source, and leave the current stream of water unchanged with all the impurities. We have to work to get rid of these impurities and obstacles through exerting all the efforts needed to purify this water stream. These efforts would include purifying the water, making the bridges stronger over the water stream, and the maintenance of the water stream to prevent this handicapping situation to happen again. People should increase the means of the usage of this fresh water by inventing more ways to preserve it lift the level of the water, and empower the people to make use of it in a way that copes with their modern life. They would benefit from this fresh water and whatever new health, engineering or practical means being developed. They can also make use of the water stream in generating electricity and other means of energy and many other possible ways. In summary, the benefits of the reforming of the water stream and the maintenance of fresh water do not only come through the returning to the first source of water. On the other hand, the returning to the source of water is only among the means of increasing the water, protecting it, preserving it, and increases the benefits of it. This is what is called the evolutionary innovation or reformation.

El Sheikh El Kholy says, in the clarification of his basic logic, that frequently caused

injustice to many Salafis and the many people who interprets religion according to texts:” the sequel of the statement of the evolutionary innovation that is based on equability of the innovation law, we say that it is not weird to use this innovation and demand for it in the religious field, that seems, in the first impression, in distance from the innovation change. Yes, it is not weird that we are asking for the innovation in this field because the right precise perception clarifies that this law in the evolution of the moral objects seems clearer in the religions and the beliefs of man. This is because religions, in different divergent periods and with different massagers who had different genders and origins, compose the integrated unification of one aspect of the human activities which draw the coherent image of religiosity in the history of mankind. The religions themselves, assert with different verses that they were created to determine an authentic law. This was declared through Christianity, as expressed by the Old Testament with the integrations mentioned in the New Testament, the same way as Quran declares that it certifies the same meanings. The religions, on the other hand, are not a repetition of one image of the massage or one character of the prophets. On the contrary, every massage has its own features that were suitable for the time period it appeared in and an approach that suits the people who received that massage. Each prophet had his own unique character that fitted his massage and suit the people who lived in that period. If it ends with a period when man was aware of his surroundings and he takes appropriate steps in his life with independent of thoughts while putting into consideration the main general ideas of religion, this marks the end of the massages of god. With this clear evolution in the massages of god themselves, they certify that they have the same origin. The subsequent complete the previous and this is what we call evolution. Thus, the matter is settled down that way in the understanding of the innovation and what it includes concerning evolution using the words of the ancients themselves. Moreover, this takes place due to the decision of the Egyptians concerning the necessity of this evolution and their decision in everything. Therefore, we can say contentment: that innovation which the ancients have recognized its equability in the religion and its influence in every period of life, in hundreds of years, are a proof of evolution, and an evidence of the law that all creatures abide by, materialistically and morally.


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El Sheikh Amin El Kholy indentifies the bases for evolution in the following trends,

concepts, and implications: “if somebody takes a deep mindedness look in the general image of Islam, it is clear brightly for him that this Islam, since it is a religion and a practical social system, it has the bases for evolution. These bases prepare Islam for achieving this evolution easily without conflicting with the evolution of the world around it from the theoretical and practical aspect. This evolution that moves on boldly because it is the inescapable and inevitable reality. I refer here to these general bases without getting the reader into the field of exact specialization that is based on the comprehensive specialized study of Islam and its culture. This will also prevent the specialist who does an in depth study in this field to find any shortcomings or contraries to the major concepts and the right origins of Islam that prepares it to the inescapable evolution:

1- The economy of his message that advocates for occults and to rest the field from them leaving details and the sufficient in the general total. This is carried out through believing in religion and the prevention of thinking in the details that faith demands for. This includes Allah, angels, Ect.. He wants his followers to believe in the divinity of god to recognize that there is nothing or no one like him, then he interprets this complexly or he philosophize it mysteriously. If he brings some sentences of the revelation what is required by the nature of the language concerning the expressions of the tangibles, he thinks of god as if he is like incidents. What would be sufficient for the believer and ensure him concerning these matters, in its general context, that they are not like incidents and this is it. If he panics, with time passing by, concerning this interpretation, he shall interpret this in the way that would ensure his mind asserting transcendence, while leaving the engagements that would strain the humans. This clarity and easiness in the religion will not give a chance for conflicts or disagreements concerning the little or big differences between religion and what the humans can reveal concerning this universe, the secrets of its creatures because he is far from these mysterious occults.

2- In the field of Islam, there is no constraints on the freedom to study the universe and harnesses it to the benefit of mankind , as mentioned in the Quran, except for some remnants that humans have participated in. These humans regarded the mankind and the universe according to the capacity of their time period and their limited culture that is naturally different than the evolutionary way of thinking we take today or the innovative thinking of the near future and the far future as well. Therefore, Islam can use the energy saved from not engaging in the understanding or interpretations of the metaphysical details in the free proper understanding of every new concept that the universe is hiding. This will make mankind understand life, with time passing by, without the need for details or partial data which life itself no longer need. This facilitated summation which is not conflicting with science present another reason why it is easy to achieve the evolution of Islam.

3- Islam was never engaged, through Quran, which is the origin of all origins, in clarifying anything concerning the beginning of life on earth and the emergence of mankind and all the stages of the development of mankind, the time period of these stages, and all relevant details. While other religions were engaged in this issue as they discussed the details of the creation of the universe, the time period of this deed and divided it into


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days, and they even indentified the actions of god in these days and after the end of this period. These religions indentified how many years there was life on earth, how many years’ humans spent in the world, how humans were differentiated in several ethnics and origins, and how the earth was even divided. The modern sciences have discovered many things that contradict with the details that were declared by these religions. With millions of years passing by, it is impossible to gather these details from devotional texts that the religious says day and night if is to be a good man. If science, today and tomorrow discovers new things in the natural branches, Islam just leaves science moving in its way to reach the maximum knowledge about materialistic, scientific, and philosophical matters. These religious detailed facts shock the people who and decrease their trust in their religions. Islam does not know or address any of these details, except for what other religions have brought or through their legendary popular stories. Islam announced, since a long time, that it would unjust to use these facts that were mentioned in the other religions in the interpretation of the general texts of Islam that didn’t leave these details haphazardly while they are spread among people as known.

4- Since Islam is away from this involvement, the religion opens the way for science declaring that Islam is ready in advance for any outcomes that are brought by the sciences without the need, as I explained, to put any burdens on it wrongfully like the Israeli that was forced on it or the heavy interpretations, which Islamists have declared to be wrong since thousands of years. Thus, Islam gets rid of all these burdens and anything that might be similar like the narratives of some people, or the naïve, or sometimes funny, interpretations of Islam’s original texts. Islam eliminates all of this. Through the readiness for the close understanding of the basis of the Arabic language itself, Islam can present an image of evolution concerning the explanation of these detailed issues about the origins of life, the creation of mankind, and the similar matters. Islam understands these matters in a way that in distance from all these intruders. It does not need to expose anything that was proved by science today or even in the future. With the huge development that science has witnessed, which does not have any prohibited areas or limitations that hinders it from acquiring knowledge. Science with all the means and tools it has, and the new ones that will be created and invented, will not affect the artistic statements of Islam in the Quran that is committed to the rules of the literature presentation, like no one else, in addressing these matters, which science addresses without the involvement or the participation of anything but

5- Islam was never engaged in any details concerning the history of people or prophets which Islam discusses in general, or in some cases in some details. These issues include the clarifications and the details of massages of god, how people received them, how they resisted them, and how these massages achieved victory at the end. Concerning these issues, Islam is not concerned except for the pure literature artistic presentation. Islam was not concerned to clarify the time period where the actions occurred, the location of the actions, or give a name to any of the characters involved. In many cases, generally speaking, the materialistic story of history is narrated through the tongue of excavations and monuments with whatever they come up with. Islam does not fear any contradictions or denials. Islam is not exposed to this crisis that other religions face which forced them to come up with an interpretation, that would interest one religious person


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among million of other people, in order to compromise arbitrary with the narratives concerning these issues.

6- Islam has regulated the scientific life, in the same way it does with the beliefs or the practices of the religion, regarding the overall aspects and the comprehensive general origins without giving unneeded attention tom the individual details or the micro parts. Islam, in general, did not explain in details any of the practices of religion, like prayer, concerning its form, positions, or conditions, charity or Zakat, in its constitutes or its cost, fasting, in its regulations or the movements of the fasting person, or Hajj, its timings or activities. The same goes, or even more, in the general matters like the rules, details of the organization, detailed rights, responsibilities of the individuals, the societies in return of these rights, the links and connections in different matters of life like the relation between two members of the same family, from two families, or groups that work in the same profession. All of this and anything similar have never been mentioned in Quran, except for the general comprehensive concepts and views that require more specifications and details. This is well known fact that does not need much explanation. Afterwards, we seek details from different resources, with the original book of faith, the Quran. Following this pattern, we can see how life, its changes and gradations, the effect of evolution, an issue or an event that people didn’t know the right reactions towards them, Islam guided them in this matter. Islam guided them to be cautious towards these matters and this encouraged people to use their human powers and energy in order to consider and regard each case on its own and to make use of the Islamic texts with some efforts exerted in deriving. The concept of making use of how the rules of Islam in one issue can be used in similar issues was actually established in regard of the different time periods the changing conditions of mankind, and the variety of circumstances while estimating and evaluating the similarities in the events or issues.

7- Diligence to make a decision in Islamic laws, or Ijtihad, the base of the Islamic life. Ijtihad is nothing but to cope with life and its new demands. Even the sayings of the olds that life is never free from assiduous men. “What they demanded previously that people, in different periods of time, will have a person performing Ijtihad among them. Ijtihad.” Ijtihad was never adopted and attracted much attention except with the sever necessity to have a change that copes with advancement and people would feel its effect on texts and its revel that these texts needs to widen its scope to make it viable. These needs do not cover and these required advancements do not assert except that the society has to have who can guarantee coping with the idea of life and to protect against immobility. This is carried out through renovation which is, according to the logic of life and reality, nothing but advancement

For this stake, we have discussed what was mentioned above concerning renovation and development. We have discussed the basis facilitating development in Islam that clarified that the development of religion is like the development in any other fields.


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Third Section: Towards a Liberal Constitutional System Introduction: It is always preferable in constitutional political analysis to be in the general social context as its vocabulary would be mentioned and referred to as resources and analytical references. This is in addition to dealing with constitutional considerations as a component of general political analysis. Accordingly, it is not right, from the analytical aspect, to condemn half a century of political and constitutional behaviors claiming that it became unsuitable now to guide and direct people, in the sake for the search of new values for the political constitutional behavior of the future. The past had its political and social reasons that we can never trespass except through the deep understanding of how they were formed. This might help in discovering the constitutional and political precedents which would are recalled as being considered unquestionable facts to be used in the political and constitutional conflicts that occurred recently. In the light of this statement, we can come up with the following three observations: First: The idea of the duality of the executive authority was established between the president and the Prime Minster for the first time, in the formal aspect, with the higher order that was issued in the 10th of December 1877 when Tawfik Pasha became the prime minster. Maybe the distinction between the two authorities emerged when Noubar Pasha became the prime minister in the 28th of August 1878. This was carried out to integrate the two European ministers in the Egyptian ministerial structure. The first parliamentary system in Egypt emerged according to the British system with the issuing of the constitution of February 1882. However, this constitution did not survive for more than seven months and a few days as it fell with the dismissal of the ministry of El Baroudy. Egypt has never witnessed in its modern history a true parliamentary system except in this period. We can never consider the constitution of 1923 as a true parliamentary system because of the balancing of abilities between the two branches of the executive authority, the fact that was a reason and an entry point for the spread of the instability of the political system before 1952. The real problem was that the awareness and the social relations in Egypt at the time were not decisively materialized in a way that would allow the parliamentary ruling after the dismissal of the ministry of El Baroudy. This is besides that Egypt, since the developments carried out by Mohamed Ali, started suffering from colonial schemes and plans to end its emerging international independent position. The British colonialism has overturned the parliamentary experiment of the constitution of 1882. Moreover, it seems that the true parliamentary ruling system was not able repel the British invasion of Egypt.

Second: in the forties and the fifties of the last century, the nationalism feelings and perceptions raised in Egypt concerning the means towards the national advancement and development. The perceptions were most likely unconstitutional and non liberal, that the committee that was formed by real liberal figures like Merit Pasha, Wahid Raafat, Ibrahim Bayoumi Madkour, and many others, took the title of the National Revival Group. Moreover, the constitution did not have a priority in the interests of this group in contradiction with other economical, social, and international issues. During this period, a political common culture was spread with the goal of achieving major objectives that are non constitutional or liberal like the goals of the Muslim Brotherhood, Misr El Fattah Party, the New Democratic


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Party, and the Marxists. The image of the new Egypt became, in the overall look, more populist and authoritarian under the name of the national revival, especially with the emergence of the writings of Fathy Radwan, Shohdy Attia, Hassan El Banna, Abdel Azim Anis, Mahmoud Amin El Alam, Said Qutb, and many others until the outburst of the events of the 23rd of July 1952.

Third: The political system after the 1952 gained its legitimacy at first to be

considered the expression of a national group and thus it expressed the national identity. Therefore, the concept of the national country was established and it considered that the country is of two types: a strong national country and a weak national country. The standard of the differences between the two types is the position and the status of the country in the international system. The international position of the ruling system of 1952 did not reflect the different several resources they have as much as it reflected the legitimacy and the acceptance of the Egyptians of the new policies. Gaining this political and constitutional legitimacy was not carried out through the proper elections, but through social and people mobilization. Therefore, the equation of the international behavior was reversed from being as an expression of the resources and its development to being an expression of the inner legitimacy of the country. The strong national country became this country that finds it difficult to adapt with the international system. These countries that do not regard its security as the relation of their attacking and defensive abilities, but on how value integrated it is with the prevailing physiological feelings of the citizens or in the international region. Thus, the role of media became stronger and more important in formulating the defensive and foreign policies. The issue of gathering around a national symbol became more important than the concept of an international threat and how to avoid it. The national symbol was built on the considerations of physiological and emotional enmity in the face of others. This made the political culture being based on the principal of the proportion between the objectives and the means. All these issues are not concerned with defending the nation but in defending pure cultural sayings. We can say that because of the lack of the concept of constitution in the Egyptian political culture, things in Egypt were mixed up. Now the constitutional mission would not be the destruction of the present constitutional building but in reforming it gradually as the constitutional logic is the logic of killing with decisive gradation. We have to note in this introduction that, first: the constitutional pattern of the presidential system comes in different forms. USA, France, Russia, Brazil, Chile, Indonesia, and many others have presidential systems but them different concerning the rules regulating the relations between the different authorities in the same nation. Secondly, the development of the constitutional pattern of the ruling system does not reflect, in the first place, cultural details, but it reflects some considerations associated with the interactions and the pattern of the relation between the nation and the society. It is possible to change from a presidential form into another from of ruling as long as the determinants of the relation between the nation and the society remain as it was through history. In the beginning, the announcement of the forming of the preparation committee of the Egyptian Conference of constitutional and political reforms in 1999 was an important


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indicator that there is a change that would be coming soon that is associated with the prevailing legal idea of some individuals among the Egyptian political society that tends to prefer the constitutional pattern of the parliamentary system. This trend started taking the serious quest when around 150 of the political party leaders and public figures from the different political and intellectual trends on a request demanding the transformation of the presidential republic system to the parliamentary republic system. Since that time, this call started developing without any powers or thoughts that contradicted or argued with it. As the right decision emerges from the intellectual controversy of the idea and it’s opposite, which would have been to keep the presidential system and in the same time change some of the rules of institutional interactions and the relations of the authorities inside the system.

We have to separate between two issues; the first is the issue of freedom and

elections, and the second is the issue of form of the ruling system. The mixing up between the two issues is a mythological mistake that leads to the corruption of reasoning and puts the political life in the beginning of the way to chaos.

Concerning the form of the ruling system, the historical experience shows us we

were in a parliamentary system before the revolution of 1952. The political life was characterized by being very stable when the political parties of the minority used to fraud the elections and have a majority in the parliament. We should not, in this regard, overlook the corruption of El Wafed as it was clear in the Black Book and the governments after 1940. We should not also overlook that we live in a form of a presidential system where the mechanisms of parliamentary and political accountability are not functioning as the parliamentary will was dwarfed only in the daily practices. Maybe there are many incidents that indicate that a ruling system like this would never support a proper economical or political life as deactivating the lungs of the parliament does not help or support the political body to be active or healthy.

When we look around us, we find that the ruling systems that pursue the

parliamentary pattern suffer from structural corruption, the same as in Israel, Japan, and Italy. However, we also observe that pursuing a presidential pattern is not a Guaranty that there will be corruption. There are many incidents in the French and American system that refers to this fact.

The issue is not about having a parliamentary or a presidential system. In fact, there

are no reasons, from the constitutional origins aspect, that indicate that the presidential system is better, and vice versa. We know some parliamentary systems where the power and the authority were monopolized for long periods of time and we know of some parliamentary systems where the ministries were changed every year or two. Concerning the presidential system, we know that the authority in France and in the United Sates was not monopolized, but it did not help in preventing the misuse of power or authority, and there are many examples of this.

The main issue lies in impartiality and not in the legal or constitutional constraints or

the institutional forms. These issues are compromised or get agreed upon when there is a general political agreement. Impartiality is a question of morals but, in the basis, it is a


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procedural issue as it depends on the institutional abilities to create coherent and integrated procedures with each others in the frame of a constitutional nation, which is characterized by theory, jurisprudence, the balancing between the three authorities, and a constitutional guaranty for the rights and the freedom of individuals. In this context, we can amend our presidential ruling system to have the meaning of a constitutional state.

The main issue is not the type or the form of the ruling system, but lies in the

resources of the legal political cultures which establish the concept of the constitutional general system. It is the system that formulates the possibilities of the rules that regulate the authorities in a mental framework where the values of liberal modernity suit the management of the ruling system and the construction of political legitimacy. This does not occur except through the establishment of a general philosophy for the nation that takes the shape of the liberal constitutional state according to our understanding of constructivism as a political culture. Before starting to present the perception of a liberal constitution, there are some problems and obstacles in the way of achieving the political reformation, and the democratic shift( or this liberal constitution) in the Egyptian society. They are represented in the following: 1- The problem of the shifting from the centralization to the non centralization: this is

majorly in the following: a- The extreme tendency to concentrate the authority in the hands of the president b- No separation or balance between authorities 2- The problem of constitutional thoughts or the constitutional mobilization 3- The problem of shifting from the innovation to the modernity 4- The intermixing between religion politics and religion and the difficulty in separating

them 5- The ineffectiveness of the civil society organization, which have an important role tom

play in achieving the democratic transformation First: An entry to create a liberal constitution (Basic items related to the country)

1- The required constitutional values

One of the aspects of the political struggle in Egypt evolves around the required

constitutional values for the political transformation to establish the relationship between the country and the society in a way that would develop productive capitalism, political fairness, and secular institutions. Discussing the constitutional values paves the way for discussing the constitutional principals, which will help in choosing the desired items of the constitution. Indentifying the constitutional values helps in indentifying the possible pathways for drafting the desired articles of the constitution. It is known that the constitution participates in the shaping of the general political trends which legislate, for the society and the country, the rules, laws, and applicable decrees which in turn draw up the possible activities for the individuals and groups in the society and the country. In my opinion, there are seven indispensible constitutional values that we can never leave out in order to reach the objective of building the new constitution: 1- the values of public benefit 2- the values of the legitimate capitalism trend of the country 3- values of the cohesion of


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the country 4- the values of separating religion from politics 5- the values of equality 6- the values of political parties 7- the values of freedom. The constitutional jurisprudence problem does lie in indentifying these values, but in indentifying the scopes and the limits of these values. In other words, what are the limits of these values so that it prohibits the perception of values according to what is not considered to be cognitive. In other words, identifying the scopes of the values restricts the authority of the constitutional judge of the interpretation that is based on the clarification and the explanation of what would appear to be mysterious or wrong in different texts with the purpose of discovering the original desire of the legislator. From the other hand, this opens the door widely for the interpretation of the texts of the constitution while will in turn result in an interpretative role of the cassation court in civil and criminal cases. This can result in that the judges can come up with a meaning that never crossed the mind of the legislator or in his cognitive or mental prospect. This opens the door for the establishment of the logic of the constitutional interpretations and not only the interpretation in front of the constitutional judge. Thus, this will enable the Supreme Constitutional Court to have a crucial effect in the affairs of the country and the society in a contemporary and comprehensive way. It is worth mentioning that this effect will not extend to reach the judges in the normal courts as the non constitutional judge deals only with incidents and procedures to the contrary of the constitutional judge. This will open a wide window to restrict the influence and the power of bureaucracy and its behaviors in affecting the country and the society. This will also free the constitutional judge from the formalism and the literal matters and encourage him for the creative thinking in the organization of the society and the country, the fact that will decisively pave the way to have a country that is ruled by constitution, not a country that has a constitution, which is the case in Egypt now. This is one of the most important features of the new constitutional thoughts. We want to clearly say that indentifying the scopes of the constitutional values, and not indentifying the values themselves, is one of the most important roles of the creator of the constitution. We noticed that in the critical political and social cases in the issues of the society and the country, the constitutional judge would interpret rules and laws, and not only explain and clarify them, without having a text stating this expressively. The scopes of the constitutional values in the shadow of the new thought are as follows: 1- The values of general benefit

In the frame of the new constitutional thought, the public benefits are understood to

be several and in sometimes contradicting in the same time. This is why we should not leave the issue of identifying the public benefits to the recognitions and the perceptions of the administrative authorities from one, or a regulatory mechanism that depend on detecting the number of the beneficiaries. The focus should be in the realization of the mind to choose what is more beneficial and the less harmful. Moreover, this has to be carried out within the context of indentifying the values of private benefits, which are the benefits that are associated with the patterns, the usages, and the extraction of materials in the general meaning of the country and the society for the individual benefits. Thus, the concept of balance will be deserted, and here I don’t mean equilibrium, between what is public and what is private, which is a static concept, to an interactive concept for the integration between them through the realization of the mind of the logic of proportionality and causation. 2- The values of the legitimate capitalism trend of the country in the same conceptual frame of the new constitutional thought, capitalism is not understood like the


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capitalism of the state, or the savage capitalism that would violate the law. However, it is understood in the frame of the concept of building of a capitalism country that would result in the capacity development and to improve the performance of the functions of the country in order to develop the individual private initiative in a strict legal systematic manner. 3- The values of the cohesion of the country: we speak here about the necessity status in the society and the country. If the concept of necessity, generally, means the elimination of dangers that represent a threat to a substantial benefit which is protected by the law, the concept of necessity in the new constitutional thought means the selected positive intervention to eliminate any danger that would threat the interests and rights protected by the constitution. In other words, the intervention has to take place in logic frame of beneficial proportionality and causation that would not lead to the waste of the legitimacy of the society. The necessity situation is a private and a sectoral situation and not a general situation. Among the most important functions of the country is to regain the situation of the normal legal status before the emerging of the necessity situation. What we mean with the private and sectoral situation is that it does not include all the aspects of the country and the society in the same time, or the country and the society would be exposed to the complete damage or the complete revolution. The necessity situation is a situation that is used sometimes according to predetermined methods to reform the institutional discontinuity or to amend a substantial pathway for the constitutional system of the general policies. 4- The values of separating religion from politics: politics change and since they are ruled by the considerations of the narrow interests and the perceptions generated from the open interactions between the political and social powers. On the other hand, religion, its perceptions, and practices, reflects great stability over a long period of time. This means that viewing one of them in the shadow of the other leads to big corruption, incoherence, and the remixing of the calibrator. Religion probably has bilateral values of logic and thought while, on the other hand, politics originally has multiple values. This saying leads us to say that it is necessary that the legislation in the political field should be carried out in the context of the multiple social and human values. 5- The values of equality: These values are strongly available in the constitution of 1971 and its amendments. What is missing is the logic of equality that means the valence between the social categories. The Egyptian constitution considers equality in the frame of the equality between all individuals, and it does not take into consideration other meanings of equality between the social and religious classes and categories. 6- The values of the political parties: I have to assert the necessity of stating that the political society is managed in the frame of the partisan logic and no other logic. 7- The values of freedom: The constitution of 1971 is semi perfect concerning the issues of freedom. However, it lacks the differentiation between the regulating of rights and restrictions of these rights. The administration got used to view the concept of regulating the right as a process of restricting it. In spite of the verdicts of the Supreme Constitutional Court that rejects this understanding, the situation remained the same as desired by the different bureaucracies of the country in different periods of time. It is better to state this difference as a constitutional text to free the political participation.


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2- The Basic Constitutional Principals : 1- The foundations of a civil state are citizenship and the protection of individual freedom

where the civil reference is the rule of law that govern the institutions and the citizens 2- The confirmation of the basic political, social, and economical rights of all Egyptians

without any discrimination and regardless of the legal position 3- Working on the redrafting of the Egyptian laws to achieve the integration between them

and to confirm the protection of general rights and freedom of all Egyptians according to the international laws and the international agreements and charters

4- The people is the source of authority and they practice it through their elected institutions, which are formed by the right and legitimate elects, representing the several classes, categories, and trends of the people

5- The freedom of the independent regulation is a basic and steady right for each individual 6- The private property is the basis of the society and the public property is protected by

the degree of public benefits it achieves 7- The three authorities are independent facing each other while taking into consideration

the necessity of integration and balance between them 8- The military institution is part of the country and the Minster of Defense is a member in

the council of ministers 9- Piece is a strategic objective of the country. All the institutions and the bodies of the

country and the individuals have to work together to archive through the interaction with other objectives. The country has to work on the development of peaceful international and regional relations that depend on efficiency and equality

10- The social care for all the individuals is preserved In the frame of the first characteristics of the new constitutional thought, the big question emerges; Does Egypt have coherent social powers that are able to take the historical responsibility to embody and develop this thought? (in the second section, we have benefited from the discussion with Mr. Amr El Baqly and Mr. Mohamed Said, and they are both members in the liberal thought forum) Second: The First Item: Egypt is a democratic state. The civil reference is the bases of the rule and the legitimacy of the posted interests is the rule. The first paragraph: (Egypt is a democratic state) The important question emerges; will the transformation from the republican logic to the democratic logic, as a constitutional base for the rule, the state, and the society, contribute in the spread of the social justice more efficiently Yes or no? The answer is an absolute yes in my opinion for the following reasons: First, the republican logic in the political theory of Plato, Aristotle, and many other philosophers who appeared afterwards, refer to the following implications. It is divided into two phases. The first is the phase of the maturity of the republic and the second is the phase of the degeneration of the republic. We find that the republic develop and grow when three basic conditions are available. The first is the balance between the population and the resources as the proportionality between the two components is necessary to achieve the civil equity. The second condition is the harmony between major constitute of the city of the state as harmony achieve inner peace and public security. Maybe it is useful


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to resort to the exclusion or the decreasing of the participation of some categories of people to preserve the social harmony while putting into consideration the continuous rehabilitation of the people in order to achieve the logic of the harmony of the society. The third condition is the state of peace between the state and other countries. This is because peace enables the state to have the ability for cooperation through trade and cultural exchange. However, unfortunately, we observe, in the light of the practical international experiences, the tendency of this constitutional form towards degeneration which can be expressed in many words like the failure of the state or its collapsing that expresses, in reality, the degeneration of the republic. The degeneration of the republic in Egypt occurs because of the spread of three basic characteristics of life in the society and the state:

1- The spread of mental fraud and this means, according to the definition of Salah Qonsowa, the separation between two sayings: The general saying and the private saying. The private saying expresses the real attitude of the self while the general saying tends to consider the requirements of the general attitude announced by the higher authority. Doctor Zaki Naguib Mahmoud puts this phenomenon in a more general context when he said” the relations that connect the citizens to the nation has changed in its core to the extent that the concept of the nation has changed from being a unified nation to being a gathering of different individuals, with each individual desiring to gain as much as possible of the spoils with as much as possible of work. The result is that the winners at the end turn to be the most excellent people in trickery and not the most intelligent, the most outstanding in the sciences, or the most achiever”

2- The spread of the non standard in the general and the private speech and behaviors. The standards of behaviors here mean the sovereignty of the values which indentify the social and cultural frames whereby identify the behavior of the society, thus, identifying the positive values that determine the position of the individual in the social body. On the contrary, the non standard reflects a state of sever social turmoil in determining the imposed or permissible social values. 3- The prevalence of slums and the circumvent of the law. This phenomenon reflects a state of negative adaptation with the law through circumventing it, putting into consideration the technicality of circumventing the law is different than lying to the law, as circumventing includes a wider meaning the does not mean necessary the direct lying. The main doer of these circumventing operations are usually groups that stand out of the production system like the marginalized or the people who do not want to work at all. In Egypt, we suffer a lot from this phenomenon. The facts that informs us that the reforming should include a constitutional plan to rescue the state from this republican degeneration and to speed up the transformation into constitutional form of a democratic state. The new constitutional form gives the individuals greater abilities in two fields. The first is the development of personal and social abilities of each individual and the second is the protection of each individual against other individuals and people and the life conditions. These two principals intermarry together. In the same time, the planting of the bricks, the solid core, and the columns of the democratic constitutional structure is planted.


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This would protect the state from the possibilities of collapsing or decaying a as a result of the necessary deterioration of the constitutional republican form. Here a new meaning for social justice emerges and it is represented in the individual and the group equity. This is a new pattern that we never got used to because we are familiar with the authoritarian general policies that encourage dependency on others, the fact that led to the increase of the percentage of economical dependence with the people. This means that every working productive individual pays for the expanses of the living of around 12 individuals and in some areas the percentage increases to reach around 16 individuals. In other words, the transformation of the state from the republican constitutional form to the democratic constitutional form will enable more work, production, creativity, and freedom.

The second paragraph: (the Civil Reference is the basics of the rule)

Egypt lives in a large travail with the opposing trends hesitate severely and rapidly in the sides of the Egyptian valley. There were some attempts to abort this travail to end up with a liberal state. The political struggle today revolves around the Islamists political powers and on top of them there are the Moslem Brotherhood and the Salafis. These groups clearly seek the dominance of the logic of the religious references. On the other hand, there are the liberal and openness forces that depend on the logic of the civil references. The authoritarian powers of the state and the society have worked on eclipsing the opinions of the liberal forces and the civil references, distorting them and polluting them for the past 50 years. The religious references were viewed as if they were the normal logic of the development of the events. The glorification and the development of the authoritarian feelings and practices in the Egyptian political culture have contributed in the dominance of several images of religious references. The revolution of the 25th of January opened the door of real hope to get out of the authoritarian culture tunnel. The revolution of the 25th of January is a civil revolution civil and public figures and people, which represent the practical values of the pan Egyptians The civil references are understood in the meaning of civil participation and struggle. In other words, the civil reference is the end result of many social, economical, cultural, ethical, and political factors that combine to determine the structure of the society, its political system, the pattern of the political and social relations and how compatible they are with the principal of participation and struggle, a principal that has become one of the major characteristics of the modern civil societies. These societies which industrial work, the advancement of sciences, the development of technicalities, subjective knowledge, and modern culture has rebuilt its general life and internal relations on the bases of creative work, free initiatives, utility, benefits, achievements, the rule of law in a modern national civil state which represent the abstraction of generality of the society, its political form, and its self determination.

In other words, the civil participation and struggle are among the most important

principals of the modern national state. It is a principal, which light can be use to distinguish the democratic national systems which are based on citizenship, equality in the rights and responsibilities from the authoritarian or inclusiveness tyrannizing systems that are based


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on monopoly. It is a principal that sets up a qualitative difference between democratic national systems with the base being the national unity; the unities of disagreeing, diversity, dialectical discrepancy, and inclusiveness or authoritarian system with the bases on social conflicting and latent civil war which can lead to the outburst of sever violence and self destruction at any time. A political and ethical principal that sets up a qualitative difference between tyranny and freedom.

We can say that civil participation and struggle are the practical expression of the

voluntary social contract, not only in its concept, but also in its practical reality as well. The civil participation and struggle reproduce the social contract and confirms it everyday. This means it reproduce the national unity and cherish it everyday. This national unity is among the most important achievements of modernity, especially the recognition of the rights resulting from the interdependence between the various social categories and the contribution of each category in the process of social production on the materialistic and the spiritual aspects. We mean the production, consumption, distribution, and exchange. This is considered a practical expression of citizenship, the necessity of the individual, from both genders equally, to be a member in the national state who is equal due to this membership, with all the individuals of the society and the members of the government in all the civil rights and basic freedoms. The civil participation and struggle are the core of citizenship and their practical reality. They determine the qualitative between subjects and citizens, between privileges and rights. The people, who had privileges, in every period and in every system, were not citizens, but subjects, and those who have privileges today are not citizens, but they are subjects, and slaves. Whoever thinks of himself as the master of some slaves, he is more of a slave than they are. People who have privileges today are not citizens. This is because citizenship contradicts all the way with privileges. The system that is based on privileges and the sequence of loyalties is not a national system by any means. National here comes in the Synonymous of the totality of the society, the generality of the people, and the Sovereignty of the people, and not only as a value or an ethical characteristic.

Citizens are the only ones who have civil, social, economical, and political rights

which are recognized by all the people for all the people with the virtue of the social contract, and it is protected by the law that expresses this contract. In this contract, the individual, from both genders, is the natural basis for the civil society. The citizen, from both genders as well, is the political civil basis for the modern state; the national state. This is why it seems obligatory on the researcher in the issue of civil participation, to study how free the individuals are from the natural ties, the primary ties, and the ties of the groups before nationalism and without nationalism, like an extended family, a clan, a caste, and an ethnic group. This would compose the worlds of the traditional society, its scattered fractures, which live behind its walls and establish among themselves tribal, ethnic, religious, or sectarian barriers. Moreover, in this case, the politics wears a religious wears the dress of politics and faith and the religion wears the dress of justification and political aspects

The modern tyranny is based on the sequence of loyalties and on privileges, not on

rights and the rule of the law that would equalize between the subjects in the distributions


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of boons with Repression, fear and despair being the most important. This system believes that the individuals, from both genders are equal in the fact that they are both equal to nothing. This system does not accept any sort of opposition from any kind, internally within its structure or externally as it tends to monopolize the truth, monopolize nationalism, and monopolize all the sources of authority, wealth, and power. The opposition in the tyrannizing systems, totalitarian or authoritarian, is considered to be a group of infidels and traitors.

In more explanation, the national integration, as known, has two main factors. The

first is the social work and the production that means the ability of the society for production and to create its ethical, political, cultural, economic, and social life and reproduce it freely. The second factor is the political state or the national state, where all the people in the society are equal in its membership, without exceptions or discriminations. Work is not able, abstract or personalized, to view the monkey except as a product of the value regardless of the gender, religion, ethnicity, and all the other self changes. The nation is not able to strip the generality to view the monkey and to deal with him except as a citizen. It is noticed that the Egyptian political thought and the Egyptian political imagination have not been promoted yet to reach the level of abstraction. The Arabian thinker or the Arabian politicians, with some exceptions, are not able to view the nation as the abstract generality of the society and an expression of it as a total. They are unable to view the citizen as an abstract of the natural monkey. They are unable to view the idea of the state is the country of all citizens with a positive neutrality towards all the aspects of all individuals and groups, and to view the religious, ideological, and secular beliefs in the same way. With these two factors, we step down from the work relations, from the special political relations, and all the challenges and aspects of individuals, except for the abilities, skills, and practical efficiency in the field of the work, abiding by the laws, fulfilling the obligations and responsibilities the citizenship puts on the individual and the country. Hence, the civil participation and struggle are the core of civil reference, with the condition of transforming from the “natural community” to the civil community, from the traditional community to the modern community, the society of working, productivity, various and different interests, creative competition, and interdependency. This means that civil reference is associated with national integration, the fragmentations and disperse to the unity; the unity of disagreement. This means we should go from the origin or the ethnics to the nation, with the modern meaning of the word, not the meaning that this spread in the political and cultural speeches in Egypt and the Arab world today. Hence, this led to the transformation of the position that occurred before the national state to the national state with its three basic aspects; the homeland, the people, and the political authority. The Third Paragraph (the law of the messaged interests is the ruling) The messaged interests, according to the words of god; “Allah doth not wish to place you in a difficulty, but to make you clean, and to complete His favor to you, that ye may be grateful.”, Allah puts no burden on any person beyond what he has given him” and the words of the Prophet Mohamed to be easy with yourself and not to put burdens on oneself


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and that there are some issues that do no harm. This opened the door in the Islamic jurisprudence the study of the necessity for the jurisprudences difference when the characteristics and the stream of life are different. This was why we found that El Imam El Shafie changed his understanding and jurisprudences in Egypt so that he modified many of the laws he have set up in Iraq. We have found many of the students of Abu Hanifa have disagreed with him concerning several issues. We listen to Mo’az Abu Gabal, when Prophet Mohamed sent him in a mission to Yemen, saying he will be Diligent in his opinion if the answers provided by Quran and the Sunna of Mohamed are not enough. The right jurisprudence rule says that the discretionary provisions different according to various environments and conditions. Even El Imam Malek refused the demand of Abu Ghaafar El Mansur to make the people in all the Islamic regions to act in a certain same way when he said: “Do not do this The Leader of the Faithful, the people in different Islamic regions have listened to sayings and learned different materials, and each understood in their own way, so leave the people of each region choose what suits them” and El Mansur believed in his maturity. Let it be known that “Ijtihad” or discretion is the third source of Islamic legislation. It depends mainly on the adoption of the messaged interests and considering them. The word interests here means bringing benefits, and push away harms, and to preserve the intentions of the legislator. The messaged here means, in the context of the interests, that the person carrying out the discretion should comply with any origins, but to comply with the major and continuous objectives intended by the legislation. The Imam Abo Taleb El Ghazaly says” If we interpret interests as the protection of the intention of the legislation, there is no disagreement in following it; on the contrary, we have to admit that it is an argument”. In other words, the interests of people in their daily life and the work to achieve these interests, without arrogance, lordliness, or religious claims are the approach in which the context of the messaged interest is formulated. This fact informs us that we have to differentiate between the devotional interests and the interests associated with the dealing between people. This means that the interests associated with the affairs of the people is are different from the interests associated with the worship of god. This fact informs us that the saying of the Moslem Brotherhood is not legitimately correct. This is because they intermix between the two interests making the devotional interests the legitimate basis for the messaged interests. Thus, they close the door, practically, of thinking and discretion. This means they close the door of the free thinking towards the Islamic issues. Thus, destruct one of the sources of Islam that should have the priority. The both Imams, Malek and Ibn Hambal, said that the legislation was never put except for the consideration of the interests of the people, the same as god says in Quran: “We sent thee not, but as a mercy for all creatures”. This is the major Jurisprudence basis for the constitutional separation between the political practices as considered to be associated with the benefits of people, their differences, and their interactions, and between the devotional religious references that is associated firstly with the matters of the worshiping. In other words, Legislation views the matters of the people in an approach and a methodology that is different than the matters of worshiping. The connection between these two is present in the major perceptions for the completeness and the integrity of the life of the people on the plane. They are two constituents that are separate in practicing as they have separate sufficient logics, but they integrate together in the final picture.


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The companions of the prophet Mohamed have put into consideration the interests of people without measurements or discretions or within the logic frame. This means they used the logic of the different incidents and their dictated necessities, not the precedents and what they imposes concerning the thinking approaches that are impractical. Abu Bakr fought the preventers of Zakat, or charity. This didn’t occur during the life of the prophet. Omar, who came after Abu Bakr, indentified his successor, while the prophet never indentified any successors that would lead the Islamic world after his death. Omar also stopped the imposition of the punishment for theft in the year of the famine, although it was proved by the Quran, and many other similar incidents. Othman gathered all the Moslems around one version of the Quran and he burned any other version to avoid disorder. Moreover, the Hanafis and the Shafi's permitted the commandment of the ribald as an exception of the general rule stating that: “ The person who is not sane does not have the right to donate anything”. We summarize that the Egyptian logic of the messaged interests revolves around a group of thoughts and principals: First, putting the “Ta’zir” idea; or the invention for a punishment for an action where Islam hasn’t created a punishment for, before the idea of Hodoud, the bounds of acceptable behavior and the punishments for serious crimes. Secondly, believing in the obligatory Shura or the counseling in the consideration of the conditions and matters of the people. Thirdly, the ruling of the state requires not to have any discretion because the concept of the state is a concept that is associated with the logic of necessities. In other words, there has to be a balance between the concept of obligatory Shoura and the concept stating that necessities allow taboos. Fourthly, the preferring the carrying out of the devotional rites to the interests of the people, their security, and protecting their lives. This should not be allowed in the normal context as it is more important, in the point of view of the legislation, to protect the lives and the interests of the people. Thirdly: Freedom is the Title and the Door to the Constitution and the Individuals. The social negotiation is the regulator and the facilitator of the social and national interactions. Citizenship is the core of the constitution The first Paragraph: Freedom is the Title and the Door to the Constitution and the Individuals Ibn Manzour says, in the book of “The Tongue of the Arabs” the free person is the contrary of the slave. Everybody is free. Freedom is the contrary of the nation. The free person, among people, is the best. The freedom of the Arabs is in their Gentlefolk and the free women as well. The word “Hor” here means the good deeds as well as the free person. The concept of the free is the opposite of the slave, who is the owned human. In the sayings of Abu Huraira: “Do not say to the humans you own; my slave or my thrall, but rather call them my boys and my girls to avoid being arrogant with them and there are three people I consider as my enemies: A man who enslaves a free human. This means the man made the free human his slave, as for example he apprehends him after his manumission and use him by force.


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In the early days of Islam, some concepts concerning freedom have emerged although the definition was never used at the time. We find it mainly in the literature of the science of speech, the philosophical writings, and in the Islamic legislators’ writings. It is associated with religion and with ethics. This concept is also present if we take a look at the relation between the human and his god from one hand, and with his human natural and his responsibility in the actions he commits from the other hand. When the Caliphate was transferred from the Rightly Guided Caliphs, which rule was based on Shoura, to an unjust king with the Umayyad, Muawiyah Ibn Abu Sofyan launched the Umayyad compulsory ideology and the new authorities started considering it, with the scientists who were revolving in their orbits. Muawiyah claimed that the past is better than the present and that the present is better than the future. He spoke to the inhabitants of Medina saying:” accept us as we are. Anyone who comes after us is worth for you. The virtue of our period is the vice of the previous period and the vice of our period is the virtue of a period that has not come yet. When Zeyad Ibn Abih, went to Basra, as a delegate of Muawiyah, he gave his famous “Petra” speech and he said:”O, people, we have become your politicians. We will govern you with the power of god that he gave us and we will defend you with the shades that god granted us.” When Yazzid Ibn Muawyyah became the Caliph, he said in a speech:”Thanks to god who creates everything according to his will. He grants whoever he wants, prevents whatever he wants, he downgrades whoever he wants, and he rises whoever he wants. The Umayyad compulsory ideology tried to employ the religious texts in a political purpose abstracting the human from his ability to choose or to differentiate between the good and the bad from the mental aspect. The obedience was forced for that who has the power. The theorizing of compulsory ideology did not only include the people who had the power and the authority but it also inducted the Sheikhs in the mosques, the poets, and the narrators, to the extent that some sayings of the prophet Mohamed were created and credited to those large icons who used to memorize the sayings of the prophet. These few examples clarify the close relation between compulsory ideologies and the problem of freedom in the Arabian history. The theorists of this ideology endeavored to steal from the human all his abilities to choose. This meant he was forced in everything and that he has to abide by anything that the people with the authority say. This was because the will of these people represented the will of god. Many Moslems, of course, did not believe the sayings and the arguments of the supporters of the compulsory ideology. Many groups started to respond to what they were saying asserting that the human has the free will and that he is not forced in his actions and choices and accordingly the human is responsible for his actions. They recognized that the main objective of theorizing the compulsory ideologies was to give legitimacy to a non legitimate authority. Therefore, a political war occurred between the supporters of the two points of views where the religious texts were largely used. Some sayings were credited to many large icons who memorized the sayings of the prophet Mohamed. Abdllah Ibn Masoud that the he said, that the prophet, peace be upon him: “If you see Muaweyyah sitting on my Minbar, kill him and in another story:”If you see Muaweyyah asking for the caliphate, hit him with a sword” and many other sayings that were set up for political reasons with very clear relation with the political context of freedom. In the midst of this political struggle, a new school of thought emerged and it was established by El Hassan El Basery that stated: Humans have the free


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will and thus they are responsible of their actions. Allah is not pleased with injustice so how does he order the people to worship him and then force them to commit sins? El Hassan El Basrey depended in establishing a new enlightenment approach of speech on the verses of Quran in the first place. This was clear in his response to the message of Abed El Malek Ibn Marawan. “To any of you that choose to press forward or to follow behind” and “We showed him the Way: whether he is grateful or ungrateful” This attitude merged in the political field as recourses referred to saying: Mo’abed Ibn Khaled El Gehny and Attaa Ibn Yassar went to El Hassan El Basry, while he was speaking to the people in the Mosque of Basra, and they asked him:” These kings shed the blood of the Moslems, take their money, commit many deeds, and they say: Our deeds are carried out according to the will of god” El Hassan answered:”The enemies of god are lying” The dilatation of the speech concerning the concepts of compulsory and the free will did not emerge here out of coincidence. It emerged because of the close relations between these concepts and the problem of the legitimacy of the authority in the Islamic Arabian society. Their relation, accordingly, towards the issue of freedom is rather very close. In this context, the political civil aspect emerged. Among the few Arabian thinkers who recognized this problem was Ibn Rushed and his remarks concerning the Republic of Plato and El Faraby in his book; “The civil Politics” At the end, I would like, at the end of this paragraph, to point out two issues:

1- The contribution of the Isolationist enlightenment movement to give a political dimension to the concept of freedom through the spread of the idea of freedom among people, that the individual is responsible for his actions. They refuted the sayings of the compulsory ideology that aimed from the very beginning, through interpreting the religious texts to prove the deification of the authority and the denial of any of its mistakes. I tend to say: This contribution is considered among the greatest achievements of the isolationist school in the Arabian political religious thought.

2- The lack of the controversy in the issue of the free choice and the theorizing of the legitimacy of the political authority occurred after the emergence of the authority of the soldiers or the army. The Janissary groups became the pillar and the supporter of the authority. This phenomenon increased in with the emergence of the Seljuks, continued with the Ottomans with another two new phenomena:

The tyranny of the phenomenon of military feudalism in the economical field The Coalescence of the Ashariyyah copying school with the political authority with the military trait. Freedom in the modern period It is no exaggeration to say: that the concept of freedom, with its political meaning, which was used to contradict the authoritarian absolute rule, had no clear characteristics.


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The leaders of Arabian enlightenment movements did not use a curing text to resist the tyranny systems except in the beginning of the first half of the 19th century. The Arabian enlightenment leaders did not address the issue of freedom in the beginning as a separate matter. On the contrary, they dilated in the description of freedom, its contribution in the development of many European countries as they notice this during their journeys in Europe. They tried in some cases to find an equivalent for the concept of freedom in the heritage of the Arabian political thought. The researcher of the Arabian enlightenment literature would easily notice the influence of the modern values in the enlightenment period. This is beside the principals of the French revolution in the political concepts that were used by the leaders of the Arabian Reissuance like freedom, general freedom, political justice, natural rights, modernity, constitutional systems, civil state, and many other concepts. Many of them have recognized that the modernity of the enlightenment period has become a universal modernity. What are the most important attributes of this modernity that the pioneers tried to track? This can be summarized in four sayings: First: there is no authority over the mind except the mind itself. Secondly, the integration of the mind in a necessary relation between rationality, freedom, and social political justice. Thirdly, the liberation of the humans and the history from the legend of Inevitability. Fourthly, this saying is associated with the legitimacy of the authority. The enlightenment movement was not established as a philosophical trend of an absolute thought, but it was born and made its way in the middle of the struggle with complex reality. This reality was dominated with two reactionary powers: the power of the puritanical priesthood and the power of the authoritarian political systems. It was not a coincidence that the most critical question addressed by the thinkers of the enlightenment period and the most influential in the historical events that occurred in the 18th and the 19th centuries is: From where shall the political authority derive its legitimacy in governing people and the interests of the people? The answer emerged in what was addressed by Rousseau concerning the theories of the “social contract”. It is not by coincidence that Rafa’a El Tahtawy, one of the pioneers of the modern Arabian Reissuance, gave it special attention. It is known that Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) did not admit that there are any contradictions between faith and the mind in his philosophy and its life. However, he said concerning the religious priesthood institutions and concerning the authoritarian authority that these institutions “temple the sacred human rights with their legs” We go back to assert that these sayings were reflected, with varying degrees in the writings of Arab thinkers starting with El Tahtawy till Farah Anton ( 1877 – 1922), Adib Eshaq ( 1856 1885) Salama Mousa (1887 – 1958) Ahmed Lotfy El Said (1871 – 1963) and Taha Hussein (1889 – 1973). Modernity that affected the leaders of enlightenment is the modernity of the enlightenment period that inaugurated the period of the humans and freed his will to recognize that he is the creator of his history. These are the concepts that eliminated the holiness nature of the ruling. The authority is a worldly human matter that has nothing to do with god. The human only, and through his long struggle, has the right to choose the best patterns of ruling and authority to facilitate his affairs. He is the only one who can change them if they do not fulfill his needs. The modernity that wears the enlightenment philosophical coat means the close inseparable relation between two concepts: rationality and freedom. Rationality has no meaning if it is not serving freedom.


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Freedom, on the other hand, rights, and democracy would never be achieved without rationality. The practices of rational thinking have become the stake and the corner stone. The noble function of it has emerged in the leadership of modernity and liberty. Modernity would never be achieved without freeing the humans from the axioms and taboos, metaphysics, legends, and free history of the compulsory concept Some of the pioneers of the Arab enlightenment movements did not address the concept of freedom in itself and independently, but they described, through their journeys, the importance of freedom in what they saw concerning the modernity of the European societies. Among the most important of these writings is that of journey of Rafa’a El Tahtawy (1801 – 1873): “The Extraction of Gold or an Overview of Paris”. He translated many texts with the objective of praising freedom and the French constitution. He spoke about the natural rights as he read the texts of Jan Jack Rousseau especially “the social contract” and also the spirit of the law for Montesquieu and Voltaire. Al Tahtawy was cautious in his treatment of some concepts in his writings as he tried to find an equivalent for some of them in the Arab Islamic Heritage. He referred to what was named freedom in their culture, to be named justice and equality in our culture. Despite this caution, we can say that: that he presented in the Extraction of Gold or an Overview of Paris, the French democratic Bourgeoisie thought in the 19th century and freedom was a landmark in this line of thought. El Tahtawy recognized the importance of the political justice to achieve advancement but he did not say that expressively as he said concerning justice” that it is the basis of the equality and urbanization. It is the origin of the building kingdoms and its good management of its affairs. Many virtues weave from political justice as being some of its attributes. The contemporary of Al Tahtawy, Khair El Dine El Tunsi, took a new step when he spoke in his book The Surest Paths about political justice. He considered freedom as the decisive factor in the advancement of the European kingdoms. The writer of The Surest Path, together with many of the leaders who supported reformations in the second half of the 19th century, recognized that conditions can never change and the Arab Islamic society would never take steady steps towards real modernity without changing the political conditions, the establishment of the constitutional institutions that are based on the political justice and freedom. It was not out of coincidence that Khair El Dine studied the concept of freedom for a long time and the role of freedom in the advancement of Europe. It is not a surprise that he was the one who closely tackled the scourges of the authoritarian absolute authority and its negative influence. He asserted that “Freedom is the establisher of the wide scope of gratitude and modernity in the European Kingdoms.” He spoke about personal freedom, political freedom, the freedom of press, the freedom of expression, and the relation between freedom and economics. He recalled the ideas of Ibn Khaldun to highlight the relation between authoritarian ruling and the destruction of urbanization. Another thinker, among the contemporaneous of El Tahatawy, Ahmed Fares El Shedyak (1804 – 1887) described freedom in his journey: “ revealing the secrets of the arts of Europe” and the aspects of the freedom he experienced in the French and the Britain societies. Francias Fateh Allah Marash (1836 – 1873) in his symbolic novel: The jungle of


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right” he dreamt of a new world where the symbols of freedom, justice, and equality are achieved. He was influenced by the slogans of the French revolution. The story of this novel was based on how to establish the “the free and civil kingdom”. Shably El Shomeil (1850 – 1917) summarized in a booklet sent to the Sultan Abdel Hamid in 1896 with the title: “Complains and hopes” his point of view concerning the lacking sciences, justice, and freedom in the Ottoman Sultanate. Gamal El Dine El Afghani (1838 – 1897) devoted all his life to defend the freedom of Arab Islamic countries. Concerning the principals of freedom, El Sheikh Mostafa Abdel El Razeq, the Egyptian thinker, the honor of Gamal El Dine El Afghani is due to the fact that he was first thinker to advocate for freedom in the modern history of the East and he was the first martyr in the sake of freedom. The concept of freedom became prominent issue in the texts of the Arab enlightenment leaders in the last quarter of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. We find that in the writings of the prince Mostafa Fadel Pasha, the father of liberals, El Sheikh Mohamed Abdo (1848 – 1905) Farah Anton, Adib Ishaq, Waly El Dine Yakan (1873 – 1921) Selim Serkeis (1867 – 1926), Ahmed Lotfy El Said, Salama Mousa, and Taha Hussein. Abdel Rahman El Kawakby (1854 – 1902) is considered among the first Arab enlightenment leaders that gave the concept of freedom a prominent position in their writings. He wrote” There is no doubt that life is the most valuable thing for the human. When he looses it, he losses hope, the deeds are suppressed, and the souls die) The advocacy to the concept of “constitutional citizenship” was the legitimate concept for the legitimate establishment of the first subject. Concerning the general values of citizenship, which will be drafted in legal texts, we can say the following: first; Citizenship is an aggregate concept with manifestations in the daily life that help in reducing prior biases during the interaction between the individuals and the groups. Secondly, citizenship is the core of the civil society which is practiced in a major way on the domestic level. Thirdly, citizenship represents the constitutional identity of the state. This means that the state is blind concerning any differentiating between the citizens. Fourthly, citizenship is a concept that helps in the self correction of the behavior of the state and the society. Fifthly, citizenship is a mechanism to divide opportunities and not a mechanism to divide income. Sixthly, citizenship is a permanent process associated with the institutional development of the state and the society. Seventhly, citizenship is a process of continuous communication between individuals, gatherings, societies, and different bodies and institutions. We can say that, in this draft, the following subjects would establish a ruling legislation for the texts of the first subject concerning citizenship

1. The draft of the first subject: “Citizenship is the core of the Egyptian nationalism community and the intimate bound of anybody who has the Egyptian nationality

2. The draft of the second subject:”anybody who commits a discriminating deed or a behavior, or the advocacy towards it in the society or the state are considered as a crime against honor”


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3. The draft of the third subject: “All the bodies of the government and the society have to work for the integration of the citizens. The violation of this law is considered a misdemeanor with the punishment of mandatory detention”

4. The draft of the forth subject: “The General Attorney has the right to seek a public lawsuit when the discrimination between the citizens is proved to be harmful to the national security and the Supreme interests of the nation. They will be treated the same as the crimes associated with national security.

5. The draft of subject number five; “The businesses that continue preserving the indiscrimination between citizens would be special preference according to the law

From here we begin the first step. However, this needs great determination and efficiency from all civil society and political organizations to present these drafts in a lawWe know that the social struggle, in one of its most important dimensions, is the struggle to redefine the social operations. The definition is a social operation that aims to categorize objects, individuals, groups, and operations through the creation of an organized naming process which is socially compatible. In other words, the individual, the group, or any other entity; its name, its epithet, or its title is created through a social interaction process. The social struggle then is a social interaction with the subject of creating names for the social categories and its significance. In this context, citizenship is considered would the liberty from the categorized definition and social sectarian towards depending on a definition that is not based linguistic type but based on the linguistic generalization. The linguistic generalization is a targeting process with the purpose of the building of a new lingual awareness that allows breaking the borders of the old definition to reach a definition that permits having a larger and wider social scope. The historical transformation from the sectarian definition of the citizen towards a national definition was indeed an important step towards the development of language and civilization. Any decline in this step is considered to be a setback that we have to study its reasons and to work hard not to allow this to happen even if some trends in the community supporting it. Sectarianism has two faces, an inner face and outer face. The inner face considers the sectarian definition a tool among the tools of sectarian identity. The outer face is to work to create reconciliation between the Moslem majorities on this definition. The struggle for the linguistic generalization is like the basis of the definition. An example is that the Christian should be called a citizen, without any reference to his doctrine or religion instead of placing him in a strict doctrine religious perception. This struggle should not only be against the Islamic extremists but also against the Christian extremists. The social struggle concerning the process of the creation of the name is one of the most important social cognitive struggles.

The social naming strategy, in its core, is a social struggle and the wager of the future. The subject of this wager is to create scenarios of possible actions. This means to shift from the lingual generalization to the construction of the enablers of the action and it is a level that is deeper than the social struggle. The social struggle to achieve citizenship has two levels. First is the struggle of the lingual generalization and the second is the struggle for the building of the enablers of the action. This makes the language and the action in the same controversy unit. The achievement of citizenship occurs through the integration of the two faces. The two faces interact as if they are one system consisting of two levels. This is because without building enablers of the action, the lingual generalization becomes a process to absorb crisis and it become part of the general deception. How a Coptic Christian


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cans does not become a citizen just because of the social agreement concerning not calling him a Coptic. This name that has an Islamic Jurisprudential origin that was generated long time ago and it is still spread in Egypt. This was also derived from the ability to take important general positions depending that the general position is the basis of the general trust of the society and the state. In other words, the sayings we hear from some extremist

Sheikhs that the Coptic citizen does not have the right to take important positions in the country are still spread in Egypt. This is due to the incomplete transformation in the approaches of education, media, advertising, and the other approaches in life of naming strategies. This means the incomplete transformation from the naming according to the lingual gender to the lingual generalization. The fact that tells us the struggle concerning citizenship is not only a cognitive struggle but also a realistic struggle about the existence of the Coptic in the public life as citizens. Citizenship as a system of renaming ensures a component of the lingual redefining and another component that is interactive with it and associated with building the enablers of public actions. This tells us that the general authority has to intervene to ensure the efficiency of this system and its continuity in being active and developing through time. Without the effective intervention from the general authority, the demanding of the citizenship will transform from being a general issue to be a factional sectarian issue, and not an issue that is associated with building the policies of modernity, justice, and equity. What we view concerning the fidget of the Coptic cultural groups because of the concept of citizenship was not achieved, on the individual or the group level which is frequently viewed in the Egyptian life will generate the transformation of the sectarian to a deep categorical feeling especially with the withdraw of the state concerning the categorical demands. When the sectarian transforms into religious categorical matter it shifts to become a political trend with sharp teeth. Forth: The third subject: The constitutional state is the general moral and legal frame that protects the freedoms and the individual, general, and human rights. The Egyptian nation is a unified and a simple state that expresses a multi cultural society. The several administrative and security governmental bodies have to adapt with the multiplicity of the society. The individuals have the right for political and civil organization to protect and preserve the civil and democratic nature of the state Explanation of the Third Subject The first paragraph: The third subject: The constitutional state is the general moral and legal frame that protects the freedoms and the individual, general, and human rights. The state with its general concept: It is the entity based on three factors; the region, the people, and the authority is sovereign. The constitution is the legal laws enacted by the legislation authority ( the parliament, the national council, the peoples’ council.. Ect.). This is the major law that other subsidiary laws and rules should not contradict with. In other words, the constitution is the document stating the general rules and the basic principles that determines the general rights and freedoms of the citizen and it explains the duties of the president of the country and the formation of the three authorities. It also draws up and


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determines the relation between the state, the society, and the governmental institutions. This is the top legal system in any state with no legal base that would transcend the constitution because it transcends and the constitution is aimed at the organization of the country considering it the mother institution of all other institutions of the state concerning their formations, their specializations, and how they supervise these specializations and the limits and permissions of these specializations. The same goes for relations between the authorities inside the country and their relations with the citizens. This is besides that these authorities have to pay attention to the rights of the citizens in the face of the authorities and how to preserve these rights. The implementation of the constitution and the laws requires a legitimate power that aims at preserving and respecting these laws and their subsidiaries. Among these powers, there are the monitoring institutions of the parliament as a legitimate and monitoring body. This is besides the media institution which include all the media channels (written, audio and visual) and the civil society institutions which work on pursuit the enforcers of the law, record their mistakes, and disclose them in front of the public opinion and the responsible authorities so that everybody feels that he is under the complete observation from all the individuals and the specialized authorities. Without the right implementation of the subjects of the constitution and the full and the good monitoring of these legal subjects, the constitution becomes only a document where the ink never leaves the paper. Most of the constitutions around the world assert the importance of the separation between the authorities as a basic principal which is indispensable if we want to build a state of law based on the democratic institutions that serve the society. The individual is not allowed to practice authoritarianism and the monopolizing of take the decisions or to rebel against the legitimacy of the law. This principal gives respect and ascendancy and puts everybody under the penalty of law. In this context, the rule of law means that the legal law is above the wills of all individuals, ruling and ruled, and they all abide by it. If they do not abide by the laws, especially by the rulers, their illegal actions have to be transformed into a void and an illegal rule. The importance of the rule of the law is as follows: 1- The constitution, the rule of the law, and the judicial authority have a pressing human and social importance because the modern democratic state intervene in the organization and the regulation of the details of the daily life to achieve the interests of the citizens which are represented in the services of all forms and types. This is because of its role in facilitating the affairs of the state and the society according to the rules and policies which the political parties have pledged to protect in front of the parliament and the government. If the state abandons its duties and responsibilities in regulating the services, economical, and political life of the society, chaos would take the position of the system. This will result that the individuals, especially the weak, will lose their rights. These are the circumstances that the society which have authoritarian systems that do not respect the laws, systems, and do not consider the principal of separating the authorities as it makes the executive or the governing authorities as the highest authority in the society 2- It is a modern necessity as well as it protects the interests of the society, which definitely include the rights and the human, public, and individual freedoms permanently. There are five basic freedoms for the individual: The freedom of belief and religion 2- The freedom of thought, faith, opinion, and expression, including the freedom of press and other means of


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communication 3- The freedom of peaceful assembly 4- The freedom of forming NGOs and civil institutions 5- The democratic rights of the citizens. The rights, freedoms, and interests can never be protected and developed except with the rule of law and the independence of the judicial authority. This is what the modern states in the world are trying to achieve by making the judicial authority have the final saying concerning all sorts of conflicts, either between the individuals themselves or between the individual and the government

3- Concerning its importance in preserving the financial resources of the state, in the state of law, these resources are announced extremely precisely and clearly. The annual budget of the country has to be known by showing it through the media channels detailing how this budget will be spent and the projects which these recourses will be invested in. this will enable the citizen to know his financial wealth. It will significantly limit the manipulation of the governing authority or any wealth associated with the manipulation of the fund or the resources of the state, thus protecting the public fund.

4- In the state of law, the citizen who has authority, the politician, or the officials of the government will no longer need to manipulate as they will get their rights, whether they have connections with the governmental officials or the executives since all citizens are equal in front of the law. This is what takes place in the countries which enjoy the constitutional and the legal stability and which respect law, justice, and do not intervene with the judicial matters. Accordingly, this will make the politician the person who needs the individuals of the society in order to present them with services so that they vote for him to achieve his political objectives. The citizens will no more be in need of this politician as his rights are protected by the constitution and the law. The constitutional systems are not just some texts in document, but they should be respect by all. Many of the tyrannical countries have constitutions with respectable drafting. These constitutions speak about the humans and their rights wonderfully. However, they have nothing to do with the reality of oppression, tyranny, and the confiscation of freedoms that people live. These constitutions have nothing to do as well with the military coups through which the power is controlled and they take control of the authority and the people get poor and they practice tyranny against them from all the economical, political, and intellectual aspects. The constitutional system, in their core, is the belief in the state of institutions and the concept of a one man state. It is the faith that authority is practiced by certain people according to specific rules. If these people violate these rules regulating their specializations, they went out of the legitimacy principal. This is the main principal of legitimacy and the rule of law. It is associated, strongly, with the idea of the state of constitutions and idea of specializations that are indentified by law. It is often referred to the state of law and institutions and it means this state where authorities are established according to certain legal laws that indentify appointing authority to certain individual or individuals. Then, the legal laws determine the specialization of each individual, group of individuals, a certain governmental body, or an institution, in a direct clear way so that anything that is out of these specializations would be considered illegal or illegitimate.


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In a specific sentence, there are two connecting powers in the human governments. The force of arm and the power of law. If the power of law is not protected and preserved by judges who have no fears and who can not be blamed, this will lead to the dominance of the force of arm and the military systems will control the civil systems. The independence of the judicial system means that nobody has an authority, whoever he is, on the judicial system, except the requirements of justice. When we want to speak about the country of institutions, the principal of the rule of the law, and legitimacy of a country that has no independent judicial system, our conversation becomes only twitters or some absurd ideas. Having an independent judicial system will certainly allow the individuals to prosecute the public authorities in any illegal deeds or actions. The establishment of a state of law means the protection of the rights of the people, his freedom, prevents the establishment of a dictatorship system or that the people use force to obtain their rights. People should have complete contentment with the principal of the rule of law and have faith in the constitutional state. The independent judicial authority comes as a natural result. When the principal of the separation of powers is lacking or when the people do not believe in the principal of the rule of the law, an independent judicial authority would never stand to confront the person who is leading the executive authority. The modern state is based on a sort of balance between the different authorities inside the nation. This balance requires that each authority should be separate from the other and that all the authorities would stand together in the face of the recalcitrant force between them. This is why the independence of the judicial system is considered a subsequent from the principal of the separation of the authorities. The requirements of the legitimacy, the rule of law, and their implementations, are achieved through an independent judicial system. Its presence means the presence of a strong guaranty for the implementation of law objectively and neutrally in all disputes. Either between individuals or individuals and the governmental institutions and bodies. The principal of the separation between authorities is considered to be among the most important features of a democratic state. There is a big overlap between the legitimate and the executive authorities in most of the democratic countries. This is because the legitimate authority is formed through elections and the executive authority emerges from the legitimate authority and the two authorities are affected by one another’s decisions. This is what is noted from the recommendations that come from the government to the parliament to be drafted in the shape of a law. Politics has a clear and important effect on both the legitimate and the executive in contradiction with the judicial system that should have complete independence in all its actions. The establishment of an independent judicial system is among the principals that international agreements and conventions recommended. This includes the decision of the General Assembly of the United Nations number 32/40 on the 29th of October 1985 and number 146/40 on the 29th of January 1985 that stated the basic principles for the independence of the judicial authority and the means that lead to this independence. The second paragraph: The Egyptian country is a unified and simple state that reflects a multicultural society. The different public institutions have to adapt and fit with the multiplicity of the society.


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The state is simple and unified and it includes a multiple society. The nationalism values and citizenships protect the state from fragmentation and division. The recognition of the multiplicity of the culture of the country, the protection of the rights of other minorities, does not mean, in any circumstances, the surge to divide the country politically, economically, and socially. The multiplicity of culture means the culture and language spread between people and all over the country. The Arabic language is prevailing in the institutions of the country. However, all other the cultural languages have the right for freedom to express its different culture with the respect to the Arabic language. The lingual culture is an expression that is mainly associated with the local or the religious lingual culture and not with the international languages. Accordingly, the constitution becomes a symbol for all the Egyptians and their identity as a society where everybody is equal and they share the same basic values that are based on freedom. Thus, the Egyptian person is defined as this person who identifies himself to be belonging to these common values of freedom, equity, and to have pride in the lingual and cultural multiplicity in the frame of the one unified country which is undivided. In this context, every Egyptian citizen has the right to enter, stay, or leave Egypt. He also has the right to travel, earn his living, or stay in any legal chosen place. He has the right to the social formulation of his small group of people and to develop it in the frame of common benefit and the general values. He has the right to receive the general services from the country without differentiation or discrimination of any sort or because of any reason. Every citizen has the right to live, have his freedom and security and he should not be prevented from any of his rights except by a final judicial verdict. Each citizen has the right to be secured against any inspection or arresting that is considered to be not objective. Every citizen has the right not to be captured or imprisoned due to arbitrary reasons: 1- He has to be informed immediately about the reasons behind this arrest. 2- He has to assign a lawyer without any delays and he has to be informed that he has this right. 3- His arrest has to be based on a judicial order and he has to be released if the arrest is illegal. Everybody is equal before the law. He has the right for legal protection, equality in the benefit from law without any discrimination generally. In particular, there should not be any discrimination based on the ethnic, the national origin, and the color, religion, gender, and age, mental or physical disability. The country does not recognize the presence of any sort of minority except in the parliament. Each citizen has the right to express himself in the way he wants even if this is considered specific to a certain lingual or cultural group. The constitution has to be interpreted in a way that fits with the preserving and the strengthening of the multicultural heritage of the Egyptians. Men and women are equal concerning the public and private rights and freedoms. Any person who seeks to change this general reality or aspect should take the punishment of felony. This constitution does not include the basic education that extends for the first 15 years of the life of the person that is based on any doctrinal or sectarian values or bases. The first and basic doctrine of the country is to have basic education for every citizen, to provide a healthy environment to each and every citizen, to rehabilitate citizens to work, to provide general security to each individual, and to create the cultural and instructional environment to develop democracy


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The Third Paragraph: individuals have the right for the political and civil organization to protect and preserve the nature of the democratic and civil state Among the major achievements of the 25th of January is the ability of the individuals for organization and assembly. The liberal constitution should have this spirit, preserve it, and develop it. The achievements of the revolution fit with the concept of the government that restitute with the doers among the Egyptian society which was created by United Nations Development Program: “Towards a more ... of economic, political, and administrative authority to manage a country's affairs at all levels, comprising the mechanisms, processes, and institutions through which that authority is directed” The Arab Human Development Report defines the concept of the developmental prospective as the “the rule that empowers, supports, and preserves the human well being and that is based on widening of the human abilities, choices, and their political, social, and economical freedoms of individuals, especially the poorest and most marginalized people”. We notice in these two definitions, the international and the regional, that the focus of the definition is the protection of the role of the individuals in the effective participation in the management of the affairs of their nations. This changes the individual from a spectator to a real creator as he feels his effectiveness and presence through providing several mechanisms to practice his role in the evaluation and assessment. This government needs some mechanisms to be achieved in reality. We discuss them as follows: First: Having a clear vision: What is sad here is that most groups that are present today did not seek to build a clear vision that expresses its future trends that would participate in formulating its procedural goals and its plans which are known by the leaders and the individuals, all the same. The presence of this vision prevents the deviation of the social entity away from its passageway that was identified for the bifurcations that have no value and lead to the dispersion of the efforts. Secondly: Participation: it is the main basis for good ruling and government. Participation should be shifted from being just some slogans to clear mechanisms that enable the individual to express his opinion he believes in and not the opinion that the leaders believe in. the freedom of expression is considered to be among the most important signs of the civil system without military intervention. Participation extends to the decision making process as well. It would be illogical to manage the major entities in a central or a semi central way through an organizational hierarchy going from the top to the bottom with the subsequent entities feeling helpless because they are unable to take any decision no matter how simple they are. Third: Transparency: This means that the decision making and its execution are carried out according to rules and regulations that are known in advance to protect the decision against the mood swings or the changing passions. Its means also that the information is available and it can be directly sent to the people affected by the decision and its execution. It means as well that information is available in understandable forms. If the withhold of information had justifications in some previous periods because of the security


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pursuits, I believe that the revolution of the 25th of January needs to change many of these concepts. Forth: Accountability : It is considered among the most specific features of the good governance that opens the door to empower the individual inside his group. Any organization or institutions, generally, has to be subject to accountability of the people affected with its decisions. There can not be accountability without transparency and the rule of the law. If some entities now intervene in the choices of their individuals and their trends and if we view some dangers from some entities, either secretly or in public, prohibiting the individuals from joining any political parties except the party that is derived from the same entity. Isn’t it the right of the individual to practice his right in accountability in return of this part of his freedom that he willingly abandoned. Accountability we refer to has to be carried out according to a system that is protected through the constant evaluation of the individual according to disciplined standards. This is done to protect the individual against committing rebellions and it makes him feel that is the real owner of the entity he works in and not only a number in a long system of numbers. The writer of these lines has participated in the experience of the governance of some primary schools with the sponsorship of the World Bank. This was carried out by attracting the parents to practice their rights of accountability towards the administration of the school, evaluate it, and participate in its advancement. The results reflected in the inner feelings of the parents were wonderful. They felt as if they are the real owners of this institution and not only people who are receiving services. This is what we hope for when the individual is able to practice accountability towards the higher authorities. Fifth: Equality: the righteousness of the entities depends on guaranteeing that all its members have their part where they participate. None of the members would be excluded just because he expressed his opinion or because he exerted some efforts in the discretionary matters which have become assumptive while they are not. Equality requires that the individual would be enabled to promote in the organizational ladder according to known mechanisms that are controlled by objective discipline standards, away from the choices and desires of people that would lead to the promotion of the trust people rather than the efficient individuals Sixth: effectiveness: This means that the outcomes of administrational, scientific, educational and advocacy processes would be compatible with the ambitions and the hopes of the individual. The continuous development is the right of the individual that has to be fulfilled by his “group” The revolution of January imposed another challenge that needs to be treated concerning the predominance of the “group” at the expanse of the “individual” with all the catastrophic effects on his creative and inventive abilities. This can be done by establishing a new relationship between the two parties that is based on the empowerment of this individual.


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In addition, the concept of the individual defense of civil democracy fits with the concept of the purposes of Shariah, or the Islamic laws. There are five purposes, which were indentified by El Imam El Shatby that would make use Islam to create a pure civil state, in other words, a state with civil reference. The first purpose: is to defend life as life, without discrimination between a Moslem and a Coptic, against all threats of death like illness, hunger, or nudity. The assault of Copts is forbidden in Islam. Their lives, their belongings, and their churches are protect by the law and the constitution, and not only the Shariah. The same as what Omar Ibn El Khatab did, while he was in his way to Jerusalem, when he prayed at the door of the Church and not inside to show respect to the Christians. The second purpose: to defend the mind. The mind of the citizen has to be defended against all sorts of discrimination between a Moslem and a Coptic, against ignorance, literacy, superstition, and legends. There is no difference between the Azahr schools and the Sisters schools, the private education and the public education. Education is national and it is the right that country should secure for everybody. Education should be free like water and air. The third purpose: to defend religion. This means the values and morals that are shared by all religions like freedom, justice, honesty, loyalty, love, humility and sacrifice. These morals that the citizen grows up to respect without discrimination between Moslems in the lessons of Islam or Copts in the lessons of Christianity. Religion is not about what the theologians disagree about, but it is what people agree about out of instinct and nature. The forth purpose is dignity and it means the respect for everybody. The dignity of the citizen, his family, disregarding his religion, sect, ethnics, or tribe. The fifth purpose is the national wealth pr the funds. This does not mean the robbery of the money of other sects or to count how much does the Moslems have and how much does the Copts have in the public funds Fifth: The Forth Subject: the constitutional social benefit is the concept used to correct the general policies of the nation. The taxes of the nation are specified by law and it is generally and socially scaled. The general rule is that it is prohibited to have deficit in the general budget. The first paragraph: the constitutional social benefit is the concept used to correct the general policies of the nation. In the frame of the current debate concerning the constitutional, economical, and social issues, we face the problem of the social price of the work, whether it was carried out by a private or public companies. The two elements of these problems are; the entanglement of the concepts the personal expanse and the expanses of the administration. The business sector, the private or the public, is responsible for the expanses of the administration for the sake of improving the conditions of social interaction with the political and cultural elements of the society. This is what is called the first element of the constitutional social expanses. The second element, related to the first element; the element of constitutional social expenses, it is the organizational rights of work, workers, and consumers. These rights were not clear in the constitution of 1971 because it was written in a semi Marxist way where the word untapped share capital was mentioned a lot. The problem is that the first element has tight containment and the second element is not clear. The first problem emerges from that it is not clear, in the reformation process Egypt is


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passing through, how do the conceptual elements of reformation, like the economy and the administration, would interact with the elements of politics and culture. It is probably, according to my opinion, that there is no specific drafting these three elements. Anyways, there has to be a general concept of the constitutional social expenses due to its contribution in setting up the primary drafting to connect these three elements together. There are three issues that arise when we speak about these two elements. The first is; will the reformation of socio economical matters be drafted in the frame of rights or the frame of constitutions responsibilities? In my opinion, in the sake of the economical reissuance, reformation, and prosperity, it is better to draft these issues in the frame of the constitutional responsibilities and not the constitutional rights. This saying is based on three considerations: 1- the Egyptian constitutional and political culture has introduced, for historical reasons, the concept of rights according to responsibilities in the production process. It has also restricted the responsibility to work as it enabled, in many cases, the worker would gain rights that are not proportionate with what the individual has achieved of his responsibilities. We notice in the constitution of 1971, and its amendments, in the chapter of the constitutional text between the rights and the responsibilities. The Egyptian constitution includes, in the third chapter, 23 subjects, from subject number 40 till subject number 63. Among these 23 subjects, there are only 6 subjects which addressed the public responsibilities, while 17 addressed the public rights. In this liberal drafting, the rights and responsibilities are lined in the frame of the social expenses concept. The constitution of 1971 differentiates between two concepts. The first concept is the economical, creative, and social constituents which were mentioned in the subjects from 7 till 39. The second concept is about the rights and responsibilities that have no clarification as the rights and responsibilities are different than constituents. The examining view clarifies that what is called the constituents functions the same way as rights. 3- Even when this constitution, in the subject number 13, referred to that work is a right, a duty, and honor assigned by the nation, the duty, according to the context, takes the meaning of the right. This is a clear confusion, in the meaning and conceptual identity, as the nation becomes the sponsor of the citizens even in their duties and responsibilities. Thus, the country covers the citizens with its bureaucratic protective shield. This encourages many citizens to adopt the behavior of lazing as long as the right exists and it is not associated with the work. This is different from the concept of the liberal state which is the state that is based on the responsibility and partnership contract established between the citizens in the frame of the market and the law where the rights and the responsibilities are balances. This is the concept we need to implant constitutionally. Secondly, the concept of the social constitutional expenses means that there are expenses for the external environment of work and capital which should be put into consideration while drafting the new constitution. We focus on three kinds of expenses; first, the expenses of capital and the output is the profit, second, the expenses of administration, and third the outcome of the general outcome of the economical establishment. The constitutional social expenses are determined as a percentage of the total outcome of the business sector, the public and the private. We can indentify the constituents of the constitutional social expenses in the frame of the changes, which are carried out by the business sector, and it negatively affects the general social environment. This can be achieved by the renovation and the restructuring the production sectors. This concept can be used in stead of the untapped capital which is an inherited concept from the period of socialism in the reign of Gamal Abdel Nasser. To


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implement the concept of the constitutional social expenses this requires accounts and economical accounting matrices for side effects reformation generally. After identifying the total expense, which this sector has to pay for, as an ascending rate from calculated as a percentage of the total damage or harm of the activities of each company. This should have a subject in the general budget that it is to be used as mean of social compensation. Thirdly, in this context, all what is associated with the concept of untapped capital should be substituted with the concept of the constitutional social expenses. The direct effect of this substitution is the regaining of the lost trust between the businessmen and the public. This logic of public accounts will be associated, in the first place, with the increase of the social role of businessmen and shift this role from the moral and social feelings section to the constitutional social. We will also improve the marketing trend of the products of these businessmen and public companies as this will make them responsible for the effect of consuming behavior their product had. This will make them seek to improve the quality of the Egyptian products in general. The second paragraph: The taxes of the nation are specified by law and it is generally and socially scaled. There is no doubt that taxes form one of the major revenues in the general budget and it is usually specified to cover the growing expenses and to cover the expenses of the requirements of governmental financial policies in the social and economic fields. It is a financial duty that the government, or its delegate like public figures or individuals, has to take according to the abilities of the citizen. The government uses the money coming out of taxes to cover the public expenses and the requirements of the general governmental financial policies. The imposition of taxes is related that it is considered a financial commitment and it raises the awareness of how developed the public services of the democratic civil country. It is closely associated as well with the flow of money and products in the economical sector of the modern society. The taxes are divided into direct taxes and indirect taxes. The direct taxes are imposed on the designate as an individual or an entity. These taxes include the taxes on the income of the individuals and taxes on companies The indirect taxes are imposed on the transactions, not on individuals. They are imposed on the processes of buying products and services regardless from who are the beneficiaries. The indirect taxes include the taxes of the additional values, sales taxes, and the selective taxes. The justice of the taxation system in the democratic civil state is associated with what the country is presenting to the citizens and the individuals benefiting from these economical, social, political, and other services. In this context, the indirect taxes have to bigger in portion for each benefactor than the direct taxes. What is suggested is that the difference would be, as a minimum, 3 to 1 for each benefactor. This comes as a commitment since the democratic civil state is the state of goodness for all citizens. In other words, the direct taxes have to be less than the total revenues of taxes of the state. The constitutional social expenses should treated as taxes


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The third paragraph: The general rule is that it is prohibited to have deficit in the general budget. Generally, the democratic civil state does not grow in the right, for the good of the citizens, if it suffers from a structural deficit in the general budget. The structural deficit means having there is no flexibility continuously in the financial specifications in five consecutive years in the subjects of the general spending. In other words, funding through deficit should not be carried out except in a specified context and according to a certain plan so we know how to regain balance. The general budget is a clear reflection of the economical and financial stance of the state. It is also a political document that expresses the methodology of the social and the political decision making in the country in general. The decisions of the economical and financial divisions reflect political preferences decisions in the political and social trend of the general policies. Regarding this matter, there has to be a financial and economical plan for the social and the political preferences in the period of five years. In other words, this meaning of the plan does not mean to have a central totalitarian logic of state, but it means the carefulness to have a balanced general budget and have plenty of funds and resources at the end of the five years. This consideration was used because of the many uncontrolled external variables since Egypt is a developing country with limited resources and a large number of inhabitants that are rapidly increasing. Sixth: The Fifth subject: political professionalism, the competition of the political parties’ competition, and the rotation of power are the basis of the political groups until it generates the political governing group. The political parties participate in the creation and the monitoring of the execution of the general policies. The interests groups and the pressuring would act in the role of the guide and the corrector of the general policies. The individuals and groups have a constitutional political responsibility. The first paragraph: political professionalism, the competition of the political parties, and the rotation of power are the basis of the political groups until it generates the political governing group. The political professionalism, in the frame of the state, is responsible for the administrations of the affairs of the state dispersing its public and automatic spirit. If it was concerned with the development of democracy, then it would be concerned with the improvement of the political representation regarding the outputs and the inputs of political representations. Political professionalism is a critical indicator of the effectiveness of the political system concerning the association of the political powers with the people, or the ascertain the scope of its emergence out of the people in its ability to represent the elections basic unity. Political professionalism allows the proof of how close the leaders of these masses represented in their electoral and masses powers. The political system before 1952 was based on the logic of political professionalism. Therefore, one of the most important goals of the authority of 1952 is the elimination of this core relation inside the liberal political system because of its contribution to silence the voices of the social agents among all the Egyptian classes, categories, and powers. In other words, the political professionalism leads to the establishment of a specialized political team empowered by its


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specific experiences to justify its position as the elite and the control it practices on the management of the political parties. The political professionalism is the basis for the democratic representation. Democratic representation does not occur except with the through the building of mechanisms to establish a political community that is able to manage the differences and reach an agreement between the components of the political system. A political system without the political community level is a system that is based on the authoritarianism and the tyranny of the politicians. The Islamic jurists define the political community as “a community of people determined by a description that differentiate it from any other groups and it the community nominated to base the country upon. If the citizenship is the characteristic of the individual that belongs to a political community which the country was based upon, and regarding that the individual is the opposite end of the state, it is obligatory to view citizenship in the frame of the equal rights.” It is clear that this definition is automatically connected to the general concept of the community and the concept of the political group. We do not notice any discrimination between the patterns of political groups which are based on the religious link giving the concept of the faithful brother. In fact not all the groups are considered to be political groups and not all of them are qualified to generate a political group. The political groups emerging from them are not similar in its politics and concepts. What we mean is that there is no one meaning for politics and the essences of the politician are not identical in all regions and periods of time. The concept of politics in the middle Ages is not the same in the modern time. In other words, the country, the core of the politics and its major aim, does not have the same bases in all periods of time and in all places. The country would be based on religion and it would be based on nationalism or based on laws, or it might become a legal democratic state. The concept of politics, including all fields, approaches, means, and objectives, is not the same in all cases. What we call a country or a state in the classic Islamic civilization has nothing to do with the concept of the modern state as we know it in our modern times although it represents a pattern of the political entities. The religious association might be the basis for a political association. The religious community might match with the group of the nation or with the political group. However, this is not a condition and it is not the common situation in history and it is more rarely to happen in the modern times. Today, there isn’t a religious community that is completely identical with the political group. This does not exclude the countries that were based on religious association like Israel and Pakistan. On the contrary, the politics of today, which is based on the achieving of an authority or a country, can never be based outside the political association. This is because the modern authority and modern country call, as a condition of their existence, for the withdrawal of the precedents of the natural or semi natural nervous relations for the sake of the establishment of a citizenship relation based on the unity of law and equality of all citizens together in front of the law. The relation between the political community and the state is not the same in all political patterns. The relation of the country with the religious community during the Islamic period was not of the same type as the relation as the relation of the modern state with the people. The state in the first pattern had an additional group coming from outside of it or a tool of subdue that has religious bases derived from the conformity of its legislations, actually or nominally, with the religious legislations or what is thought to be so. The modern state, in its full democratic shape, is a country that expresses the community


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and emerging from it. It is the community itself embodied in the organized institutional shape. It derives its legitimacy from itself, from the democratic representation mechanism itself which is expressed in an elected legitimate council. In the first case, the authoritarian state is subjected to nervousness which tyrannizes its authority and has full control over it. The society is subjected to a fixes system. In the second case, it is a nation state that reflects the establishment of a political association that gathers the citizens and translates their will to live together. This state works according to discipline and clear legal and constitutional principals concerning the methodology of the legislation, its origins, the laws of its functions, and its amendments. In order to indentify the concept of the group, we have to look carefully in the different significances of the definition of the state, the authoritarian and the democratic. The determination of the concept of the state requires to closely study the usage of the word “Umma”. The word Umma, in the religious context, means the Islamic Umma or nation, which is not intended by the postural meaning, which is the modern Umma, or nation, that is based on citizenship. When we speak about the nation or the political community today we do not refer to the religious community or to the religious community as a political group, but we refer to an association of policies that is totally different than the religious association, without being contradictory to each others or even having a conflict between them. This discrimination is very important in our discussion of the current Arabian situations where the states do not conform to the religious community by any means. For example, when we speak about the consensus of the nation, according to the perspective of the Islamic jurisprudence, we mean the consensus of the Islamic majority in this country or that. We deny the prescience of the country from the political meaning and we return the new political association, maybe without knowing this, to the religious association. This will result in transforming the non Moslems to different, grotesque, and inferior citizens. We can think of the best means to address their problem and assure that they are treated fairly until we reach equality. However, we destruct the meaning of the nation or the Umma in modern meaning which refers to the political association that is based on the presence of a country, a unified central authority, and a law. The country deals with the society as individuals who have rights and responsibilities. This means that they are equal before the law. The country does not consider their beliefs, religious or non religious and the country is not interested to reform these beliefs or intervene in the individuals affairs. This is another concept that refers to a legal political association gathering all individuals regardless of their beliefs. This concept is totally different from the concept of the Umma in the context of the religious community which is composed from individuals who share the same belief. Therefore, this belief is their reference concerning any of their actions or deeds including the country they live in. In our democratic civil context the political community is transformed into a governing political community which refers to the structure of the social and political powers that have control in a certain period of time. In other words, the political group, by its nature, is a general community associated with the concept of citizenship and the political representation. While the governing political community is the community of the controlling authority.


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The second paragraph: The political parties contribute in the creation, monitoring, and implementation of the general policies. The political groups divide into organizational structures. Regardless of how official they are, these structures do not contribute directly in the creation of the general policies. Only the political parties contribute in the creation, monitoring, and implementation of the general policies. We can define the problem which results in the emergence of the need to create general policies as:”the attitude or the case that moves the needs and the non satisfaction feeling of the individuals of the society. This forces them to ask for the help or the intervention of the government, the international organizations, or some of the social powers to help them get rid of what they suffer from. for example, the outbreak of crimes, unemployment, inflation, plagues, diseases, the spread of agricultural pests, the environmental pollution, the difficulties of transportation, the crowded roads, the low level of public services, the outbreak of bribery, favoritism, and many other problems urge the creators of the general policies to study and analyze them for setting up the required treatment of these problems which rises the concern of a category, or more, among the categories of the society, or the whole society. What is worth noticing is that the people and bodies concerned with solving the problems usually fail in choosing the appropriate to face the problems of the general policies because of their failure to discover or to know the real reasons behind the general problem. The precise drafting of the problem results, usually, in correct solutions. As the old sayings goes:”if we know the disease, it is easy to prescribe the medicine. Some of the specialists in the drafting of the problems of general policies and analyzing them regard the results of the problem as the problem itself. This is because the results of the problem are the seen part of it. The problems of the general policies are many and several and the concerned people find it hard to determine its constituents, its reasons, and how to deal with them. Examples of these problems are inflation, unemployment, crime, poverty, pollution, and many other problems. These problems, and the likes, usually have different opinions towards them between the interested and the concerned people and the specialists from one hand, and among the citizens from another hand. While some concerned people view them as the real problems which the society suffer from and we need to find solutions for them, some of the other concerned persons view them as merely a cases of intertwine that achieve some of the values and the needs of some individuals and that these issues should not take the traits of the general problem. It is beneficial to note that problems, despite of how many and several they are, not all of them concern the creators of general policies, except when they are clear. This type of problems causes the concern and anxiety of the individuals of the society and forces them to commit some actions that would be violating the customs or the followed rules. This means that some problems reach the creators of general policies while others are neglected or postponed to another time, according to their importance and their effect towards a group or more of the influential groups in the society. A category of the society might be living in an impropriate environment but they do not show any complains and the do not demand to improve their environment or to change it. It is as if they are contented with their situation and this state of content they have is based on the fact that they lack the proper means to affect the society. This situation is not considered to be a problem


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according to our previous definition if nobody addresses it or directs it to the governmental bodies in the form of a group demand or a problem that requires a solution. This means that problems must be clear in order to direct them to the concerned bodies and structures. Another question that we to consider and try to answer are: Is the problem that gains attention is the one which is introduced by the concerned aggravated people and others? Are there any other approaches to show the problems? The answer is yes, as there are many demands and issues that are showed by individuals or sides that are not aggravated by them and they become urgent problems that occupy a large portion of the interests of the creators of general policies. As an example, there are the newspapers editors, the interests groups, or politicians who want to stir noises. Other examples include the rise of the level of the groundwater in a certain place, the increase of the rates of traffic accidents. This makes it an urgent problem that requires solutions or a demand that needs attention much more than what the people living in this area where the groundwater is located or the people affected by the traffic accidents would do. In order to understand and distinguish the problems of general policies from the other problems and issues. The problems of general policies have some special traits and features: 1 - Reciprocity: the problems of the general policies affected and get affected by each others. They are entangled and have interrelated parts of a comprehensive system and not completely separated from one another. 2 - subjectivity: This means that the categorizations of the external and internal conditions that cause the problems of the general policies, the interpretation of these conditions, and their evolution, is carried out according to the personal experiences or the personality who draft the general policies. this means that the personality of the drafter of the general policies and his trends have a clear influence in interpreting the problems of general policies, their analysis, and indentifying the approach to treat them 3- The situation : This means that the problems of the general policies are usually created by the individuals and groups. They are present whenever the human populations exist. 4 - Dynamic: This means that the problems of the general policies have solutions as far as they have potential definitions for them. This means it is impossible to assert that there are clear borders or certain treatment to any of the problems of the general policies The types of the problems of the general policies We can differentiate between the problems or the demand according to many entries. The most important among them are; the holistic entry, the resources entry, and the environmental entry. Concerning the holistic entry, it can be categorized into two groups: the personal problems and the general problems. The personal problems are the sufferings or the demands of one person among the individuals of the society. If one of the individuals in the society does not get a certain medicine, this is considered a problem that concerns only him and nobody else is interested in it. This makes it a personal problem. Moreover, if a worker is dismissed out of his job it is an issue that interests nobody except the worker. The general problem, on the other hand, affects a number of individuals and not only one individual. The larger the number of people affected, the more important becomes the problem for the creators of the general policies. In the same example mentioned above, if a large number of patients do not get a certain medicine, this might


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lead to a general problem. The same goes if a number of organizations, public, private, or both of them dismissed a large number of workers for certain conditions. This will get the problem out of the personal scope and it becomes a general problem. It is beneficial here to note that some private issues can be transformed to general issues when the scope of people affect by it or sympathies with it is larger. If a parent had a complain because one of the teachers hit his son in the hall of the school, he will have to place an objection to the concerned governmental bodies, like the directorate of education for example or the representative of his district in the national council. This matter will never exceed the limits of a private issue because it never attracted the attention of the creators of general policies. If the parent acts differently as he calls the parents of other students and convince them that their sons will be exposed to getting hit or mistreat as well if they do not intervene, he was able to convince them, got their advocates, got their sympathy, he will be able to place a note signed by all of them to the press or the concerned governmental bodies. This note will reach the attention of the creators of general policies as a group problem. This is because the scope of the affected people was widened. At that point, the private issue transforms into a general issue or a public problem. Concerning the field of the problem, we can divide them into two types as follows: 1- The procedural problem: these issues associated with the how the government, with all its several bodies and institutions, organize their affairs, manage their work and different activities 2- The basic problems: these are the issues associated with the interests of the members of the society like the freedom of opinion, pollution, wages, security, and other similar issues. We can categorize the problems and the issues according to the resources and divide them into three groups as follows: 1- The distributional problems: these issues associated with how the resources are distributed on individuals, groups, and regions. These issues are like when a certain city asks the government to control the water of the flood, another city asking to solve the problem of the lack of fresh water, the demands of exporters to decrease the custom taxes, and the local producers to increase them, and many other similar issues 2- The organizational problems: these are associated with the implementations of behaviors and general activities, to halt them, or to stop the interventions of others in some fields. An example of these issues is like when the industrial professionals ask for the less interventions of the syndicate of workers, the demands of the owners of old cars to stop the procedures that the car has to be transferred to the capital or from large cities to smaller cities, and the similar sort of issues. 3-The problems of redistribution: These problems associated with the transfer of some of the available resources to another region, the redistribution of some resources that are available in a certain area to other areas that lack these resources to achieve social justice. An example of these issues is like the redistribution of skilful workers who live in the capital to other governorates, the redistribution of the university professors or specialists like doctors and engineers among universities and regions, the organizations that suffer from the shortage in the workers of this category, the establishment of a factory in cities where


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people are suffering from unemployment, the imposition of increasing progressive taxes to decrease the differences between incomes, and other similar issues. Concerning the range of the problems, we can divide them into two groups as follows: 1- The internal problems: These are the issues associated with the state itself like the problems linked with health, education, domestic security, taxes, transportation, environment, agriculture, and other similar issues 2- The external problems: These are the issues associated with the relation of the state with other countries like the neighboring countries or any other country. Examples of these problems include the problems of rivers, international water, navigating in the sea, regional borders between countries, fishing in the seas and international rivers, smuggling, and other similar issues. The third paragraph: The interests and pressure groups have a guidance and corrector role in the general policies There is no big disagreement concerning the pressure groups and powers. Almost all the definitions consider them as an interest groups that seek to achieve certain objectives associated with the interests of the political authority. However, the accusation of power or authority is not included in their objectives. These groups were called the pressure groups because of the pressuring they practice on authorities to achieve their goals. They are also small political groups that sometimes seek to achieve some political goals. The pressure powers are established after the official approval of the governing authorities like the human rights organizations and workers syndicates. These groups can be established by the government to achieve certain goals like the friendship organizations between peoples of different countries. Gabriel Almond categorized the pressure groups and powers into four basic shapes: The groups of relational interests: These are the groups expressing the interests of their members as the bases and this the common patterns The groups of non relational interests: which are established according to geographical, class, religious, lingual, intellectual, or professional bases The groups of institutional interests: these groups have the traits of governmental official bodies. These include the military or civil bureaucracy and the people who work in these institutions form a group when they want to influence the decision makers to achieve certain goals that they have. The groups of anarchistic interests: These are the groups that depend on demonstrations, strikes, and riots. They do not have an organizational structure and most of their actions are spontaneous and violent. If we trespass the categorization of Gabriel Almond and we try to categorize them according to their structural perspective, we will divide them into the following classifications:


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The political interests groups: these groups who have pure political interests: - The semi political interests groups and these are the groups who have political and economical objectives in the same time like professionals’ syndicates and the businesses unions - The groups of human or charity interests and these groups carry out activities associated with human rights, childhood caring, and the humane societies - The professional interests groups: these are the groups who are interested in the first place to achieve the goals of the professionals working in the same field or craft. The pressure groups represent one of the levels of interactions and maybe struggle that influence the political life. We can consider them one of the lungs of the political system. The representation of the people has two shapes with the political parties being the first shape and the pressure groups, especially the pubic, being the second shape. The fourth paragraph: The individuals and groups have a constitutional political reasonability The increase of the size of the political participation and the development of its approaches, through the political parties, NGOs, and civil frames is the entry to a correct citizenship and to a finer civil life that is more coherent. Otherwise, this means the rule by of a miserable political life in the society, the marginalization of the society, and the deterioration of feeling of responsibility of the individual. The shifting from the individual political contribution to the political community form is the rational modern way for political practices which must be associated with the freeing of the individual from any the pervious forms of social affiliation and its regulations which used to constrain the individual and require him to stick to his social and professional position and prevent him from gaining the public and general trait. The individual has to be described as a citizen in a modern political society. The matter that should take place in the frame of the concept that there should be constitutional and political responsibilities for the individual in order to protect his political participation and preserve the concept of civil politics, political system, and the state. Seventh: the Sixth Item the State practice it’s governing through three authorities; the executive, the legitimates, and the judicial. These authorities are independent when facing each others, interactive, and balancing each others in the same time to form a system with unified reasonability and accountability. (One paragraph) The principal of the separation of the authorities has certainly become one of the bases of western democratic systems since the French Revolution in general. This principal necessitates that a representative government should be established first because this principal can never exist except in a representative system where the necessity of the distribution of powers is clear. The origin of this principal goes back to the political philosophy of the 18th century as it appeared at that period as a weapon to combat the absolute governments, which intended to have all the powers and authorities within their hands. It was also used as a mean to eliminate the tyranny of the kings and their absolute authority.


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The basic idea of the principal of the separation of the authorities is based on the necessity to distribute the main functions of governing: legitimate, executive, and judicial on separate equal bodies which are independent in managing its function so that the authority is not concentrated in one person or institutions that misuses his powers, tyrannize the ruled, and ends up destroying the lives of the individuals and their rights. If this idea is the core of the principal of the separation between authorities, this principal does not mean to create a tangible fence to completely separate authorities. This will result that each of the governing bodies will not be able to manage their issues and affairs with the excuse not to prejudice with the other authorities. Therefore, the requirement of the principal of the separation between authorities states that there should cooperation between the three authorities and that each authority should supervise the work of the other in the scope of its specializations. Accordingly, the ruling system will be based on the principal; “power should be a check to power” which is interpreted in French as “Le pouvoir arrête le pouvoir.” This will lead to achieve the freedom of individuals, protect their rights, the respect of law, and the implementing of the laws rightly and justly. This harmonizes with implementing the principal of the separation of powers to achieve the balance and the cooperation between authorities and provide neutrality between the authorities, each in its own specializations. The principal of the separation of authorities is never mentioned except accompanied by the name of the famous French jurist and philosopher, Baron Charles Montesquieu. This is because Montesquieu highlighted the importance of this principal and identified the drafting and the approach of it. This is clear in his book; “The Spirit of Laws” which was issued in 1748. The topic of the authorities and the powers of the state were addressed by many jurists and philosophers since the old ages, especially Plato and Aristotle. Moreover, John Locke, the British jurist, was also interested in the principal of the separation between authorities after the revolution of 1688 in his book; “Civil Government” published in 1690. The ideas of Montesquieu concerning the separation of authorities had a great impact as it was addressed by many thinkers and many jurists demanded its implementation. However, a disagreement rose between the jurists of general laws concerning the real concept of the principal and its true significance. Some of them understood the principal as the absolute separation of authorities and that this is the only mean to achieve the basic principles to prevent arbitrariness and tyranny in the use of power. However, the majority of the jurists understood the principal in a different way that there should be flexible separation between authorities. This means that the separation should be carried out, but with the achievement of cooperation and the exchange of supervision between the authorities. However and whatever the disagreement was concerning the principle of the separation of powers and its significance, it is clear that, since the French revolution, it created a strong stream of thoughts, and an international chant. Many people considered it as one of the main bases of the establishment of the democratic ruling system. Concerning the benefits of this principal, the same as many other legal and political principals, it was exposed to much criticizing as many philosophers and jurists opposed it and criticized it in


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many occasions. However, we can see that this criticism was based on their wrong interpretation of the principal and that they never understood the real meaning of its content as perceived by Montesquieu. According to this fact, the aspects of the criticism that was approached by the resisters of this principal has no value to it. The principal remained standing on its right basis as being considered one of the most important means to protect the rights and the freedoms of individuals and to protect them against the tyranny of the ruler. The principal of the separation of powers was associated with the French politician, Montesquieu, who was credited for highlighting it as a general principal to regulate the relations between the general authorities in the state, a mean to fritter the authority, and to prevent the concentration of the authority in one hand in a way that would threat the freedom of individuals and exposes their rights to dangers. If Montesquieu’s merit in this matter can never be denied, the roots of this principal emerged long time before him, many centuries before the 18th century. Plato and Aristotle, the leaders of the Greek political thought, had an important role in the setting up of the basis on which the principal of the separation of powers was created. John Locke was the first to highlight the importance of this principal in the modern times in his book, “The Civil Government” which was published in 1690. This was after the political revolution carried out by the British parliament in 1668 which led to the declaration of the Bill of Rights in 1689. However, the principal of the separation of powers did not get the enough importance and attention as its content and meanings were never crystallized except when Montesquieu published his famous book; “The Spirit of Laws” in 1748. The philosopher studied point of views of his precedents, drafted it in a new approach, and introduced it accurately and clearly. Therefore, he has the right to be credited for the principal of the separation of powers and it is associated with his name. Accordingly, we will study in the following parts the establishment of the principal of the separation of powers through our discussion of the establishment of this principal before the emergence of Montesquieu (first) and then, in some details, we will speak about the theory of Montesquieu itself cornering the separation of powers(second). This will be carried out according to the following: Discussing the principal of the separation of powers before the emergence of theory of Montesquieu: The discussion of the establishment of the principal of the separation of powers in the period before the emergence of Montesquieu and his theory concerning this matter requires that we track the roots of the establishment of this principal in the old political thought (especially the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle) and the modern political thought especially in the 17th century (the British democratic experience) 1- The separation of powers in the old political thought: Plato and the principal of the separation of powers(427 – 347 BC) Plato has recognized, since the ancient times, the importance of the separation between the functions of the state and to separate the bodies practicing authorities from each other and in the same time that these bodies should cooperate to reach to the major


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goal of the state; the achieve the general benefit for people. In order for these bodies or institutions not to deviate away from their goals and specializations, some means of supervision were established between among these bodies with the objective to prevent deviation and that each body should stand at the edge of its specializations. Plato, in his book “the laws” discussed the distribution of the functions of the state and its tasks on a number of bodies or organizations so that each organization practices a certain function. He clarified the organization as follows: The council of sovereignty, consisting of 10 members, and it dominates the different affairs of the state. An association that includes the senior thinkers and jurists and their task is to protect the constitution from the frivolity of the rulers and to supervise the right implementation of it. A senator’s council elected by the people and his task is to legislation as to issue the required rules. A judicial body that consists of a number of courts with different levels and its task is to solve struggles. A body for the police to protect the security inside the state. A body for the army to protect the state from external attacks. That way every organization supervises a certain task, it holds accountability towards it, and cooperate with the bodies to achieve the general benefit of the people and the state. That way, all the organizations would cooperate to achieve the general benefit. This method of governing will result in the stability of the conditions of the state and prevent tyranny that would occur if all authorities are put in one hand together. B- Aristotle and the principal of the separation between authorities ( 384 – 322 BC) The great thinker and philosopher, Aristotle, in his book ; “Politics that the authority does not arise except from the group. Accordingly, it should not be assigned to an individual or a minority within the people, but to all the people. Since the law is the expression of these people so it has to rule the practices of this group. So that sovereignty would be actually of the group or in other words of the people. However, the multiplicity and variety of the functions of the state requires that these functions should be divided into a number of subsequent functions. This is because the group, the leader of sovereignty in reality in the state, will not be able to work in these all functions on its own. Moreover, the gathering of all the authorities in one hand can result in the corruption of the whole ruling system and change it into a tyrannizing system that is not viable. This led to the division of the functions of the state into three major functions: Deliberation: Aristotle assigned this function to the deliberative Power and it is supervised by the public assembly and its role is to inspect and study the public affairs. The function of the command and it was assigned to the magistrates and senior employees and its role is to implement the rules Justice and this function are assigned to the judicial power which is carried out by the courts, with different types and levels. The task of the courts is to solve discounts and crimes. If the function of (the command) and the function of (justice) have the common concept that we have in our modern times of the executive and judicial authorities, the function of the deliberative authority does not correspond or match with the (function of legislation) that we know today. This is because the deliberative authority according to Aristotle extends to more than just the making of laws. It also includes decision making of


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peace and war, agreements, exaction decrees, confiscations, exile, the elections of the ruler, and the reviewing their accounts. This was Aristotle, in the conclusion of his book said that the deliberative Power or authority is the most supreme authority in the state. In fact, the idea of Aristotle was not to separate the authorities but it was to divide the functions of the state according to its legal nature. We have to put into consideration that the authorities of the state can never be achieved without the division of the functions within the state. Therefore, the ideas of Aristotle did not clearly state the principle of the separation of authorities, but paved the way for it and it contributed to its emergence and establishment. The principal of the separation of powers in the modern political thought:

A- Cromwell and the principal of the separation of powers

The modern evolution of the principal of the separation of powers is credited to the British school and the British democratic experiment. The kingship in Britain has evolved, due to the revolution of bishops, from the absolute kingship to a pattern of constrained kingship based on the separation of authorities. During the 17th century, the Constitution of Cromwell was introduced according to the principal of the separation of authorities. This was the first practical implantation of the principal. Oliver Cromwell wanted to eliminate the tyranny that emerged from the long termed parliament so he used the principal of the separation of legitimate authority from the executive authority. He also aimed to achieve the independence of the judicial authority. Cromwell, in all his different successive systems, tried his best to ensure these ideas. However, when the period of Cromwell was over and the return of kingship, the republican constitution was cancelled and the principal of the separation of powers was changed. The works of this great man vanished so that none of its traces or effects remained in England or any other foreign country. B John Locke and the principal of the separation of powers )1704 ـ 1632( John Locke is considered to be the first one to write about principal of the separation of powers in a representative system, which was established in England after the revolution of 1688. Locke was influenced, in his theories, by the disagreements between the kings, from one side, and the British Parliament, from the other side. Therefore, he established his theories regarding this on the bases that each rightful system has to be governed by the principal of the separation of authorities. Locke has introduced his thoughts in two papers about the government ; “"Two Treatises of Government” and his second paper about the civil government; “The Civil Government” which was published in 1690. The ideas of John Locke, concerning the principal of the separation of authorities, can be summarized in the following: 1- Divide the general authorities in the state: he said, in his book “the Civil Government” that the individual in his previous instinct life has had social contract, the establisher of the political group. He had two authorities; the first is the authority of taking the proper


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procedures that he saw suitable to protect himself and others according to the law of nature. The second authority was to impose punishments for committing crimes that violate this law. When the individual shifted from the instinct life to the life of the group, he conceded these authorities to the group when it was established. Therefore, we find that the political community, as the successor of natural individuals, have two authorities; the legislative authority or power and accordingly it has the authority to set up the required rules to preserve the community and its individuals and the executive authority and accordingly it has the right to implement the rules internally. Since the community had to appear as one body in front of the rest of the people, in the case of the state of nature, there had to be a special authority to represent the community in its external relations and affairs. This was what Locke advocated for as to have a third authority called the federative power with the task to declare the state of war or peace, sign agreements, alliances, and to manage the foreign and exterior affairs. Although Locke believed in the separation between the executive and the federative authorities, he found that their union was natural as “since both of them need to use the authority of the community, it is impossible to put the authority of the community in hands that are not subject to the federative or the executive authorities. This is because the general authorities will be used by the different wills of people and this would cause chaos and damages” Nevertheless, this does not mean that Locke regarded the two authorities; the executive and the federative, are two shapes of the same authority as they are two distinctive authorities in his point of view. Therefore, both of them would have different tasks that are not mixed with the other authority’s tasks. The executive authority would specialize in the supervision, or municipal of the implementations of the laws, civil and local. While on the other hand, the federative authority would specialize in the protection of the security of the state from external threats and to achieve the general benefits outside the community. The reason why Locke considered the federative authority separated from the executive authority, while they are required to unify together in the same time, was the stance of the British system as the federative authority used to belong to the king, who was the head of the executive authority as well. We have point out that the division of Locke of the general authorities never mentioned anything concerning the judicial authority. The fact that shows that Locke never regarded it as an independent or a distinctive authority. In fact, Locke was under the influence of what occurred in Britain in the period when he lived. The judges, before the revolution of 1688, were subjected totally to the kings or the royalty and they get all their orders from the kings, who were always threaten them to take away their positions. After the revolution, the judges were free from their dependency upon the kings to fall under the leadership of the parliament, who was able to tame the kingship and took the lead in the political authority. The parliament made the judges under his full subordination and to the majority of the political parties controlling the parliament.


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2- The necessity to separate the legislative authority and the executive authority. Concerning the relation between the different authorities, Locke asserted that there should be separation between the authorities supervising the function of legislation and the authorities supervising the function of the implementation of the rules. He pointed out the dangers of putting these two authorities in one hand or one body. He interpreted this that one of these authorities is practical and the other is psychological and technical. The practical consideration: represented in the work of the executive authority describing it as the authority that should work hard to implement the rules and force the individuals to respect them. The legislation authority, on the contrary, does not have the necessity to have meetings all the time as its task is to create and draft different rules (create the required rules to protect the community and its individuals) and such task can be carried out in a short period of time or in intermittent periods. This does not require the legislative authority to be always assembled. The state does not need new rules and laws every day. However, the state needs an authority that is always working to implement these rules created by the legislative authority and to force people to respect these rules and laws. The psychological and the technical considerations : they summarize in that when the authority of creating rules and the authority of implementing them are assigned to the same people will lead to the absolute control and will emerge the tempts to tyranny. This is because the human self, due to its nature, is weak in front of temptations and tends to fulfill its desires and tends to love authority. Moreover, these people who have both the legislation and the executive authorities, can exempt themselves from abiding by the laws, whether while creating them or implementing them. They can make the laws compatible with their personal benefits. This will lead to the emergence of a benefit that is different than this of the community, contradicting with it, and contradicting with the purpose of the existence of the government Accordingly, the main objective in each organized state is to achieve the public good and to put the legislation authority in the hands of different people who have, when they assemble according to the laws, to create the laws on their own, or with the participation of others. When they are finished with the creation of the laws, they should leave their meetings and abide by these laws. This is the fact that would make them create the laws rightfully and accurately in order to serve the public good. In summary, John Locke, through his book about the “Civil Government”, was able to clarify the benefits of the division of authorities. However, he was not able to write up a clear theory in the same way as Montesquieu, who came after him. However, there is no doubt that the theory of Locke concerning the division of authorities was the base which Montesquieu used to create his own theory concerning this principal, which is included in his book; “the spirit of the law”. However, Montesquieu changed the components of the British philosopher and established a new creation or according to the expression of Esmein, he was able to create a whole creature out of the sperm. The theory of Montesquieu concerning the separation of powers a stage of evolution of a long line of thought. This philosopher studied the ideas of the people who previously


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discussed the principal as he benefited from his stay in Britain for two years. He was influenced by the British systems implemented at the time. However, he exceeded these systems and he was never affected by the practical reality of the governments that were dominant at the time. He created a general perfect theory that associated with his name and he clearly introduced in his book “the spirit of the laws” which emerged in 1748. The ideas discussed in this book are still the corner base in the constitutional laws studies. We can say that it is the base for any organized government and an address of any perfect state, regardless of the place and the time where this government or this state existed. This is why it was his right to be credited by this theory and that his name is always associated with it. Montesquieu introduced his theory in his famous book; “The Spirit of the Laws” in the sixth chapter of the 11th book with the title of “the constitution of England. He started his discussion saying:”in every state, there are three types of authorities; the legislative authority, the executive authority implementing the general laws, and the authority implementing the matters that depend on the civil law. With the virtue of the first authority, the prince or the ruler the rules for a temporary period or forever. He has the right to amend these laws or eliminate them. With the virtue of the second authority, he has the right to declare the state of war or peace, send ambassadors to other countries, welcome their ambassadors, work for the internal security, and makes percussions against any outer attack. Finally, he has the right, according to the third authority, to punish criminals, solve conflicts between individuals. This last authority is called the judicial authority and the second one is simply called the executive authority of the state.” After Montesquieu differentiated between the three authorities, separated between the tasks of each of them, he found that it was necessary to divide them upon independent organizations. This is because the gathering of these three authorities in one person or one body will lead to the corruption and the tyranny of this authority, it will violate its constitutional and legal limits, and harm the rights of the individuals and expose their freedom to dangers. Regarding this, Montesquieu said “if the legislative authority combines with the executive authority in one organization. There will be no freedom. This is because it is feared, in that situation, because this organization or this person will issue tyrannical laws and implement them unjustly. There will not be freedom, again, if the judicial authority is not separated from the other two authorities; the legislative and the executive. The life of the citizen and his freedom will be threatened by the arbitrary control because the judge, in that case, will be the legislator of the laws. If the judicial system is unified or combined with the executive authority, the judge might act in a violent manner and practice oppression. In summary, everything is threatened to be lost, according to Monique, if the three authorities are gathered in the hand of one organization or one body, even if it were the hands of the people. Montesquieu expressed this when he said “ every thing will be lost if one person or one organization, whether if it consisted of the nobles of the society or the people themselves, practices the three authorities together; the authority that creates laws, the other that work on implementing the general decrees, and the one solving the conflicts or assigning punishments in individual cases”


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Montesquieu gives a philosophical reason to the right he reached that is based on human and historical basis in the same time when he says; “the political freedom can never be guaranteed except in the moderate governments, but it does not always exist through these governments, as it is only achieved when there is no misuse of the authority is practiced. The everlasting experiments have proved that each human has an authority which he likes to misuse and he goes on misusing it until he finds some limits to stop him. It is not strange, through this fact, that virtue itself needs limits. To avoid and prevent the misuse of the powers, it is necessary that the system would be based on that the authority would stop or limit the authority” However, to stop the authority, it is not enough to separate them, or assign some tasks to each of the authorities to supervise away from the others. There has to be, in addition to this, a balanced relation between the authorities. This means that each authority should have weight through which it can resist the other authorities. The theory of Montesquieu does not aim at dividing the functions from the legal aspect only, but also the inner independence of each organization as well. He expressed this when he said” it is necessary in order to have a moderate government, to have coordination between the authorities. Or in other words, give each authority the weight to resist other authorities. We summarize, through this introduction of the point of views of Montesquieu, concerning the principal of the separation of authorities, the following points: the general basic authorities of the country are: the legislation, the executive, and the judicial. Concerning the tasks of each authority, Montesquieu asserted that the division of the authorities and their separation in that manner is a necessary matter. There is nothing that is more dangerous to freedom and close to tyranny more than gathering the three authorities in one hand, even if this is the hand of the people themselves, or an organization emerging from them. This is because the nature of the human soul proved through centuries that tyranny is the consort of the exclusiveness of the authority. C- Montesquieu did only suggest the separation of the authorities, but also asserted the necessity of supervising the authority and that the authority limits the authority. Here was can say that Montesquieu was declaring a principal of the principals of the art of politics and not a principal of the principals of law. This is because he did not suggest a way to organize and regulate the state, but he suggested a mean to prevent giving the authority the trait of totalitarianism. Monique emphasized the necessity of the general authorities, especially the legislative and the executive to exchange supervision among them so that the legislative authority would have the power to constrain the executive authority and rein it. On the other hand, the executive authority should have the same power towards the legislative authority. Montesquieu clarified, in advance, that there is no use to the idea of the self constrain of the authority. Therefore, this constrain should exist out of the authority. The effect of the ideas of Montesquieu was clear on the men of the revolution in France in America so they adopted the separation of authorities and this is the condition of the free constitutional government. The French revolution declared this expressively in the Declaration of the Rights of the Man and the Citizen, issued in 26th of August, 1789, in the


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sixteenth article” Any society in which no provision is made for guaranteeing rights or for the separation of powers, has no Constitution.” However, the rebels of France has gone far in the interpretation of the separation of powers even more that what was targeted by the principals of Montesquieu. The basic idea on which the theory of Montesquieu was based was that the concentration of authorities in the hand of one man or one organization exposes the freedoms of the individuals to loss. Accordingly, the separation of powers does not exceed being a political rule that means the distribution of the authorities of the state on general independent organizations, with each of them having the power to stop the other. This meant that Montesquieu believed that the absolute and final separation between authorities will lead to the complete independence of the public organizations and will end with some sort of isolation. This was not understood by the rebels of France as they interpreted the principal will lead to the complete absolute separation with no relation or intervention between the organizations practicing the authorities. A disagreement emerged between the jurists of general laws concerning the meaning and the concept of the separation of the authorities. Some of them understood that it meant the absolute separation between the authorities. This is the only mean to achieve the aim of the basic principal to prevent the tyranny of the authority. This interpretation, despite being wrong, was spread for a long period of time and was implemented in many constitutions. However, the majority of the jurists understood the principal in another way. That it means the flexible or the relative separation which means a separation with the balance and the cooperation between authorities. First: The content of the idea of absolute separation: This idea was dominant in the period immediately after the French revolution. The people of this revolution, and their contemporary jurists, understood that the idea of the separation of powers was rigid and absolute. This means that each of the three authorities of the state should carry out its specializations independently and do not interfere in the specializations of the other authorities. The men of the French revolution based their interpretation on the idea that the nation, with complete sovereignty, owns the three authorities and each authority represents a separate independent part of the sovereignty of the nation. When the nation chooses its representatives, it delegates each of these authorities into an independent and specialized organization. The nation delegates one of these organizations to practice the legislative authority, another to practice the executive authority, and a third one to practice the judicial authority. These three functions are not only different specializations issued from one authority, but they are independent authorities with each of them expressing one aspect of the sovereignty and practice a distinctive independent activity. Accordingly, there was an absolute separation between the three authorities and each of these authorities had only one specific function or activity to carry out. The supporters of this trend said that the principal of the separation of powers is based on two bases and one of them complements the other. The principal is based on the rule of the functional specialization. Therefore, there are as many general organizations in the state as multiple as the authorities in the state. Each organization specializes in carrying out the tasks of a certain authority. The principal of the separation of powers is based, secondly, on


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the rule of the organic independence. This means that each of these organizations is considered to be equal to the other, independent from it, and it is prohibited that it intervenes in the tasks or specializations of the other organizations. The first constitution of the French revolution, issued in the 3rd of September 1791, adopted this “wrong” interpretation of the principal of the separation of authorities. This constitution made each authority completely separate from the other authorities. This was also carried out in the constitution of the third year issued in 1795. This is shown through that (first) each minister was assigned and expelled by the head of the executive authority alone. (Secondly), the ministers were chosen out of the members of the parliament. (Thirdly), the executive authority has no power over the legislative authority. It does not have any effect on the work of the two councils. Both councils can assemble without inviting or informing the executive authority. The executive authority does not have the right to resolve any of these councils. In addition, the executive authority has no role in the legislative function. It does not have the right, for example, to suggest rules. All the role of the executive authority is to draw the attention of the legislative authority to issue a rule or a law concerning a certain matter. Moreover, the legislative authority had no power on the executive authority. The objective of this isolation or the absolute separation between authorities was to prevent tyranny and protect freedoms. However, it was clear in short period of time that this absolute separation led to the tyranny, the suppression of freedoms, and the worst forms of terrorism. This is because that when each organization, among the three authorities, has the absolute power over one authority, without supervision or intervention of the other organizations, this will open the door for this organization to practice tyranny because it does not find another organization combating it or stopping it from practicing tyranny. For this purpose, the French constitutions modified the idea of the absolute separation between the authorities and took the real interpretation of the ideas of the advocates of the principal of separation like John Hocke and Montesquieu. The French constitutions called for the flexible relative separation that allows a degree of cooperation between the different public organizations. This was carried out not to the extent to eliminate the borders between them or enable one organization to control the rest of the organizations according to its will. The logic of the idea of the relative separation: the idea of the absolute separation did not last for long. This was because of its contradiction with the unity of the authority in the state. The general authorities in the state in reality are a total of specializations that go back to the same origin. Therefore, these authorities can never be practice their work independently away from other authorities, but there should be cooperation and interventions between the organizations and direct all their efforts towards the joint objective. Accordingly, the theory that was dominant after the French revolution that advocated from the absolute separation of the authorities was a short live theory that was quickly abandoned and replaced with the principal of the relative or the flexible separation of the authorities. The idea of the relative or the flexible separation of the general authorities is based on the idea of “The state power forms a unity and is indivisible.” The state has three functions; the legislative function, the executive function, and the judicial function. These


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three functions should be distributed on three organizations. So that one organization would specialize in practicing the legislative issues, another specializes in the executive issues, and another organization to carry out the judicial function. However, when these organizations practice their functions, they do not practice them as separate authorities but each of them represents an aspect of the sovereignty, but they are considered a group of specializations issued from one unified authority which is the state and these specializations can never be absolutely separated for two reasons: The first reason: that all these specializations are practiced to achieve the general benefit and good. Accordingly, there should be cooperation and coordination between these organizations managing these specializations in order to achieve this objective. The second reason is that these specializations overlap with each others to the extent that would not allow the absolute separation between them. Accordingly there should be a certain degree of participation in the practices between the different general organizations, on the condition that this participation does not eliminate the borders between them or gather the authority in the hand of one of these organizations. The systems of the liberal countries have modified the idea of the absolute separation of the authorities considering this idea a fanciful system that can never be implemented in real work. They took the right interpretation of the principal represented in the flexible relative separation. This idea was what made it possible to implement it in real life and it is the dominant idea in the contemporary thought. It is the base, as we will view in the second demand, for the classification of the representative systems in the liberal democratic countries. Most of the jurists of the general laws said that the right interpretation of the principal of separation, as perceived by Montesquieu, is the balanced separation between the three general authorities of the state, with the establishment of a degree of cooperation between them to practice their functions in harmony and consensus. There has to be exchanged supervision between the authorities to guarantee that each authority will stop at its level without transcending another authority. If the rebels in France, and their contemporary jurists, decided to interpret the separation of powers as if it meant the complete or the absolute separation, this interpretation is wrong and transcends the theory of Montesquieu. This is because Montesquieu never had in mind to establish a complete separation between the governing organizations, but he established a sort of moderation and harmony in the movement. This was what Montesquieu himself referred to in his discussion of the relation between the parliament and the government in the British system when he said” that these three authorities will result in a state of laziness and complacency. However, because of the nature of things, they have to move and they will find themselves forced to move and cooperate together in harmony and consensus.” There is no doubt that the reference to the coordination of the efforts and the cooperation means that the separation of powers is not rigid or absolute, but it is a flexible separation.


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This opinion gained the advocates of many contemporary jurists: the main objective that Montesquieu wanted to achieve through the separation of powers was to prevent the misuse of authority and to protect the freedoms and the rights of citizens. However, it is not enough, in order to achieve this objective, to distribute the authorities on several organizations with each of them preventing the other to the tyranny of authority. This desired objective is not completely achieved in a system that is based on the absolute separation of authorities make each authority isolated utterly from the other authorities. Each authority will practice its specializations independently in a way that would enable them to misuse the independent authority because they will not find any impediment preventing it from tyranny. This is because the other authorities will not have the power to intervene in its practice of its specialization. Therefore, other organizations will not stop this organization from exercising tyranny and accordingly this absolute separation will no longer act as a guarantee against tyranny but it will give the chance for tyranny. Perhaps the tyranny and suppression of freedom and the practice of the worst types of terrorism under the French constitution of 1791 and the constitution of the third after the French revolution of the year of 1795 are the clearest evidences that the absolute separation of authorities does not achieve the freedoms of individuals or protect them from tyranny. Montesquieu studied the principal of the separation of authorities under the theme of the British constitution. This was in the 6th chapter of his 11th book; “The Spirit of Laws.” It is evident that England never witnessed in any point of its political history the idea of the absolute separation of the authorities. It is well know as well that Montesquieu admired the British constitution very much and he loved the bases of this constitution. 3- In addition, if we review the 6th chapter of the 11th book of Montesquieu; the “Spirit of the Laws” we will find many paragraphs where Montesquieu admits that the executive authority has the right to participate or intervene in the work of the legislative authority. He admitted that the first authority has the right to call the parliament to assemble, the right to adjourn its meetings, and the right to object the rules. On the other hand, this gives the right to the legislative authority to supervise the work of the executive organization and supervise the way they implement the rules. This means that Montesquieu did not desire the absolute separation of the authorities but he always valued the existence of a relation between them. He said, concerning this matter: “ if the executive authority did not have the right to constrain and rein the violations of the legislative organization, then the legislative authority will practice tyranny. This is because it will give itself the right in doing anything it desires and this will result in the destruction of the other authorities. Therefore, the executive authority should have a role in legislation through its right of prevention (meaning the right of interception objection). Without this authority, the executive authority will loose all its privileges. If the legislative authority, in a free state, did not have the right to stop the executive authority, it has the right to have the means and the abilities to inspect the method of the implementation of the rules issued by the legislative authority.” The principal of the separation of powers has been as glorious as no other principals. This principal had a great prestige among the jurists of general laws. They were so enthusiastic towards it and they used to largely defend it through highlighting its advantages and explain the justifications of implementing it. However, the same way as


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other legal and political principals, it was never away from the attacks of some philosophers and jurists who criticized it and doubted its originality and its feasibility. Most of the jurists supported the principal of the separation of powers and defended it greatly. Those people reinforced the defense of Montesquieu, the founder of the principal, as a necessity to prevent tyranny and guarantee the rights, freedom, and the rule of the law. In addition, this principal achieve the reasons fro specialization, experience, and mastery for the separate organizations. Therefore, the justifications that led to adopt this principal and implemented can be summarized in the following:

1- the prevention of tyranny and the preservation of freedoms

We have previously clarified that the main objective of Montesquieu concerning the separation of powers was to prevent the misuse of the authority and protect the rights and the freedoms of the people. In another meaning, Montesquieu advocated for the principal of the separation of powers as a mean to disperse the authorities and to prevent its concentration in one hand in a way that would threaten the freedoms of the individuals and expose their rights to dangers. Madison clearly expressed this concept in his book:”The Federalist” when he said” the gathering ( overcrowding) of all authorities; the legislative, the executive, and the judicial in one hand, whether this hand belonged to an individual ruler or a group of rulers, whether these rulers have reached their positions through inheritance, elections, or through imposing themselves on the people, this danger gathering is the most important trait of tyranny, but it is tyranny itself. Everybody knows this fact because the nature of the human self has proven throughout centuries, through continuous experiments, that it swerves towards tyranny if it takes control of all powers and tends to misuse it. Lord Acton (1834 – 1902) expressed the opinion of one of the senior British politicians and historian that emerged before him when he said:” All powers are corruptive and the absolute power is an absolute corruption. If everybody agrees that the power has an encroaching nature, therefore, it has to be constrained in order not to transcend the limitations assigned for it. The best way to combat this threat is to the distribution of the powers so that each authority would be stopped by the other authority. None of the organizations will be able to misuse its authority or practice tyranny with the help of its power.

2- The confirmation of the principal of legitimacy in the state

The principal of the separation of powers is considered to be among the most important guarantees that would ensure the establishment of a lawful state. It is an effective mean to ensure the respecting of the laws and to implement them rightly and justly. Montesquieu clarified the relation between the freedom, mentioned in the last


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argument, and its legality trait in the state on the basis that the existence of the freedom is conditioned by the preservation of the legality. If the legislation and implementation is gathered in one hand, the laws will lose its basic characteristic; being general abstract laws set up for the future regardless of the special cases that might affect its generality and subjectivity and deviates it towards injustice or favoritism. This characteristic of the law is not achieved if the implementer of the law is, in the same time, the legislator. This is because he can amend the law at the moment he is implementing it in the individual cases walled by the purpose and he will fear, because of these cases, injustice and favoritism. This way the law will no longer have its generality and subjectivity and the state, accordingly, will no longer have the rule of the law in its right meaning. This will lead to the rule of injustice and whims. So the legislator creates unfair rule and implement them himself, considering him the executive authority, in an unfair way as well. This was what Montesquieu expressed when he said: “if the legislation authority is assembled together with the executive authority in the hands of one person, or concentrated in one organization, there will be no freedom. This is because, in that case, it is feared that this person or this organization (the ruler himself or the senate) would create unfair tyrannical rules and implement them in an unfair way.” This applies similarly in the case of the gathering of the legislation and the judicial authorities, or the combination between the executive and the judicial authorities. This is because it would transform a judge into a tyrant. This is was what Montesquieu referred to when he said: “Again, there will be no freedom if the judicial authority is not separated from the legislative and the executive authorities. If the judicial authority is unified with the legislative authority, the freedom and the life of the citizen will be exposed to the tyrannical control because the judge, in that case, will be the legislator of the laws. If the judicial authority is unified with the executive authority, the judge might go behaving cruelly or violently and practice injustice and persecution. 3 - Achieve the benefits which are the consequences of the principal of the division of the work The principal of the separation of powers agrees with an important administrative principal and it is considered to be a right implementation of it. This is the principal of specialization and the division of work that all successful projects follow. If this principal is implemented in all projects, whether they are public or private, and it is considered a basic condition for their success, it is a priority to be implemented in the state. This is because the state is considered to have larger activities, more important, and more diverse. Therefore it is the neediest for the specialization and the division of work. The logic of the principal separation of powers lead to the distribution of the three functions of the state; the legislation, execution, and judicial on three organizations. The first will carryout the task of legislation, the second will carry out the implementation, and the third will take the task of the judicial system. Dividing the functions that way leads to the specialization of each authority in the tasks assigned to it, the mastery of each authority of its work, carrying out its duties in the best way possible to achieve the best results in all the fields of the work; the legislative, the executive, and the judicial.

The Electoral Systems within the Universal and

the Egyptian Experiences

Dr. Mazen Hassan

Ibn Khaldoun center for development studies The Electoral Systems

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Introduction The electoral process is considered one of the main components of the Representative Democracy System; with the impossibility of practicing the direct democracy that according to which all the citizens participate in the decision taking, the concept of “representation” appeared, which refers to the citizens’ expression of their interests and preferences through electing their representatives in the parliaments on the general national level (the parliament or the legislative body) and on the local levels (the local councils). With the development of the representation concept, the agreement on the rules and procedures according to which “electing” the representative of the public citizens is done, became necessary and this was not easy or effortless as the election system was faced by many obstacles to be achieved. At the beginning, the right of voting was not available for everybody but applying it was linked to several restrictions such as the wealth restriction and the amount of education the person gets, as the matter which was in the case of the American constitution and the constitutions of all the states upon the independence, and the liberal justification of this restriction was that the right of voting should be excluded to those who can express the interests of the people and protect them, the ownership or the wealth is what links the person to his country, and that the rich who pay taxes and carry the general burdens are the most capable of expressing the interest of the society. The right of voting remained exclusive to the upper class until the first third of the 19th century, and Switzerland was the first country that applied the right of universal suffrage to men in 1830, followed by France in 1848, Germany in 1871 and then all the other European countries. The right of universal suffrage to women took a different track, as the first to grant this right was the constitution of Wyoming, the American state, in 1869 and Norway took the initiative in Europe as it gave this right to women in 1907, Australia in 1914, Denmark in 1915, Sweden and USA in 1920, UK in 1928, Turkey in 1934, New Zealand in 1940 and France in 1944, and as the same matter with men, the right of universal suffrage to women was restricted by a financial quorum or education or age; in UK case for example, the right was given at the beginning to women above 30-year old. Furthermore, with the expansion in the range of the voting right, the importance of elections increased as it was described as the procedural expression of the representation concept. The electoral system is the process of translating or transforming the electors’ votes to parliamentarian seats, and for the first instant, some might think that this translation or transformation process is objective and neutral, but this belief is not true, as the form of the electoral system and the way of dividing the constituencies and calculating the votes can lead to different results, also the electoral system might be biased to the big or the small parties, as what will be shown later, and this might affect the form of the partisan system and the range of the existence of the two big parties system as the case with the USA and the UK, or the stable or the unstable multi-part systems. Moreover, the form of the electoral system affects the degree of the internal solidarity in the political parties, and


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whether the system encourages the forces of solidarity and coherence inside each party which force the party members of different opinions to unify and get over their disagreements, or encourages them to leave this party and establish new parties. Finally, the number of seats that some parties gain as a translation of the votes won is different from an electoral system to another. These considerations are what make researchers raise several questions such as: what is the importance of the electoral system? What are the kinds of the electoral systems? What is the best system to apply in Egypt? Is there a perfect representation system that should be generalized and applied on the countries or not? and so forth.

The importance of the electoral system The importance of any political institution, considering that any institution is a collection of governing rules of a process, increases when the difference in these rules, or these institutions, from one case to another is capable of making a difference in the outputs, even with the consistency of the inputs. In return, if different rules were followed to regulate the same process, and also with the consistency of the same inputs, and this did not result in any impact on the outputs, then it can be asserted that these rules are not consequential or effective. This in brief is the importance of the electoral system in any political system, as in some cases just the difference in the kind of the electoral system produces different elections results, or a legislative council of different formation, whether concerning the number or the nature of parties represented in it, even if those same parties get the same percentages of votes (meaning the same inputs). The literatures of the electoral systems are alive with examples of such cases, such as the difference of the representation of the National Front Party that represents the extreme right in France during the period from 1978 to 2007 according to the followed electoral system, as the only elections where an upturn was witnessed in its representation in the parliament in the last three decades (which is 1986 elections) were also the only time when the electoral system of the French legislative elections was changed from the two-round majority system to the proportional representation system (see table no. 1), but also the same party gained the same percentage of votes in 1988 (9.8%) yet the percentage produced in this year, when the work returned to be with the two-round system which works against the small parties, was nearly 0.2% only of the seats in comparison with a percentage of 6.3% of the seats in 1986, in addition, the same party also gained in 1997 elections a much higher percentage of votes than what it gained in 1986 (14.6%), but it also did not produce except 0.2% of the seats.


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Table no. 1: The percentages of the votes and seats of the National Front Party in the French

legislative elections (1978-2007)

Kind of the followed election system

Percentage of Seats

Percentage of Votes

Year of Election

Absolute Majority (two-round system)

0.0 0.0 8791


0.0 0.0 8718

Proportional Representation

3.0 7.1 8713


0.0 7.1 8711


0.0 80.9 8770


0.0 8..3 8779


0.0 88.0 0000


0.0 ..07 0009

The 2000 American presidential elections is one of the famous examples of the effective

role of the electoral systems where the democratic candidate Al Gore got nearly half a million votes more than the republican candidate George W. Bush, which is equivalent to 0.5% of the votes, but when transforming these votes to seats in the electoral college which elects the president of USA, according to the formula that the winner in one state garners all its seats in the electoral college, the 0.5% gain to the favor of Al Gore was transformed to 1% of gain to the favor of George W. Bush, and the latter won the presidency seat (table no. 2).

Table no. 2 Results of the 2000 American Presidency Elections

George W. Bush Al Gore

50,456,002 50,99,897 Number of votes

47.9% 48.4% Percentage of votes

271 266 Number of votes in the electoral college

50.5% 49.5% Percentage of votes in the electoral college

The two previous examples are among many other examples which the literatures of the

election systems are alive with, most of them confirm the big role that the electoral system can play in specifying the representation percentage that the parties get, and the importance of the electoral system can be figured out from these examples, thus, the importance of the difference in its kinds, as follows:


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1- The importance of the electoral systems lies in that they determine the winner from the loser, and as it is clear in the example of the 2000 American presidential elections, the winner with the majority of votes is not necessary the final winner.

2- The electoral systems determine the difficulty or the easiness of the task of the competent parties, when they compete for gaining a parliamentarian representation, by specifying the target percentage of votes in order to gain at least one seat, which is a percentage that differs, sometimes largely, from one system to another.

3- The kind of the electoral system can cause the exclusion of parties from the politics arena or their entry in it even if these parties get the same percentage of votes, but some refer to the electoral system in the USA when explaining the reasons of the non-emergence of third parties to compete with the two large ones, the republican and the democratic, through the history of the USA.

This was a necessary introduction to highlight the importance of the electoral systems in general, which is a matter that will become clearer in the coming parts of this paper which will tackle the following: first, the definition of the electoral system and its main function in the political system, second: the different kinds of the electoral systems with a brief evaluation of the cons and pros of each system, third: a review of the most important different political outputs that can be emerged by the different kinds of the electoral systems, fourth: a brief review of the electoral systems which were applied in Egypt through its history, and finally: specific remarks about the Egyptian electoral system in the current and the future phase that Egypt is going through. First: The definition of the electoral system and its relation with the political system As the case with most of the definitions in the political science, the concept of the electoral system is not safe from the problem of the multiple definitions, however, it can be said that the definition that gains the general acceptance in the literature is which defines the electoral system as “the system that specifies the way through which the votes are transformed to seats in the electoral process of a politician to fill certain posts”. (Farrell, 2002) This transformation method differs from an electoral system to another, as in some systems the priority when performing the transformation process is the keenness that the number of seats that every party gets is commensurate with the number of votes that it got in the ballot boxes, same with the proportional representation system within another systems, the keenness is that one party gets most of the competent seats seeking for providing a possibility of forming strong and stable governments, as with the majority systems. (Farrell, 2002) By moving to the procedural definition of the electoral system by transforming the concept to indicators that refer to it, we find that Arend Lijphart divides the concept into a number of quantifiable components or in other words, measures the difference of their values from one electoral system to another, these components are the following:


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1- The nature of the electoral formula: which means whether the system is based on the winner’s gain of the simple or the absolute majority, or the representation is done on the basis of the proportional system.

2- The magnitude of the constituency: which means the number of representatives elected of every constituency.

3- The electoral threshold: which represents the bare minimum of the votes that every party must get to be represented in the parliament (Lijphart, 1995).

4- The parliament size. 5- The voting structure: which means whether the elector has the right to divide his vote or

votes to support more than one party in the same electoral process (ordinal) or he has to support only one party (categorical).

6- What is called Malapportionment: when there are differences in the sizes of the constituencies although every constituency chooses one candidate, thus, the proportional magnitude of the electors’ votes differs according to their geographic distribution.

7- Finally what is called the Apparentment system: according to which the parties are allowed to link their party lists with an official status, which enhances the chances of the small parties (Lijphart, 1995). The researchers often mix up between the concept of the electoral system with its narrow and limited meaning which refers to the voting system, votes calculation and the method of transforming the votes to parliamentarian seats, and between the broad concept of the electoral system or the electoral process that includes other factors that affect the validity of the elections, thus, all these following factors should be dealt with to ensure the validity of the electoral process as whole:

1- Electors registration: this refers to the electoral lists that comprise the names of the electors and according to which the elections process is done, as how accurate are these lists, how valid with regard to the correction of the names listed in them, the nonexistence of one name in more than one constituency, and filtering them from the names of the dead and the migrants outside the country must be ensured.

2- Constituencies division: it refers to the rules and the bases that according to which the lands of the country is divided into constituencies especially in the single representation system and which the number of population should be taken in consideration when determining them, also the borders of these constituencies and their number should be given another thought in the light of the population and the economic development, and the population movement to reside in new districts. These considerations had opened the door for the administration bodies to play with the borders of the constituencies in a way that ensures achieving certain results or obstructing them, as in the cases where certain religious or ethnic groups center in an area, the determination of the borders of the constituencies can lead to non-possession of these groups of a numerical majority in any constituency or vice versa. Thus, it is necessary that the administrative bodies do not have an exclusive competence of dividing the constituencies especially in the non democratic countries.

3- The conditions and the procedures of candidature: this refers to the conditions specified by the law as conditions of the parliament membership candidature including: the minimum age which ranges generally between 25 and 35, the condition of education which its bare minimum is represented in the knowledge of reading and writing, the condition of


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nationality as all the elections laws provide for the necessity of the candidate to hold the nationality of the country, but they disagree on whether the acquirement of the person who is willing to run for the elections of another nationality is a factor that obstructs him from the candidacy or not. In other cases, there are conditions concerning the electoral quotas like allocating a number of seats which running for them is exclusive for women or some religious and ethnic groups, or what was in force in Egypt until 2011-2012 elections regarding the allocation of at least 50% of the seats of all the elected councils to workers and peasants.

4- Electors educating: this refers to that the validity of the electoral process and the expansion of the popular participation range relate to the awareness of the electors and their perception of the importance of the voting participation, which makes educating the citizens is one of the continuous tasks in the democratic regimes.

5- The voting process: this refers to some logistic matters pertaining to the electoral procedures which include issues such as: are the elections are carried out in one or two phases?, the number of the voting centers in comparison with number of electors in each center and what results in the number of minutes that the electors should wait to practice their electoral right, the locations of these centers and their proximity or farness from the residences of the electors registered in them, the committees supervising the voting process and how far they are neutral towards the different candidates, the elections observation which might take the form of the observation of the civil society organizations and the international observation, and the transferring process of the ballot boxes from the places of the election centers to the places of the counting and ensuring the non-touching and the non-playing of their contents during this process.

6- Votes counting: which means the opening the ballot boxes and the process of counting the votes and taking record of them; in the democratic regimes this process should be characterized with transparency, and should be in public and in the presence of representatives of all the candidates. The systems differ in whether recording the results are done manually or electronically.

7- Votes calculating and results announcing: while the calculation of votes is done easily in the individual representation system, this process gets more complicated with regard to the proportional representation lists system and especially when the open lists systems or the other complicated systems are followed.

8- The electoral appeals: refer to the procedures specified by the law to appeal against the results of the elections pursuant to the non-adherence to these procedures which annul their results. In the democratic regimes, the ruling on the seriousness of the appeals is, usually, the specialization of an independent judiciary body.

Second: The forms of the electoral systems in the world with a review of their advantages, the criticisms directed to them and the factors that help with their success in application: The classification of the kinds of the election systems is considered not an easy thing, as any change in an element or a simple variable of the variables of any electoral system can lead to the production of a completely contradictory electoral system, the thing that made Lijphart concluded that the number of the electoral systems, theoretically, is infinite (Lijphart, 8775), but because of the study’s considerations some standards were developed


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on which the classification of the electoral system can be based; maybe the most famous standards are emerged from the function that the electoral system is assigned with, which means the way the transformation of votes to seats is done and the goal of this process, considering that there are systems that are keen, by varying degrees, that the number of seats that any party gets is close as much it can be to the percentage of the votes which it got in the voting process, which are the proportional systems. There is another kind of systems that is keen that one party gets the majority of the number of the seats competed on at the aim of creating strong and stable governments, which is the majority systems (Farrell, 2000). Finally, the third kind that tries to combine between those two ways within one system, is the mixed systems or the two-vote systems. According to this standard the main kinds of the electoral systems can be imagined as in shape no. (3) Shape no. (3) The main kinds of the election systems

The Majority Systems

Alternative Vote System

Second Ballot System

First-past- the post-System

The Proportional Systems

Highest Average System

Largest Remainder System


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Majority Election Systems:

As mentioned before, the main goal of these systems is that one of the parties gets the majority of the number of the seats at the aim of creating strong and stable governments, this kind includes the following systems:

a- First-past- the post-system (FPTP) According to this system the country’s region is divided into a group of constituencies, almost equal in their size of population, according to the number of seats competed on so that one representative of each constituency is elected, and according to this system every elector has one vote to cast for the preferable candidate (which means that the structure of voting is determined by choosing only one candidate (ordinal) and not in details by showing preferences of more than one candidate on the voting card), and the competition is , in the first place among candidates, and not among parties. The candidate who wins is who gets the biggest number of votes even if this plurality is by only one vote difference than the next candidate, as it is not required for this plurality to be more than 50% of the votes. This system is used to elect the members of the House of Representatives in the USA and the members of the British House of Commons (Tayyem, 1975). The Cons and Pros This system is distinguished by three main advantages, the first is the simplicity: the simplicity in the ordinary elector’s dealing with the voting process as all the electors have to do is to put a mark beside the preferred candidate and the process is finished, also the election paper is simple and easy to understand. Furthermore, simplicity in understanding the work mechanism of the system as the result is easy to explain to the citizens; who gets the biggest number of votes wins (Farrell, 2000). Second, this system is distinguished with its capability to maintain, but sometimes emerges, the political stability; as mostly the FPTP system is linked to the emergence of governments comprised of one party that is founded on the majority of the parliament seats, in a way that enhances the governmental stability (Farrell, 2002). This is because that

The Mixed Systems

The Mixed Related The Mixed Parallel


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the FPTP system lessens a lot of the small parties chances of winning seats as these parties rarely have a majority in any constituency and consequently, this lessens a lot the number of the parties represented in the parliament (mostly produces a partisan system with two main parties), thus, the chances of one party only to get a parliamentarian majority are big. Regularly, the British example is mentioned to foster this argument, as most of the British governments since the end of the Second World War were enjoying the majority of the parliament seats and the coalition governments were rare so the government would not be subject to the disturbances of the small parties. Since the end of the Second World War there are two cases only where one party did not get the majority of seats in the House of Commons which are the 1974 and 2010 elections, and a coalition government was not produced except in the last case only as shown in table no. (4). Table no. 4, the rarity of the coalition governments in Britain from 1955 to 2011

The Government The Period

Conservatives 1955-1959



Workers 1964-1966

Workers 1966-1970


Workers 1974-1974

Workers 1974-1976

Workers 1976-1976

Conservatives 1979- 1983




Workers 1997-2001

Workers 2001-2005

Workers 2005-2007

Workers 2007-2010

Conservatives-Liberals 2010- till now

Finally, the FPTP system creates the possibility of a direct link between the elector and the representative as every parliament representative represents a certain constituency, and from the other side, every elector has a parliament representative to whom he can resort when in need; this advantage becomes clear when comparing a country like Israel where the whole country is dealt with as a one constituency and in a way that does not create a representation of the localities, in addition to that, dealing with the whole country as a one constituency can lead to that a big number of the parliament members are elected from one geographic area on the account of the other areas. With regard to the deficiencies of this system, at the top of them comes that the winner does not necessary get the support of the absolute majority of the electors and this


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happens at the level of the single constituencies and also happens at the level of the total results of the elections. One of the most important examples at the level of constituencies is the result of Inverness & Nairn & Lochaber elections in the 1992 British elections when Russell Johnston was elected although he got 26% only of the votes, as shown in table no. (5), and if taken in consideration those who did not vote, this means that he got 19% only of the total votes of the electors registered in the constituency, and as shown from the table, the difference in votes between him and his closest competitor was just 458 votes (Farrell, 2002). Table no. 5 The results of Inverness & Nairn & Lochaber elections in the 1992 British legislative elections

Candidate

No. of Votes Percentage of Votes %

Johnston Russell (Liberal Democratic Party) D. Stewart (the workers) F. S. Ewing G. Scott (the conservatives) G. Martin (The Green Party)

80051 80100 80530 88589 933

03 05.8 0..9 00.3 8.5

Source: Farrell, 2002 With repeating these examples in some constituencies (the phenomenon of the winning of elected representatives of a percentage of votes that does not represent the majority of voters), this faction can form a big percentage of the parliament seats (see table no. 6), a question maybe raised here on whether we are in front of a rule of majority, which is the main value of any democratic regime, or not. Table no. 6, the number of the representative of the British House of Commons who are elected without a majority of votes (1918-1997)

Elections No. of the representatives elected by minority votes

Percentage of the minority representatives to the members of the House of Commons %

8781 79 8..5

8700 890 00

8700 000 05.0

870. 80. 08.5

8707 080 50.1

8708 0. 5.7

8705 51 80.8

87.5 89. 07

8750 819 07.7

8758 07 3.0

8755 09 5.7

8757 10 80.9

873. 000 03.1

8733 815 07..

8790 80. 87.9

February .01 3..0


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879.

October 879. 010 57.1

8797 009 00.3

8710 00. 58..

8719 010 .0.5

8770 051 07.3

8779 080 .9

Source: (Farrell, 2002, 26) The second deficiency of this system that it works largely against the small parties, which their properties are distributed on a big number of constituencies and do not form a majority or plurality in certain constituencies; these parties might get a reasonable percentage of votes at the level of the whole country (1% for example), but at the level of seats they might get nothing because this 10% is scattered on several constituencies which is a matter that increases the non-relativity of the whole electoral system which is measured by calculating the difference between the percentage of votes and the seats that each party gets. This is clearly shown in table no. (7) which shows the difference between the votes and the seats with regard to the three main parties in Britain during the period from 1945 to 1997, and shows that the Democrats Liberals Party is always the most disadvantaged from the mechanism of the system especially in the 1983 and 1987 elections when it got more than 20% of the total votes but less than 4% of the seats. Table no. 7 The difference between the percentages of the votes and the seats with regard to the three main parties in Britain (1945-1997)

Elections The Conservatives The Workers The Liberals

Votes%

Seats%

Difference%

Votes%

Seats%

Difference%

Votes%

Seats %

Difference %

87.5 03.1 08.8 -5.7 .1 38.. 80.. 7 8.7 -7.1

8750 .0.. .9.9 +4.3 .3.8 50.. ..0 7.8 8.. -7.7

8758 .1 58.. +3.4 .1.1 .9.0 -1.6 0.3 8 -1.6

8755 .7.9 5..1 +5.1 .3.. .. -2.4 0.9 8 -1.7

8757 .7.. 59.7 +8.5 .0.1 .8 -2.8 5.7 8 -4.9

873. .0.. .1.0 +4.9 ...8 50.0 +6.2 88.0 8.. -9.8

8733 .8.7 .0.0 -1.7 .1 59.1 +9.8 1.5 8.7 -6.6

8790 .3.. 50.. +6 .0.8 .5.9 +2.6 9.5 8 -6.5

February 879.

09.7 .3.1 +8.9 09.0 .9.. +10.2 87.0 0.0 -17.1


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October 879.

05.1 .0.3 +7.8 07.0 50.0 +10.9 81.0 0 -16.3

8797 .0.7 50.. +9.5 03.7 .0.. +5.5 80.1 8.9 -12.1

8710 .0.. 38.8 81.9 09.3 00.0 +4.6 05.. 0.5 -21.9

8719 .0.0 59.1 +15.5 0.1 05.0 +4.4 00.3 0.. -19.2

8770 .8.7 58.3 +9.7 0... .8.3 +7.2 89.1 0.8 -14.7

8779 00.9 05 -5.7 .0.0 30.. +20.2 83.1 9 -9.8

The critics of this system add that the cause of simplicity in the understanding and voting must not be of a higher value than the value of the electoral justice, as when the electors compare between the simplicity of the election system and its justice it is not expected that all the choices will be for the simplicity, also the somehow increasing difficulty of the electoral system does not mean that it does not work properly; when Ireland in the 70s of the 20th century transformed to the Single Transferable Vote system, which is considered one of the most complicated election systems, this was not an obstacle against the voting process and the proof is that the percentage of the invalid votes did not rise (Farrell,2002). Regarding the argument of that the FPTP system achieves a reasonable degree of the governmental stability because of its capability of ensuring a majority of the number of seats for one of the parties, the thing that makes countries applying it record a higher degree of the political stability, like the British system, in comparison with the instability of the collation governments in the countries that are famous for applying the proportional representation system like the fourth French republic (1946-1958) and the German Republic of Weimar (1919-1933); the critics of the system see that that electoral system is not the only responsible for ensuring majorities of the number of seats and the proof of this is the rise of the Democratic Liberal Party in Britain in the 90s under applying this system, starting from 1992 elections (Bogdanor, 1981) and lastly in 2010 last British elections which resulted in that this party became a partner in a coalition government with the Conservatives Party. With regard to the traditional examples of the governments stability in the countries that apply the FPTP system, they are criticized on the basis that they equalize between the political stability and the long age of the governments, which is a phenomenon that the coalition government are also characterized with, as in the case of Sweden and Luxembourg for example (Farrell, 2002). Finally, with regard to the argument concerning that the FPTP system ensures a kind of representation of the localities, David Farrell says that is a doubted matter as it cannot be imaginable that a parliament representative such as Russell Johnston in the previous example, who got only 19% of the total votes of the electors registered in his constituency, can represent this constituency. Farrell adds that the representation of the localities must not be regarded as the main job of the legislator, as the parliamentarians who dedicate most of their time to solve the problems of the electors in their constituencies will not


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have much time to contribute to the legislation and this is the main job of the legislator (Farrell). Universally, the most famous example of the countries applying this system is Britain, USA, India and Canada and here appears the impact of the British occupation in transferring its electoral system to its most important colonies. In general, the universal trend is keeping away from this system as it will not be adopted by almost any new democracy, and in most cases the countries that change its electoral system do not change it in the direction of adopting this system but of keeping away from it.

b- Second Ballot System: This system, which sometimes is also called the two-ballot system and the run-off system, requires that the winning candidate gets more than 50% of the number of the valid votes of the electors, and in case there are three candidates or more in the first round and none of them gets this percentage, a second round is held among a less number of the candidates, who are determined according to rules that differ from one country to another, so that sometimes it does not guarantee that they are only two candidates, and who gets the majority of number of votes in the second round wins. This system is applied in the local elections in a number of states in the USA and it also applied in the Congress elections in some southern states, moreover, different models of the system are applied in the presidential elections in countries such as Austria, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Finland, Mali, Poland, Portugal and Ukraine, yet the most famous example in this framework is represented in France (Farrell, 2002). In the French case, two different models of this system are applied in the legislative and the presidential elections; in the legislative elections the candidates who get the minimum votes qualify for the second round, and the law stated that this minimum should be 12.5% of the total registered electors and not of the total of who actaully voted, meaning that the system does not guarantee that there is a majority in the second round of the elections, as it is not necessary for only two candidates to get the minimum of the votes. Theoretically, it is possible for seven or even eight candidates to get 12.5% and qualify for the second round, this is because that the candidates of less chances to win from every side of the electoral system, whether the right or the left, withdraw for the interest of the luckier candidate at the aim of preventing the other side’s candidate from winning, and it ends that eventually there are only two candidates which guarantees that anyone of them can get the majority. With regard to the presidential elections, the law states that who qualify for the second round are the two candidates that got a number of votes in the first round that guarantees that one of them would get the majority of the electors’ votes in the second round.


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Lijphart distinguishes between two kinds of the second ballot systems according to the nature of the electoral formula that is applied in each round; the first round is the FPTP systems which require that the winner in the first round should get the majority, which not happens usually, so they declined a little bit to require only the plurality in the second round. The second kind is which a second round is held between the two candidates who got the largest percentage of votes in the first round, so the winner candidate gets the majority in the second round and consequently, these systems become majority systems (Lijphart, 1995). Cons and Pros Maybe the most important pro of this system is the guarantee, opposite to the FPTP system, that the representative is elected by the majority of votes, even if this majority is imposed, through decreasing the number of competitors to only two. Furthermore, there are some who praise this system for working to the interest of the moderate middle parties on the account of the parties of the extreme right and left, as it is known that the latter’s chances of getting the 50% of the votes is very slim, thus, they calculate in the second round for the favor of the candidate of the middle right party or the closer middle left one to prevent the winning of the other side (right or left, according to the case) according to the strategy of the less evil, which is a frequent matter in the French elections, even many see that this system is what prevented the extreme right National Front Party from winning parliamentarian seat in most of the elections it ran for (see the example in the beginning of the paper), as any proportional representation system would have guaranteed for it a higher degree of representation because such systems collect the electors’ votes at the level of bigger constituencies before translating them to seats, as will be mentioned later. With regard to the disadvantages of this system, the first is represented in the possibility for the electors to lose their enthusiasm and motive to go to the ballot boxes again to cast their votes, and this phenomenon happened more than one time which raised doubts about how real are the results emerging from the second round. In the presidential elections in France in 1969, the rate of voting in the first round decreased from 77.6 to 65.5% in the second round, and as a result, the majority that Charles De Gaulle got in the second round of this elections to beat Mitterrand and which officially was 52.2%, was not in fact but 45.3% of the total French electors. Moreover, the electors who vote for candidates who were not able to pass the first round, would be less enthusiastic to vote in the second round because there is no candidate who represents their orientations in this round (Farrell, 2002), and they are sometimes called the “orphan electors” as they are required to vote so a certain candidate is defeated not for their candidate to win, the matter that can make the electors make their votes invalid on purpose. This actually happened in the presidential elections in France in 1995 which had a similar atmosphere that made 1.9 M electors make their votes invalid, which is an unprecedented proportion to the number of the valid votes (Farrell, 2002). In addition, the withdrawal of some candidates from the second round for the favor of one candidate who represents the bloc to which those candidates belong, is always a


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result of much bargaining among the parties and each other and which the electors have nothing much to do with it (Farrell, 2002), the matter that makes the winner candidate a prisoner (as Lakeman describes) for this parties which afterwards might resort to the bargaining and the threatening of moving their support to another partisan bloc so they can get more concessions and gains; what contributes to fostering this phenomenon is the existence of a long period of time between the first and the second rounds which could be two weeks or more (Lakeman, 1974).

c- Alternative Vote System W. R. Hare is among the firsts who called for this system in the 70s of the 19th century upon Australia’s independence, as the main argument behind calling for it was that following the FPTP system which is applied in Britain could harm some parties because of the scattered votes among their candidates in a way that none of them succeed in getting the biggest number of votes, which what actually happened in one of the rounds of the by-elections that took place in West Australia when one of the candidates of the Workers Party won by 35% of the votes only because the votes of the opponents of the Workers Party were scattered among three other candidates and none of them managed to win the biggest number of votes, which led later to the adaptation of the alternative vote system and accrediting it for the elections of the members of the House of Representatives in 1918. This system was also applied in some areas in Canada in the 50s of the 20th century and is applied in the presidency elections in Ireland (Farrell, 2002). Furthermore, this system is considered one of the most complicated kinds of the non-proportional representation because of the possibility of the mix up between it and the proportional representation systems, and it is a system that avoids some of the disadvantages of the second-ballot system as it can save the time and effort exerted in the second-ballot system by collecting the choices that could be given in the second and the first rounds through asking the representatives to mark on the same electoral paper, which in this case is just one paper, beside the other candidate whom they would vote for in case of the loss of the candidate of their first choice (Lakeman, 1974), while the electoral formula is the absolute majority not the plurality, and the magnitude of the constituency is just one seat. The electoral process is done by arranging the electors of the candidates’ names on the electoral paper according to their preferences, then the first choices that every candidate gets are calculated and if any candidate gets more than 50% of the first choices in the first count, the candidate that gets the least number of the first choices is excluded, and the second choices of him/her are distributed as first choices among the rest of the candidates; if none of the rest candidates do not get the majority in this case also, the second choices of the least candidate of the rest are distributed as first choices among the other candidates and s/he gets excluded and so on until one of the candidates gets the required percentage of the number of the first choices (Tayyem, 1975).


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Cons and Pros This system achieves two goals at the same time:

1- The winner candidate gets the majority of the votes casted in the final phase. 2- The parties of common goals be able to unify for achieving those aims and at the same time

do not give up their initial right of running candidates for the elections (Lakeman 1974). This system is better than the second-ballot system in the sense that the voting is done in the same day without separating time periods, which limits the partisan bargaining and the secret deals (Farrell 2002), also Lijphart considers it as an emendation of the second-ballot system, or specifically of the majority system of the second ballot system, on the basis that the weaker candidates are excluded in every phase one at a time instead of excluding the weaker candidates except the first and the second at one time (Lijphat, 1995). However, there are some aspects of criticism that are directed to this system from the applicative side, for example in Australia, which applies this system in the lower legislative council or the House of Representatives elections, the elector must give a preference of all the candidates listed on the electoral paper or the vote will be considered invalid, which is considered a burden on the elector and causes an increase of the percentage of the invalid votes in the Australian elections, also it might cancel the whole idea behind the preferential voting that their system is based on. But on the other side, canceling such rule can have its own disadvantages as it could led to the existence of a large percentage of the non-transferable votes, which eventually could lead to that the winner candidate is not gaining the support of the majority of the electors, this is in addition to that this system, like the other individual election systems, works against the interest of the small parties (Farrell, 2002).

d- The proportional elections systems The main goal behind the proportional representation systems is that the number of the seats that the party gets in the parliament is as much as close to the percentage of the votes that it already got from the electors, but of course this degree of closeness is different from one proportional representation system to another. Regarding the different kinds of these systems, the classification of the different kinds of the party list systems is regularly done according to three standards which are: the electoral formula, the magnitude of the constituency and the voting structure (Farrell, 2002). Classification according to the electoral formula According to the electoral formula, there are two kinds of these systems which are: first the systems that are called the Largest Remainder Systems and they use the so-called Quota, second: systems that depend on the division and are called the Highest Average Systems which is branched into two sections; systems that use D’hondt method which is the most prevalent one, and systems that use the Sainte-Lague amended method, and these are


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the systems that prevail in the Scandinavian states (Farrell, 2002). The work mechanism of these two systems can be explained as follows: First: The Largest Remainder System: This system is used in Austria, Belgium and Denmark (to distribute the upper-tier seats), and Greece and Iceland, also Italy used to use the same system in the elections of the lower legislative council. The main idea of this system lies in the existence of an electoral quota, as there are two rounds of counting; in the first round seats are granted for the parties that exceeded the electoral quota then this quota is deducted from the total number of votes that these parties got, and in the second round, the parties that have the biggest number of the remaining votes (the logic of the Largest Remainder name came from here) are granted the remaining seats according to the amount of the remaining votes of each party (Farrell, 2002). To explain the way of work of this system, the following example is mentioned: let’s assume that there is a constituency where party (a) and (b) are competing on 3 parliamentarian seats, and that the number of electors in this constituency is 3000, in this case when using a hare quota, which is calculated by dividing the number of valid votes by the number of the seats competed one according to the following formula: The total of the number of the valid votes / the number of seats The electoral quota equals 3000/3= 1000, which means that every 1000 votes mean one parliament seat, then let’s suppose that the result of the voting was as follows:

Party Votes of the first counting

Hare Quota

Seats of the first counting

Remaining votes for counting

Seats of the second counting

Total number of votes

Party (a) 8300 8000 8 300 8 0

Party (b) 8.00 8000 8 .00 - 8

By applying the previous system, party (a) gets two seats the first seat because it got the quota specified by 1000 votes (Hare quota), and the second seat because it has the bigger number of the remaining votes after deducting the quota (600 votes), while party (b) gets just one seat because it got the electoral quota just one time and the number of the votes remaining for it after deducting the quota is less that the number of the votes remaining for party (a). Cons and Pros The criticism directed to this system is represented in that it does not provide the sufficient electoral justice in all cases, as when it was applied in one of the cantons in Switzerland in an earlier period the conservatives managed, through dividing their electoral force into two sections, to get a number of seats equal to the percentage of the votes they already got (Lakeman, 1974). This becomes clear if we for example suppose that party (b) in


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the previous example entered the elections with two lists instead of one and worked on distributing its electoral force on the two lists; the following situation could be produced:

Party Votes of the first counting

Hare Quota

Seats of the first counting

Remaining votes for counting

Seats of the second counting

Total number of votes

Party (a) 8300 8000 8 300 - 8

Party (b)*

950 8000 - 950 8 8

Party (b)*

350 8000 - 350 8 8

In this case, party (a) only gets a seat after the first counting, but after the second counting party (b) gets two seats because both the lists that it ran with, have a bigger number of the remaining votes than the list of party (a) which will settle for the only seat it got in the first counting (Lakeman, 1974). Some criticize Hare system also on the basis that it works largely for the favor of the small parties, in a way that they do not find a big difficulty in getting a parliamentarian representation whenever they mass their supporters’ votes to reach the electoral quota, which is sometimes small is size, especially when the number of seats competed on in the constituency is big; that is why using a smaller electoral quota was suggested and consequently the mission of the small parties will be more difficult and that is the reason for developing each of Droop quota, which is known also by Hagenbach-Bisschof quota, and Imperiali quota (Farrell, 2002). The Droop quota is based on dividing the number of valid votes on the number of seats + 1, then the total is added + l, a/1, while the Imperiali quota is calculated by dividing the number of valid votes on the number of seats competed on + 2, which is the quota that was used in Italy until 1993. Droop quota= (total number of the valid votes/ number of seats +1) +1 Imperiali quota= (total number of the valid votes/ number of seats +2) For showing the difference among the three quotas (Imperiali & Droop& Hare), we put the following example: Let’s assume that there is a constituency where there are five seats competed on by five parties, and the number of valid votes is 1000, therefore the quotas are calculated as follows: Hare quota number of votes/ number of seats 1000/5= 200


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Droop quota (total number of the valid votes/ number of seats +1) +1 (1000/5+1) +1= 167

Imperiali quota (total number of the valid votes/ number of seats +2) 1000/ (5+2) = 143 Which means that the less quotas mean a bigger number of the seats granted to the parties that get the full quota, and a less number of the remaining votes that is not equivalent to an additional quota remains, thus, the final result becomes less proportional and also the electoral quota decreased as the shape no. (8) (Farrell, 2002). Shape no. 8 the quotas of the largest remainder continued to a proportional extent Quota Quota Quota Imperiali Droop Hare

The less proportional The more proportional Second: The Highest Average System

These systems is distinguished from the largest remainder systems by working according to the divisor method, as the number of votes that each party gets is divided by a number of divisor to reach an average number of the votes, so the party that gets the biggest average of votes after each division phase, gets a seas and then its votes is divided by the next divisor; this process goes on until all the seats competed on in the concerned constituency are distributed. There are two kinds of divisors, one of them is d’hondt system with which the divisors are 1,2,3,4 and so on; this system is used in Finland, Israel, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland. The other is the Sainate-Langue amended system with which the divisors are 4, 1, 3, 5, 7 and so on, and it is used in Denmark, Norway and Sweden (Farrell, 2002). With regard to the d’Hondt system, which was developed by Victor D’hondt, it aims to limit the issue of distributing the remaining votes by decreasing the number of these votes after the first distribution as less as possible, and it also aims, at the same time, that the number of votes that is granted to the party is equal among all the parties (Lakeman, 1974). To show the way of applying such system, we review a practical example of the general elections in France in Calvados state in 1974, which is the second French elections conducted according to the proportional representation system from three elections conducted according to this system in the history of France. In this state, the competition was among five parties on five parliament seats and the results, as shown in table no. (9), and according to the d’hondt system the total of votes gained by each party is divided by 8 then 2, then 3, and so on (Lakeman, 1974). Table no. 9


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A table of the results of the legislative elections in France of Calvados State in 1976 which shows the way the d’hondt system works

The Popular Republican Movement

The Republican Party

The Communists

The Socialists The Assembly of the French Left

Dividing by 1 9.708 0.979 07153 09018 8.077

Dividing by 2 09.35 89071 8.701 - -

Dividing by 3 0.799 - - - -

Source: (Lakeman, 1974, 95) Afterwards, the biggest five number is arranged, the reason why they are five is that the number of seats competed on is five, from the biggest to the smallest as follows: 74931, 34797, 37465, 29856, 27381, then the smallest number, which is 27381 in this case, is considered the common factor or figuratively the electoral quota to be the basis of the seats distribution on the parties as the total of votes that each party got is divided by this number as follows: By dividing 74931 by 27381 that outcome is 2 and the remaining votes are 20169 By dividing 37797 by 27381 that outcome is 1 and the remaining votes are 7416 By dividing 29856 by 27381 that outcome is 1 and the remaining votes are 2475 By dividing 27381 by 27381 that outcome is 1 and the remaining votes are zero By this, each party gets a number of seats equals to the number of the electoral quotas it got and the remaining votes afterwards are disregarded, so the Popular Republican Movement gets two seats , the Republican Party of Freedom gets one seat, the communists get one seat and the socialists gets one seat. To explain the difference, we apply the largest remainder system in this case so we notice that results are the same but the difference appears if the competition is on three seats only, as the d’hondt system will give the Popular Republican Movement two seats and the Republican Party of Freedom one seats, while the largest remainder system will give each of the Popular Republican Movement seats, the Republican Party of Freedom and the communists one seat according to the following mechanisms:

- The method of the largest remainder system: By dividing the total of votes by the number of seats, we get the electoral quota: 181064/3 = 60355 By dividing the total of votes of each party by this number: The Popular Republican Party: one seat and the number of the remaining votes is 14576 The Republican Part of Freedom: no seat and the number of the remaining seats is 34797


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The communists: no seat and the number of the remaining seats is 29856

The socialists: no seat and the number of the remaining seats is 27381

The Assembly of the French Left: no seat and the number of the remaining seats is 14099

Thus, each of the Republican Party of Freedom and the communists gets one seat considering that they have the biggest number of the remaining votes, which means that the two consequent results by following every method were different in the case, as when the largest remainder system was in favor of the small parties, the d’hondt system worked for the favor of the big parties which can be regarded sometimes as a good thing because it prevents the divisions among the parties into small disintegrated parties , yet this does not happen in all cases, as in Weimar Republic for example when the d’hondt system was applied, this did not prevent the disintegration of the partisan system as the whole country was dealt with as a one constituency in the second distribution, meaning that all votes which remain at the national level to be translated later to seats, which was wallowing the small parties to gain a reasonable representation in the parliament (Lakeman, 1974). There is an another system, which was designed to increase the proportional nature on a number of the proportional systems and it is called ‘apparentement’ which means allowing more than one party – usually small parties- to link their party lists in a form of alliance, and without having to run for the elections in a full alliance by merging their party lists in one list, but on the contrary, each party has its separate list yet the only difference is in the phase of winning where the votes that did not result in the winning of one of the candidates are massed, which is the matter that can lead to electing a member or more who did not succeed in getting a seat in the first counting. This method is usually applied with d’hondt system, and it is applied in Israel, Netherlands and Switzerland (Farrell, 2002), but one of the negative aspects of this method is that it does not enjoy a large acceptance at the level of electors, as the electors usually refuse to be committed to supporting another party which they are not pleased with its platforms, just because there has been an alliance between the leaders of this party and the leaders of the party they support (Lakeman, 1974). Cons and Pros Most of the criticism directed to d’hondt system focuses on its non-proportional nature, as it is considered the less proportional of the proportional representation systems which made many develop methods to limit the non-proportional nature of this system, so the enlarging of the magnitude of the constituency was suggested, however, the most prevalent suggestion was replacing the divisors of d’hondt method by divisors of odd numbers like 1,3,5,7 and so on, which is called the Sainte-Lague pure method that is close to a big extent to the full proportionality, and also deals equally with both the small and the big parties (Lijphart, 1995).


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However, the applicative nature of this method is very limited, as it is currently not applied in any country of the world, although New Zealand applied it in 1993 referendum, because it is regarded as it is too proportional to the extent that might lead to a severe disintegration of the partisan system, thus, in the practical reality, the first divisor is modified to be 1.4 instead of 1, which lessens the proportional nature of the system and makes it more difficult for the small parties to gain parliamentarian seats, so whenever we try to make a continuous development of the highest average systems based on the proportionality degree that every system is distinguished with, we will put Sainte-Lague amended systems in a middle position of each of d’hondt less proportional systems, the largest remainder system according to the Hare quota and Saintes-Lague very proportional pure system (Farrell, 2002), as in shape no. (10), but it is important to mention that all these systems have degrees of non-proportionality which is the matter that its impacts can be limited by increasing the number of seats competed on or by applying the two-tier system of distributing the seats, which moves us to the other standard of classifying the party lists. Shape no. 10 continuing the proportional degree of the highest average system with the Hare quota added to it Sainate-Lague Largest Remainder System Sainate-Lague amended D’hondt Pure System according to Hare quota System System More proportional Less proportional Classification according to the constituency magnitude

One of the most important differences that distinguished the proportional representation systems from the non-proportional systems in general is the large magnitude of the constituency which is directly proportional to the degree of proportionality that these system enjoy, however, it is possible to use that same standard to distinguish among the party-list systems themselves according to the difference of the magnitude of the constituency in each of these systems as follows: First- Nationwide PR In this kind of the party –list systems, the country is dealt with as a one constituency and this is the perfect position to the achieved degree of proportionality, as the case in Israel and Netherlands. In Israel the 120 representatives, who are the members of the Ceneset, are elected at the level of the whole country, which theoretically means that to elect a representative s/he must get 1/120 of the total number of the national votes (0.83%), while it is almost worse in Netherlands as the number of the members of the Keweede kamer, which is the lower house, is 150 members (which means that the percentage of votes required to elect a member in the parliament is nearly 0.67% of the total number of votes at the national level , which is nearly 60,000 votes only), however, the severity of these proportional representation pure systems is eased by two methods, the first in the Electoral Formula and the second is the legal Electoral Threshold; in Israel for


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example, d’hondt method is followed with regard to the electoral formula, which is the less proportional of the party-list system methods, while with regard to the legal electoral threshold, it is stated by the law that any party must get at least 1.5% of the total number of the valid votes at the national level in order to qualify for getting seats in the parliament (Farrell, 2002). One of the most important disadvantages of this system is the no-relation between the representatives and the electors, as from the scientific point of view, there is no representative in the parliament of a certain constituency, also there is always the danger of electing most of the parliament members from a certain geographic area when the other areas are less represented; one of the methods to prevent the appearance of this phenomenon is what was applied in the Dutch system of putting the party lists at a lower national level (the level of the region for example) (Farrell, 2002). Second: Dividing the country to a number of constituencies Here the country is divided to a number of regions or constituencies, but they are not constituencies in the known meaning in the single systems, as they are bigger in magnitude where the number of seats competed on in these constituencies, for example, ranges between five seats as in Greece and 24 seats as applied in Portugal, but it is wrong to consider the candidates who are elected according to this method are representing certain constituencies as in the single systems, as the electors eventually vote for the favor of a party not a candidate (Farrell, 2002). Third: the two-tier system According to this system, a certain number of the parliament seats is distributed at a higher regional level, or even at the national level; the main idea here is represented in that the votes which were not used to elect the parliament members at the level of the first class of members are pooled and used in distributing the seats allocated for the second class (Farrell, 2002). One of the advantages of this system that it combines between the advantage of the connection between the elector and the representative, which is the matter that is achieved through the small constituencies, and at the same time the benefit from the high degree of proportionality and the representation of the minorities provided by the big constituencies (Lijphart, 1995). While the method by which this system is implemented differs according to the used list system, in the largest remainder systems the remainder transfer is used to apply the two-tier system, while in the case of using sainte-lague amended system the adjustment seats system is used which includes a certain number of seats that are excluded when distributing the seats of the fist class, to be distributed in the second distribution at the aim of making up any big differences the parties might suffer from between the number of the votes and the number of seats they got in the different constituencies. The percentage of


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these reserved seats differs from one country to another; In Denmark and Iceland this percentage is 20%, in Sweden it is 11% and in Norway it is 5%. With regard to the method of transferring the remaining votes, this percentage is not determined earlier, which is the system applied in Austria, Belgium, Greece and Italy previously before amending their election system in the middle of the 90s of the last century, but sometimes a threshold of the percentage of the votes that any party must get to get seats when distributing the seats of the second class, is put; in this case the threshold usually works to transfer the votes of the big parties and that the small parties do not benefit from this advantage. The threshold differs from one country to another (Farrell, 2002).

a- Classification according to the ballot structure By using the standard of the ballot structure, it is possible to distinguish between two different kinds of the proportional representation systems according to the range of freedom given to the elector when voting as follows: First: the closed list: In this system it is only allowed to vote for just one list with all its candidates, also the electors cannot put choices or preferences, or choose candidates from several lists. This kind of lists is applied in the regimes that recently witnessed processes of democratic transition like Argentina, Columbia, Costa Rica, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and Uruguay (Farrell, 2002), and it also thoroughly applied in Israel in electing the members of the Ceneset. The partisan leaderships mostly prefer this kind of the party-list systems as it allows an opportunity of controlling the arrangement of the candidates’ names, which allows them to put whom they prefer in advanced positions on the list so that their chances of winning become bigger. Also, one of the advantages of this system that the party can increase the representation of women or certain ethnic minorities in the parliament by putting them in advanced positions on its list, but from the other side, its important disadvantage is that the ordinary elector who is not a member in the central committees of the parties which determine the form of the party list, does not have a say in determining who will be nominated (Farrell, 2002). Second: the open list According to this kind of lists, the political party submits its electoral list and the elector has to vote for these lists. The electors are allowed to show their preferences on the electoral lists and also can distribute their votes as they wish, so they give their votes to one candidate on one of the party-lists, several candidates on one list or several candidates on different lists, they also can add names from their own if they wish to. Switzerland and Luxembourg are among the famous countries that apply different models of the open list systems (Tayyem, 1975).


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In the case of Luxembourg, the elector has a number of votes equals the numbers of the seats on which it is voted to fill, and in this case, the electors have three options: 1- to choose the list of a certain party, by this the elector is as who gave a vote to every candidate of this party candidates, as long as his/her name is on the list, 2- to choose to focus their votes for a certain candidate by giving two preferences to the same candidates, as explained in annex no. (3), where there are two checkboxes beside every candidate and this is called ‘vote-accumulation’, and finally 0- to give their preferences to candidates whom their names are distributed on more than one party list and this is called ‘panachange’ (Farrell, 2002). While when calculating the votes, they are calculated for all the candidates on every list and every quota of seats in all the constituencies is filled by the candidates of the party according to the number of votes gained by each candidates, so the electors here had also decided on distributing the seats that the party gained on the candidates they want and not on the candidates the party wants (Tayyem, 1975). To show the method of the votes counting within this system, let’s suppose that an electoral list of a party contains three candidates; according to the following arrangement in the constituency the electoral quota is 3750 votes and the voting results for this list were as follows: The votes that the list got 4000 The preferable votes for candidate (a) 500 The preferable votes for candidate (b) 500 The preferable votes for candidate (c) 3000 Total of votes 8000 First, the number of seats that the party is supposed to get regardless who will fill these seats is calculated, and in this case it is two seats, as it got the double of the electoral quota, in addition to 500 extra votes. So candidate (a) gets the first of these seats, because s/he holds the first rank on the party list, thus, s/he has the first preference, and to get the required electoral quota (3750) 3250 votes of the 4000 votes that the party list got without preferences are added to the 500 votes, which s/she personally got. Afterwards, 750 votes remain for the list, from originally 4000 votes, are granted to candidate (b) because s/he holds the second rank on the party list and by adding the 500 votes which s/he personally got so the total of what s/he gained is 1250 votes, but candidate (c) personally got 3000 votes so if the 750 votes remaining from candidate (a) is added to him/her instead of candidate (b) then s/he gets the 3750 required for gaining a seat instead of the candidate (c) although s/he the third on the list, but the electors’ preference of him/her made him/her ahead of the second candidate on the list (b), and by this the electors have a say in the arrangement of the names on the list.

Finally, the different kinds of the list systems can be summarized according to the different standards of classification as in shape no. (11).


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Shape no. 11: the different kinds of the proportional representation systems

1- Mixed systems or Two-vote systems

List systems (classified according to the electoral

formulas)

Highest average systems Largest remainder

systems

List systems (classified

according to the magnitude of the

constituency)

Two-tier system

A number of constituencies

Nationwide PR

List systems (classified

according to the ballot structure)

Open list Closed list


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The main goal behind this system is to avoid the disadvantages of all the majority systems (on the top of them, its lack of a reasonable amount of proportionality between the percentages of votes and the percentages of seats), and the proportional representation systems (such as its lack of the constituencies representation) with benefiting as much as possible from the advantages of each of them. This system is considered one of the most electoral systems that witnessed a controversy about the proper naming of it, as it was called things such as the Compensatory PR system, the Mixed system, the Personalized PR system, the Two-Vote system or the German system which was the most suitable name in a certain period of time when applying this system was exclusive to Germany only, but it is not descriptive anymore after applying different forms of this system recently in countries such as Italy, Japan, New Zealand and Russia (Farrell, 2002). Recently the ‘two-vote system’ name became common as the common factor among all these systems and names is that each elector has two votes, one for the individual candidate of the constituency and the other for the party list, as the elements of this system include:

- Every elector is a member in two constituencies at the same time, and they are different in area, one is a single constituency of which an individual candidate is elected (partisan or non-partisan) and the other is a geographically wider proportional representation constituency in which party lists are competing not individual candidates.

- Based on this, each elector has two votes (a vote in every constituency), and there are two different methods of transforming votes into seats one is according to the majority systems and the other is according the proportional representation system.

- As if there are two electoral systems work at the same time to elect one parliament.

While the main differences between these systems lie in: first, the proportion of the number of seats voted for according to the proportional representation system to the number of seats voted for according the single system, second, the relation between the PR seats and the single seats (Farrell, 2002). According to the first standard, the countries are divided among themselves between those which divide the percentage equally between the two methods, which means that 50% of the parliament seats are allocated for the single constituencies and the other 50% are for the constituencies of the party lists, yet there are another examples of systems that increase a quota on the account of the other (40% single opposite to 60% lists for example). While with regard to the standard of the relation between the votes of the proportional representation and the votes of the individual seats, there are two methods result in the existence of two sub-kinds of the mixed or the two-vote system which are the related two-vote systems and the parallel two-vote systems. While in the first there is a


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strong relation between the individual votes and the lists votes when calculating the number of the votes that each party gets, there is absolutely no relation in the second kind. Starting with the related two-vote system, the most famous model, and the first applied by the German electoral system where the process of transforming the votes to seats is done in more than two phases: The first phase: in which calculating the seats that every party got is done by the individual votes separately and the votes of the list separately. The second phase: in which the seats resulted from the existing votes are used in determining the total number of seats that party gets in the parliament, while the seats resulted from the individual votes are used in determining the names of the representatives who fill these seats. The way this is done is by subtracting the gained individual seats from the gained list seats and consequently facing three probable results of the subtraction process, each produces different results as shown in table no. (12). Table no. 12 The probable results of the subtraction process of the individual seats from the list seats within the related two-vote system

First Probability Second Probability Third Probability

The result of the subtraction process equals zero (The number of the gained list seats = the number of the individual seats)

The result of the subtraction process is positive (The number of the gained list seats > the number of the individual seats)

The result of the subtraction process is negative (The number of the gained list seats < the number of the individual seats)

All the seats are filled by the winner individual candidates

The seats still must be filled for the party, by the top names on the party list

The party keeps the gained individual seats which their number is more than the number of the seats gained by the list votes


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Example: * party (a) got 5 seats according to the counting of the lists votes * Party (a) got also 5 individual seats in the existing single constituencies that form the constituency of the list. * The 5 seats of the party in this state are filled by the 5 winner individual candidates. * The names on the party list (a) are disregarded

Example: * party (a) got 7 seats according to the counting of the lists votes * Party (a) got also 5 individual seats in the existing single constituencies that form the constituency of the list. * The 5 seats of the party in this state are filled by the 5 winner individual candidates. * The remaining two seats are filled by the top two names of the party list (a)

Example: * party (a) got 3 seats according to the counting of the lists votes * Party (a) got also 5 individual seats in the existing single constituencies that form the constituency of the list. * The 5 seats of the party in this state are filled by the 5 winner individual candidates and the candidates on the party list are disregarded. * These two seats are called the “verhang seats” * The number of the parliament seats in this year is increased by two seats

The main advantage of this system lies in that using the list votes to calculate the total number of the parliamentarian seats that any party gets add a big proportionality to the final results , so that it makes the proportion of the votes of every party to the proportion of the seat it gets closer. In the case (c) as shown in the previous table, the verhang seats phenomenon is produced when one of the parties managed to garner a number of the individual seats in one of the states that exceeds the proportion of the votes that its party list got in this states. In this case, the party is allowed to keep these seats and the number of the parliament seats is increased until the date of holding the next elections, as a direct individual delegation from the electors to an individual candidate cannot be cancelled by arguing that this party did not get enough votes. It is noticed that the frequency rate of this phenomenon increased a lot recently in Germany, which is the most famous example of this system as shown in table no. (13), yet the real impact of this phenomenon came in 1994 elections where there were 16 extra seats in total, four of them were for the Socialist Democratic Party, 12 were for the Christian Democratic Union, which led back then to transferring the very little majority to the Coalition of the Christian Democratic Union CDU-CSU and the Free Democratic Party, which was consisting of two seats, to a reasonable majority of 10 seats; the thing that its impact extended to reach the form of the government itself, as the only two-vote majority would have almost made Helmut Kohl the leader of the Christian Democratic Union, back then, search for an expanded alliance from the Socialist Democratic Party instead of the risk of continuing with the alliance with the Free Democratic Party within a fragile majority, but the increase of the majority size from two to 10 seats made him abstain from this idea. From here it became clear how important is this phenomenon in the German political system (Farrell, 2002). Table no. 13: The number of the verhang seats resulted from the German elections


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Elections No. of the extra seats

Beneficiary Party Impact

8738 5 The Christian Democratic Union

From 656 to 661

8770 3 The Christian Democratic Union

From 656 to 662

877. 83 . for the Socialist Democratic Party and 12 for The Christian Democratic Union

From 656 to 672

8771 80 The Socialist Democratic Party

From 656 to 669

With regard to the parallel two-vote systems, the main difference between them and the related systems that there is a relation that links between the votes/seats of the lists and the votes/seats of the majority constituencies, which means that the two systems work in parallel as a whole as there is no link between them, even in the voting card, which is two cards in reality, none of them annul the other if the first is invalid in any form. In these systems, the votes counting and calculation are done for each system separately; the individual seats are added for each party to the list seats and the result is the total number of the seats that will be filled by the party in the formed parliament. Thus, this system produces less proportional results than the related two-vote system as the votes of the lists, which are more proportional by definition, are not used to calculate the total number of seats that every party gets and consequently, there is no percentage nor proportion achieved between the votes and the seats in the counting process in an important part of the seats, the individual seats, which emerges a degree of non-proportionality that increases when the number of the seats competed on increases according to the majority formula. Other standards of classification: In addition to the proportionality issue, there is a number of other standards that other specialists used to distinguish between the different kinds of the electoral systems, on the top of them, is what Arend Lijphart used in his famous study about the impact of the electoral systems on the degree of proportionality and the partisan systems, as in addition to the previously mentioned standards such as the nature of the electoral formula, the constituency magnitude and the ballot structure, he suggested the following (Lijphart, 1995):

1- The electoral threshold: or the minimum support that any party must get to be represented in the parliament which its digital value differs from one system to another, also it might be different in its application at the national level, the level of the constituency or the regional level. Furthermore, it might take some forms such as a certain number of seats, a certain percentage of votes or a third form like the condition of a party to win at least one seat in


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the lower class, to be qualified to get the seats of the higher level in the systems that apply the two-tier system. It might be noticed that several electoral systems do not use such threshold or most of them do not employ this mechanism, but this does not practically mean that such threshold does not exist, as it might not exist in text but it exists in practice (Taagepera and Shugart, 1989) due to the factors of the constituency magnitude and the nature of the electoral formula. The small magnitude of the constituency has the same high threshold as both of them limit the proportionality and lessen the chances provided for the small parties and that is why the magnitude of the constituency and the threshold can considered two sides of the same one coin, which made Lijphart deal with them as a one variable which he called the “effective threshold” and it takes the form of a certain percentage of votes at the national level (Liiphart, 1995).

2- The parliament size: which is the total number of the seats of the parliament and it is a standard that did not use to get much care in the past because many used to consider it an external standard of the elector system, however, by employing the most famous definition of the electoral systems as “methods by which transforming votes into seats is done”, the number of seats that the votes were transformed into becomes an essential part of any electoral system, and it is not difficult to prove that the size of the parliament has an impact on the achieved degree of proportionality and also on the degree of the multi party. For example, if the distribution of the electoral votes on four parties in elections that is held according a proportional representation system is as follows: 13%, 17%, 29%, 41%, therefore there is no any method of distributing the seats in a way that ensures a reasonable degree of proportionality that increases if the number of the parliament seats is 10, and it reaches its highest degree if the number of the parliament seats is 100 (Lijphart, 1995).

3- There is also the standard of whether the electoral system allows the phenomenon of the malapportionment or not; what is meant by this phenomenon is that the constituencies in the single systems might contain an equal number of electors, consequently, every vote does not have the same size at the level of the country (Gallagher, 1991) which might work for the favor of one of the parties on the account of the other and thus, lessens the degree of proportionality.

There are several experiments and experiences in the field of the electoral systems, and the citizens of every country made an effort in developing an electoral system to be applied in their countries in the light of the universal experiences. From the previous review, there are some lessons that must be learnt in developing and designing the most perfect electoral system such as: First: the main condition of any successful and effective electoral system is to have the electoral legitimacy to the sum of electors and especially the parties that are the basis of the electoral competition; the concept of the electoral legitimacy refers specifically to:


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a- The system should be characterized with credibility in its procedures and results b- This credibility should lead to a state of general satisfaction in the society of the process and

the results c- The electoral legitimacy should be the basis of the different parties’ acceptance of the

elections results

This legitimacy is achieved through the electoral system’s consideration of 80 standards:

1- Simplicity and reality: which means to be sure that the electoral system is available for the public electors and that it does not contain any complicated or non-understandable procedures for a big sector of them.

2- Expanding the circle of choices for the electors: which means that the electoral system enhances the number and range of the choices available for them.

3- Encouraging the electoral participation: which means that the electoral system encourages the participation of a bigger number of electors in the elections.

4- Activating the parties: which means that the electoral systems provide a chance for the political parties to reach the voters, interact with them and mobilize them, and enable them of introducing alternative platforms and policies.

5- Justice of representation: which means that the elections results reflect the conditions of the country population and their social and political diversities, and represent a bigger number of parties especially the small parties representation.

6- The electoral justice: which means that it necessary for the electoral system to lead to the distribution of the parliament seats in a form that reflects the will of the electors in the voting, and that when the gap between the percentage number of votes won by a party and the number of seats got by it in the parliament increases, this becomes a waste of the electoral justice principle.

7- Establishing a stable and effective government: which means that the electoral system must contribute to the establishing of a strong government that can achieve the goals it promised the citizens with, and was elected on their basis, meaning that the electoral system achieves the governmental stability and leads to the formation of strong governments.

8- Establishing a strong parliament: which means that the electoral system leads to the existence of a parliament that comprise the majority and the opposition, and to be capable of performing the parliamentarian functions efficiently which includes the legislation, laws enacting and observing the government’s performance.

9- The right of the electors towards their representatives: which means that the electoral system must provide the chance for the electors to question their representatives in the light of their performance in the parliament and how far they express the interests of the constituency, and it also means that the electors have the capability of punishing them which leads to developing the senses of responsibility of the representatives.

10- Reality and appropriateness: which mean the electoral system’s consideration of the administrative and financial capabilities of the country, and its geographical circumstances without harming the validity of the electoral process.


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This list of goals and considerations which was extracted from the positive features of the different electoral system might contradict each other, and achieving some of them might be on the account of the others, as these goals and considerations cannot be achieved collectively at the same time and to the same degree. Thus, the political groups in every country have to agree with each other on the priorities of each historical phase, and choose the electoral system that is most capable of achieving these priorities. Thus, the first step of designing the electoral system is to put a list of goals and priorities and arrange them; is the priority for supporting the small and emerging parties, providing a bigger chance for the independents, or maybe ensuring the existence of a certain proportion for women in the parliament, or making sure of representing geographical areas or ethnic, religious and linguistic group that represent a sector of the citizens or other goals. After agreeing on the main priorities of the political system, the most perfect or the best electoral system that achieves these priorities and goals can be determined, but it is necessary to be aware that any electoral system is not a final process but it is a revisable matter that can be developed in the light of the practice and applying like what happened in New Zealand when it changed its electoral system in 1997 to increase the representation of some areas and ethnic groups, as only applying the system is what reveals the deficiencies of its design and leads to reconsidering it. Second: there is no perfect ultimate electoral system and this is because of the circumstances of the societies and the degree of its different and diverse political systems development, and the most we can look forward to is the most perfect and the best electoral system by regarding the difference in the nature and components of the societies and the difference of the democracy state in them and whether they are long-standing, new or transitional and so forth, and hence, the challenge before us is choosing the most perfect electoral system in the light of the common circumstances and situations in our country, which should be the starting point of designing the electoral systems. Third: The Political Impacts of the Different Electoral Systems: Generally, the scientific researches in the field of the political system have reached through the years that there are certain political indicators variably impacted by the different electoral systems; the number of parties in the political system comes at the top of these indicators, meaning the disintegration or the confederation of the partisan system, then the percentages of the participation in the general elections and the percentages of the women and minorities’ representation in the national parliaments. First: the impacts on the partisan life: Although there are many trends that believe that the relation between the electoral and the partisan systems is mostly rotational, which means that both of them affect each other, the majority of the opinions does not deny that the electoral system followed in the country is considered one of the important factors of forming or maintaining the structure of the partisan system especially what relates to the number of these parties. The need for


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this relation is as follows: when the plurality systems are more capable of “producing” the two-party system, the proportional representation systems become closer to produce systems where which the number of parties is more than two. The plurality system usually manages to support the existence of the two-party system because of two main factors, the first is a “mechanical factor” that lies in that such systems require that the party competing in the elections gets a majority/plurality of votes to win a seat in the concerned constituency, and because this proportion mostly cannot be achieved by the small or the new parties, which rarely are big, such parties become not able to penetrate the partisan system as long as they are weaker than the existing parties and consequently this system practically prevents the appearance of several parties inside the partisan system. The other factor is a psychological one, and relates to the rational thinking of the supporters of the party that its chances to get a seat in the single constituency is little because it is not one of the two big parties, or one of the big parties, in it. In this case, that supporters of this party know that the chances of their party to win a seat are limited, thus, the votes that will go to support it will be wasted and not translated to seats, consequently, the way to make their votes of an importance is to vote for one of the parties that has a real chance of garnering the seat. The two factors that lead to the appearance of the two big parties disappear within the proportional representation systems because what happens usually is the disappearance of the vast differences between the percentage of votes that the party gets and the percentage of the seats that it already fills in the parliament, and the third, or the fourth, party which was the most disadvantaged from the electoral system becomes beneficiary of the system in the case of the majority elections systems due to the electors’ sureness that every vote has its value when the number of votes is transformed to parliamentarian seats. That results in that the proportional representation systems follow two consecutive results; the direct result is putting a limit to the direction towards the two-party systems as there nothing that pushes the parties of different orientations towards merging and uniting their powers, on the basis that their division does not cause them much harm. Here comes the second result which is the increase of the probability of the occurrence of cleavages among the parties, as from the electoral side, the total of what the two parties, originally one party, will get is not much less than what they used to get in the period of their unity. However, the matter might be different only from the psychological side of the electors and this is because of the confusion that this division might cause to the minds of the electors (Duverger, 1954). Table no. (14) shows that the number of political parties represented in the lower houses of the national parliaments of 170 countries was 5.22 in the countries applying the majority election systems, 8.85 in the countries applying the mixed systems and 9.22 in the countries applying the proportional representation systems, which means that the


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proportional representation systems have double the number of the parties in the majority elections systems. Table no. 14

The Electoral System The average number of the parties represented in the parliament )The ones getting at least one seat(

The number of countries

Majority election systems 5.00 10

Alternative vote system 7.0 8

Cumulative voting system 5.3 80

Two-round system 3.0 00

Plurality system ..91 .7

Mixed systems 1.15 03

Balanced Mixed systems 1.17 87

Related mixed systems 1.98 9

Proportional representation system

7.50 38

Single transferable vote system

5.0 0

Party lists 7.31 57

Total 9.05 890

Source: (Norris, 2004) Second: The impacts on the participation rates: The proportional representation systems are usually classified as the most capable electoral systems of increasing the rates of participation (Powell, 1986, 1987, Blais and Carty, 1990, Blais and Arts 2006) even with determining the levels of the human development that differ from one country to another and might have a positive impact on the rates of participation (Powell,1982: Fornos, 2004), this is by considering that the country which its citizens are more educated and have more income, normally, shows a higher rates of participation. Table no. (15) shows clearly the impact of the electoral systems on the rates of the participation in voting worldwide in the 90s of the last century, measured first as a percentage of the population in the age of electing and second as a percentage of the number of registered electors. Table no. 15

The Electoral System Average rate of participation as a percentage of the electors in the voting age

Average rate of participation as percentage of the registered electors

No. of countries

Majority election system 30.. 31.0 99

Alternative vote system 35.5 70.7 0


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Two-round system 51.5 35.0 08

Plurality system 38.0 39.9 .0

Single non-transferable vote system

50.3 57.1 0

Cumulative voting system 53.5 90.7 7

Mixed systems 3..0 90.. 03

Related mixed systems 33.3 98.7 9

Balanced mixed systems 30.5 37.0 87

Proportional representation systems

90.0 9..3 38

Party lists 90.0 9... 57

Single non-transferable vote system

10.. 18.9 0

Total 35.0 90.1 830

Source: (Norris, 2004) The reason is that, under the majority systems, the supporters of the small parties or the parties on the tips of the partisan system, which their supporting voting bloc is distributed on miscellaneous areas in the country, might see that it is useless to participate by voting in the constituencies that do not have one of the two main betting horses considering that their participation will not make a big difference in who will garner the constituency seat, who have the right to vote in what is known as the safe constituencies in the majority elections systems, as it is very unlikely for the candidate who has the seat to lose in these constituencies. At the opposite, the mater looks different under the proportional representation systems in which the electoral barrier is relatively insignificant and the number of seats elected from the single constituencies is bigger than that under the single system, which largely decreases the number of the lost votes and makes a value for each vote when calculating the seats, and consequently the chances of the small parties, which their voting bloc is geographically scattered, to get a representation in the parliament with less proportions of votes increase which boosts the participation motive of their supporters. Third: The impact on the level of the minorities representation: There is a traditional trend in the literatures of the electoral systems that sees that the proportional representation systems have a preference than the majority election systems with regard to their impact on the minorities, whether religious, ethnic or linguistic, and this by allowing the proportional representation systems to form parliaments that are more population-representing than in the case of the majority election systems, so the


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minorities there are more parliamentary represented if they decide to form a political party (or political parties). By testing the first hypothesis, it is true that the proportional representation systems are generally considered more proportional than the majority election systems, and it is also true that they provide a bigger chance for the small parties to represent in the parliament, yet the scientific proof that they provide a bigger chance for representing the minorities is not clearly scientifically proved. According to one of the studies on the new democracies in Africa, which it is usually the continent that represents a good model of studying the ethnic and racial differences as they exist a lot in several countries of this continent (Sisk and Reynolds 1998), the proportional representation systems succeeded in easing the severity of the ethnic conflicts in the multi-racial African countries by merging the representatives of these minorities in the electing parliaments and encouraging the general parties in these systems to submit racially balanced party lists for the electors, yet the same study found out that the success of the proportional representation systems in achieving these goals depends on the degree of how the politicizing of the racial differences is done (or was done) in the concerned countries, the deepness and severity of these difference, the degree of the democratic transition that the county passes through, and the range of the geographic concentration or dissemination of the different ethnicities within the country. There is also another study that also succeeded in reaching the same results (Saideman, 1990). At the opposite, there is another point of view (Tesbelis, 1990) that sees that in spite of the proportional representation systems capability of creating a consensus among the different ethnicities on the new constitution adopted after the phase of the democratic transition, such systems afterwards foster the ethnic and religious divisions, not the opposite, and this is because they make the parties base their rules or policies with which they address the electors on certain ethnic or religious groups, in comparison with the majority election systems that support the establishment of parties which their speech is addressed to everybody and seek to combine all the segments of electors in the segment of their voters (catch-all parties) (Taagepera, 1995). In view of these different opinions, and the studies of the contradictory results, it can be said that till now there is no definitely right opinion about the role of the different political systems wether in easing or fostering the severity of the ethnic and religious differences among the electors in the new democracies. In addition, the increase of the minorities representation by the quota system can be applied in the three main families of the electoral systems, thus, the kind of the electoral system itself is not necessarily of a strong impact; as it is possible to design certain constituencies to be closed to certain societal faction (minorities-women) in the majority systems, and in the proportional representation system, the law can state that the one of the first rank is on also closed lists of certain societal faction (minorities-women) and consequently guarantee the representation of these factions with the winning of any list of any seats.


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Fourth: The Electoral System applied in Egypt from 1866 Elections till now and their Evaluation: Egypt has known the elections since 1866 and since then, electing in them kept most of the time to be according the majority system. In the first decades, the election was not direct but on two degrees, in the first degree the electors choose their representatives, and in the second degree the representatives choose the parliament members, and it kept this way until 1924, when the direct election on one degree was ratified, however in 1925 the king led a coup d’état against the Wafd Ministry and as a result, the country went back again to the indirect election. Egypt kept oscillating between the two systems, the direct and the indirect, until the matter ended with ratifying the direct election since 1938 and with no return (Salah Salem Zarnooka, 2003). The majority system was adopted since the first elections witnessed by Egypt in the second half of the 19th century, and the adoption of the same system was stressed on in Law no. 30 of 1913 (article 19), Law no. 11 of 1923 (articles 30 and 56), law no. 148 of 1935 (article 05), the law of practicing the political rights no. 90 of 8753 and the law of People’s Assembly no. 38 of 1972 (Ali ElSawy and Yasser Fathi, 2003). As mentioned before, all those systems were working for the favor of the big parties and were preventing the appearance of large pluralism in the partisan system because they work by a large degree of non-proportionality. This did not change except in 1983 when law no. 114 of 1983 was issued to amend the law of election to follow the system of list-election, which included only the party list back then, without allowing any candidates from outside the parties to go through the election battle, as the amendment of article 17 of the law (Ali ElSawy and Yasser Fathi, 0000) stated that the members of the People’s Assembly are elected according to the party list system so that every list is given a number of the constituency seats with the percentage number of the valid votes it got, and the remaining seats are given to the list that got the most votes, not the most remaining votes, thus, the mechanism of the system was working for the favor of the big party/s or the National Party back then and not in the favor of producing a bigger pluralism as it was usual for the proportional representation systems. In addition, the degree of the system’s non-proportionality increased due to following relatively high thresholds, as according to 1983 law it was required that the party gets 8% of the votes at the level of the whole country which resulted in the non-representation of the Labor and the Unionist parties, for example, which got 7.7% and 4.2% of the votes respectively (Abdel Salam Noweir, 2003) then this percentage decreased to 6% in the next amendment. In both cases, those two percentages are high with regard to the universal average, according to which the German system’s 5% threshold is somehow high. However, the Supreme Constitutional Court in its famous rule decreed that this amendment is unconstitutional because of what result from it such as depriving the independents from their constitutional right of candidature. Then this all happened again according to law no. 188 of 1986 which allowed an independent seat in every constituency in addition to the parties lists, but the Supreme Constitutional Court decreed also that the


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new amendment is null because its violation of the equality principle and the equal opportunities among the candidates, opposite to what the constitution states. Based on these two rules, the 871. and 8719 People’s Assembly elections were invalidated and the People’s Assembly was resolved in each case. Fifth: What is the perfect form of the electoral system for Egypt? Based on the previous review, whether of the kinds of the electoral systems in general or the different political outcomes resulting from working with each system, an important question might be raised regarding which kind could be the most perfect for Egypt currently, especially when the country is a starting a new period after January 2011 Revolution. Finding specific answers for questions related to what is the best electoral or political system for a country is not among the main tasks of the political research, because in brief there is no right or wrong answers to such questions, but what can be done is listing some remarks pertaining the process of choosing/establishing a new electoral system; these remarks can be summarized in the following points: First, generally there is no totally negative or totally positive electoral system as each system has its advantages and disadvantages, but there are electoral systems that achieve different political results, as mentioned above, consequently, the matter depends on the goals to be achieved in the time period that the country is passing through. Sometimes there is an agreement on that achieving a wide representation to the biggest number of the political powers is the priority that must be raised especially if the country has just been out from an authoritative period, where not all the society segments were sufficiently represented; in this case the formulas of the proportional representation become the most suitable formulas because of what they create of a wider representation and more chances for the small parties to enter the parliament even with little proportions. In other times, the priority becomes not for the value of the wide representation of the political powers but for secreting strong governments that have a reasonable authorization that enables them to lead the countries and face their problems, especially if solving these problems requires taking procedures of must-pay economic and social costs, or the fruits of certain reforms are not borne except after a period of time. In this case, it becomes preferable to form governments with as much less as possible of parties and to be even one-party governments and with a comfortable majority, and this is a result which was proven, with the scientific experiment, to be achieved easier under the majority election systems. When studying the average percentage of seats that the first-rank party gets in the parliament in 170 countries (table no. 16), it was found out that the majority systems, in average, are the most capable of granting a parliamentarian majority for one party (with average 56.8% of the parliament seats), which is a majority that mostly allows this party to form a government on its own without having to search for another party to partner with it in a coalition government. At the opposite, the matter does not seem so in the countries that apply different models of the proportional representation, as in average the party of


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the first rank in voting does not get the parliamentarian majority but the size of the majority it garners fluctuates round the 43.8%. Regarding the mixed systems, it becomes clear that there is an apparent difference between the related mixed systems and the parallel mixed ones, as the latter (like the Egyptian system) are more capable of secreting parliamentarian majorities for one party, which is expected because of the majoritarian component of these systems that favors for the big parties, opposite to the related mixed systems that work, as a whole, in a way that is similar to the work mechanism of the proportional representation system as they use the list votes in determining the number of seats that every party gets. Table no. 16

The Electoral System

Average Percentage of Votes got by the First-Rank Party

Average Percentage of Seats got by the First-Rank Party

No. of Countries

Majority election systems 5... 53.1 10

Alternative vote systems .0.0 .5.0 8

50.7 53.0 80

Two-round system 5..1 59.1 00

Plurality system 55.8 59.1 .7

Mixed Systems .3.1 .7.5 03

Parallel mixed systems 58.9 50.7 87

Related mixed systems 00.7 03.7 9

Proportional Representation System

.5.0 .0.1 38

Transferrable single vote system

.5.0 58.8 0

Party lists ...5 .0.3 57

Total .1.9 50.0 890

Source: (Norris, 2004) Second, the electoral systems must not be regarded separately from the other political establishments working in the country; the electoral systems do not work in vacuity but they affect and get affected by the other rules governing the political and the electoral game. At the top of those other establishments, there is the kind of the political system especially with regard of being a presidential, parliamentarian or semi-presidential system. For example, the studies direct towards that the presidential system itself might not have negative impacts but its conjugation with the proportional representation systems,


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which usually means a bigger number of parties and a bigger disintegration of the partisan system in comparison with the majority systems, is what creates these negative impacts severely, as when the number of parties increases under a presidential system the frequency rate of the president’s lack of the parliamentarian majority rises, and consequently the frequency rate of the conflict cases between the executive and the legislative authorities increases (deadlock cases), shape no. (17), and those are the cases that have real political consequences on the democracy as a whole and were actually one of the reasons of the quick deterioration of the democracy in some countries of Latin America, when the president’s party was lacking the parliamentarian majority, which usually leads to a conflict between the two authorities about passing every legislation introduced to the parliament; in many of these cases, the president might have to move against the parliament whether by resorting to issuing legislations through public referendums, and here the political life enters a phase of conflict and a gathering round the elected parliament occurs, or by resorting to the military to end the democracy in practice by resolving the parliament and resorting to the individual ruling, and sometimes the military moves on its own due to the paralysis that hits the political life because of the conflict between the two wings of the ruling. See shape no. (17): the increase of the rate of the deadlock cases and the cases of the president’s lack of the parliamentarian majority when the number of the political parties under the presidential systems increases. Shape (17-a) Cases of deadlock

Shape (17-b) the president’s lack of the parliamentarian majority

Third: The new democracies indicate that there are chance to make difference in the nature of the electoral system with the development of democracy, which means that the decision is not taken one time and for good in the first elections after the transition or

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emerging it, as those countries usually resort to make changes in their electoral systems in the first years after the transition until they settle on a certain system, based on a learning curve they walk in, and mostly the first choices followed by them are not the ones they settle on at the end. However, it is important to mention that based on the experience of the new democracies in Eastern Europe, these changes mostly do not reach the general form of the electoral system, meaning to move from a majority to a proportional representation system, but they reach its components especially the threshold, and this is in direction of increasing it to lessen the disintegration resulted from following a small threshold in the first elections after the start of the transition, the Polish case may be the most famous in this context. Fourth, the main kinds or the electoral systems are not legislations that have the characteristic of compulsion or inclusion, which means whether to follow a certain kind with all its details or follow another one; although there are three main kinds, there is no electoral system of a country that totally resembles that of another country, and Lijphart had expressed that when he mentioned that the number of the electoral systems is infinite because it is related to the normal figures which are also infinite according to the definition. The world’s countries are full of very famous examples of electoral systems that try hard to keep away from the standard at the aim of adapting with their special circumstances; of which for example, the electoral system followed in Greece as although it is a proportional representation system and work as any proportional representation system in the phases of candidature, voting, and votes counting and transformation to seats, it tries to solve one of the main problems of the proportional representation systems which is the incapability of producing a parliamentarian majority for one party, by stating the law of that the party that gets a percentage of seats more than 41.5% and less than 50%, is granted extra seats automatically to increase its quota of seats until it reaches 50%+1 of the seats (this number in the Greek parliament is 151 of a total of 300 seats), which means that although the system is a proportional representation one in all its details, it imposes in its last phase, the feature of producing fabricated majorities which the majority systems are described by. Fifth, although the kind of the electoral systems and some of the political establishments in general, have proved political impacts, it is necessary not to exaggerate in interpreting these impacts to the extent that makes us expect the inevitability of their occurrence, or that the electoral systems are capable of producing them from nothing or emerging them even if the other factors do not help with that. The fixed truth is that the electoral systems are a variable among several variables that affect the political phenomena and in spite of their importance in many cases, they are not more than one of the variables in an environment that does not know the concept of the mono-causality but it knows the concept of the multi-causality. Sixth and last, it is important to make a methodological remark; the question concerning the best electoral system for a country might be a reasonable question in its appearance, yet it is supposed, according to the series of thoughts, to be preceded by an


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initial question which is “is it possible to totally voluntary choose (according to the rulers’ will at the moment of choosing) an electoral system in a country, or the electoral systems and the political establishments of a country in general are the output of the interaction of several factors, in a way that cannot be considered a result of a political decision in a certain moment, a decision that balances between the advantages and the disadvantages, and the system chosen is the one that achieves the goals put by the ruling elite?”. In general, there are so many factors that prevent the existence of an ultimate political freedom, even in the new democracies that seems to have, in some moments after the transition, a wide range to choose the political establishments they see; the most important factors are the following:

a- The decision takers’ insufficient awareness of the consequent political impacts of the different kinds of the electoral systems, in addition to the large amount of the details of the game rules that are supposed to specify a matter that makes the choice difficult (the system kind, the formula, the constituency magnitude, the threshold, the constituencies borders).

b- The choosing of the electoral systems directly in the post-transition periods is mostly a result of negotiations, and the negotiations in their nature are characterized by the existence of bargains and their results are uncontrollable, as those results are mostly a reflection of the balances of the common powers during the framing period. In this context, it might be difficult to expect a rational discussion about the advantages and the disadvantages of every system, but the process of choosing the new electoral system gets politicized.

c- In many times, there are historic and societal factors that limit the available choices and prevent the mediation of an objective discussion about the advantages and the disadvantages of each system, and the choosing according to this evaluation. The Egyptian case after taking the decision regarding the electoral system followed in 2011 Egyptian People’s Assembly elections confirms so, as it was a process the first step of which was to exclude the majority election system from the discussed options since the beginning without a rational discussion about the disadvantages of the system, which has its advantages as mentioned above, but for only being the followed system in the pre-revolution period, thus, it was borne all the blame of all the appearing negativities that accompany the electoral process during that period. Gradually, the proportional representation systems were also excluded not as a result of a rational evaluations of their negative and positive points, but on the basis of the opinion of the constitutional experts who saw that such systems violate the principle of equality of the candidature right between the independents and the parties members, thus, the matter was exclusive in the family of the mixed systems, which actually happened to make the decision making process regarding any electoral system followed in Egypt, in the first elections after the January 25 Revolution, closer to a process of choosing the exclusion for historic or constitutional reasons and not a process of choosing the best among the alternatives through an objective evaluation of the negative and positive points.


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FURTHER READINGS: Blais, A. and K. Aarts (2006) 'Electoral System, and Turnout

5, Ada Politico, 41, pp. 180-96.

Blais, A,, and K. Carty (1990) 'Does proportional representation foster voter turnout5, European Journal of

Political Research, 18, pp. 167-81. Duverger, Maurice (1954) Political Parties. New York: Wiley. Farreli, David (2001) Electoral Systems: A Comparative Introduction, New York:Palgrave Macmillan. Fornos, C. et al. (2004) 'Explaining voter turnout in Latin America, 1980 to 2000',Comparative Political Studies, 37:8, pp. 909-40. Franklin M. (1996) 'Electoral Participation'', in, L. LeDuc et al., Comparingdemocracies: elections and voting in comparative perspective, California: Sage Publications. Gallagher, Michael (1991) 'Proportionality, D ^proportionality, and Electoral Systems', Electoral Studies, 10: 1, pp. 33-51. Jackman, R. W. (1987) 'Political Institutions and voter turnout in industrial democracies', American Political Science Review, 81:1, pp. 405-24. Lakeman, Enid (1974) How Democracies Vole: A Study of Electoral Systems,London: Faber & Faber. Lijphart, Arend (1995) Electoral Systems & Party Systems: a study of twenty seven democracies 1945-1990, Oxford: Oxford LIniversity Press. Norris, Pippa (2004) Electoral Engineering: Voting Rules and Political Behaviour, New York: Cambridge University Press. Povvell, Bingham (1982) Contemporary Democracies: Participation, Stability, and Violence., Cambridge: Harvard University Press. PoweJJ, G, B. (1986) 'American voter turnout in comparative perspective', American Political Science Review, 80:1, pp. 17-43. Saideman, S.M. et al. (1990) 'Deraocratisation, political institutions and ethnic conflict - A pooled time-series analysis, 1985-1998', Comparative Political Studies, 35:1, pp. 103-129. Sisk, Timothy and Andrew Reynolds (1998) Electoral Systems and Conflict Management in Africa, Washington D.C.: US Institute of Peace Press. Taagepera, Rein (1998) 'How electoral systems matter for democratisation', Democratisation, 5:3, pp. 68-91. Taagepera, Rein and Matthew Shugart (1989) Seats and Votes: The Effects and Determinants of Electoral Systems, New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Tesbeiis, George (1990) 'Elite interaction and constitution building in consociational democracies'. Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2:1, pp. 5-29. Salah Salem Zarnooka (0000) ‘Towards a better Legislation of the Electoral System’, Democracy Magazine, Issue no. 12, Cairo, Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. AbdelSalam Noweir (0000) ‘The Political Dimensions of the Development of the Elctoral System in Egypt”, Aliaa ElMahdy and Mohamed Kamal (editors), the Electoral Systems within Egypt and the World, Cairo: Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Ali ElSawy and Yasser Fathi (0000) ‘The Electoral System in Egypt: The Reality and the Future’s Horizons” (editors), the Electoral Systems within Egypt and the World, Cairo: Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Fawzy Ahmed Tayyem (8795) ‘The Electoral System in Israel and its Impact on the Formation of the Partisan and Political Life’, MA. Thesis: Faculty of Economic and Political Studies, Cairo University.

The Role of the Civil Society in the Democratic

Transition after the Revolution

Mohamed Mokhtar

Ibn Khaldoun center for development studies The Role of the Civil Society in the Democratic Transition

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Introduction: The power of the civil society is one of the most important internal factors that lead to threatening the permanence of the authoritative regimes, as the interests groups or all the groups of the civil society gain their power as a result of the general deterioration at the social level, the economic development and the manufacture; the power increases due to civilization as well. De Tocqueville says that the civil society associations are “the foundation stone of democracy as they become the alternative sources of information and communications; they directly challenge the authoritative regimes by tracing the interest that conflict and lead to the erosion of the authoritative rulers’ capability of controlling their societies”. From the individual side, as a result of the increase and the efficiency of education and the increase of culture, the effectiveness of the public gets stronger by the information, knowledge and skills to follow up on the democratic reforms. When we tend to study the role of the civil society in the process of the democratic transition in any country, we must tackle the role of the civil society in disseminating the culture of democracy and defending against the human rights violation and the freedoms infringement, also the role of civil society in the elections process is regarded and this what we will tackle in this study in order to know the role of civil society in the democratic transition in Egypt in the wake of the revolution by observing the components and the definition of the civil society, the mechanisms of the democratic transition and the role of the civil society organizations in Egypt in defending the human rights and the fighting for the democracy and establishing its pillars. First Chapter : The Democratic Transition and the Civil Society before the Revolution First: The concept and the factors of the democratic transition The Definition by Concept: From the procedural side: The concept of the democratic transition is one of the most addressed concepts in the research domain and the most mysterious and controversial; there were several attempts of defining it and there were many definitions including: Schmitter defines it as: “the process of applying the democratic rules whether in associations where they were not applied before or an extension of these rules to comprise individuals and subjects that they did not comprise before, so it is processes and procedures taken to transform from a non democratic regime to a stable democratic one”; Rosto defines it as: “a decision-taking process to which three powers of different motives contribute, which are the regime, the internal opposition and the external powers and every party tries to weaken the other parties, and the final result is determined for the changing party in this conflict” and Charles Andrain defines it as: “the transition from a regime to


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another, meaning the change of the existing regime and the way of politics-making adopted by it, and it is called the change among the regimes and thus, the transition means deep changes in the three main dimensions in the regimes which leads to the inability of the existing systems to deal with them under the old framework and way”1. It is also, as some see, “a group of distinguished phases that start with the obsolescence of the authoritative regimes followed by the appearance of modern democracies seeking to consolidate their systems; this process reflects the redistribution of power so the state’s share of it wanes to the interest of the civil society associations in a way that guarantees a kind of balance between the state and the society, which means the finalization of several centers of powers and the acceptance of the political controversy”; it is also “2the processes and treatments through which the applying of rules or the procedures of practicing citizenship in the political associations that were governed previously by other principles like (the forced control, the social traditions and the experts’ estimations or the administrative practice) is done, or expanding the definition of these rules and procedures to comprise persons who were not previously enjoying these rights and duties (including for example the individuals that do not pay taxes, the illiterates, the women and youth and the ethnical minorities, and the foreign residents), or expanding the definition to comprise issues and associations that were not previously submitted to the participation of the citizen in them ( such as the governmental bodies, the military associations, the partisan organizations, the public benefit corporations, the private interest groups, the production projects , the pedagogical and educational associations and others)”. It is also defined as “a decision-taking process to which three powers of different motives contribute, which are the regime, the internal opposition and the external powers and every party tries to weaken the other parties, and the final result is determined for the changing party in this conflict”3 From here, a definition of the democratic transition can be put as follows: “It is a process that aims to change the authoritative regime with a system that is based on democracy and this by whether the political power, the opposition movements or by external powers regardless the way that leads to this whether it is peaceful or another” This means that it comprises a group of the following points:

Transition from a tyrannical situation to a democratic one. A gradual process. A means to reach democracy not the democracy itself.

From the linguistics side: The concept of transition in Arabic language comes from the verb transform which means to change the thing from what it was to another form using some means; for example what Prophet Mohamed did when he kept on transforming the Islamic society from a pagan society to a more advanced and civilized one by using sermon as a means. When the concept of transition is linked to democracy, this means the change of the society form from non democratic regime to a democratic one4.


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The word Transition in English expresses transformation and change from one phase to another using some means. From another side, there are some concepts that are related to the concept of the democratic transition including the following:

1- The democratic transformation and the democratic transition5: Many researchers distinguished between the concepts of the democratic transformation and the democratic transition as they considered the democratic transition is one of the phases of the of the democratic transformation and also one of its dangerous phases, this is because in the transition period the regimes become of dual nature where each of the associations of the old authoritative regime and the recent democratic one coexist and share the power whether in conflict or in agreement .

2- The democratic transition and the democratic entrenchment6: The researchers differentiated between the democratic transition and the democratic entrenchment as they said that the process of the transformation to democracy is not fulfilled, and the democracy in any society is not considered entrenched, unless when all the effective politicians take into their consideration a main fact which is that the democratic processes are what which determine the interactions taking place within the political system.

3- The democratic transition and the liberalism7:

Several researchers in the classic literatures distinguished between the democratic transition and the liberalism as the liberalism includes partial goals represented in the lightening of the firmness of the restrictions imposed on the citizens in practicing the individual and collective rights inside the authoritative regime. Although it contributes to pushing the wheel of the democratic transition, it does not mean the entrenchment of democracy and does not equate to the democratic transition which seeks the achievement of political reforms, that reflect a wider field, like the elite accounting and the formulation of the mechanisms of decision-making process within a democratic institutionalized framework. The Factors of the Democratic Transition: The factors of the democratic transition are considered one of the most important problematic issues that many researchers disagreed on and this is due to the overlap of the internal and external factors that lead to the democratic transition which we can be demonstrated as follows: First: The External Factors8: The privacy of the state does not prevent the existence of external factors that play a role in the occurrence of a democratic transition inside the state by abolishing the authoritative regimes and transforming to democracy. When speaking about the Arab spring revolutions, we find that they got affected by one another and that what happened in East


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and Middle Europe and in Latin America where we find a certain incident, movement, tragedy, leader or oppressed group calls for aid, and this distress call has a repercussion in the society because it is ready to revolt and move. These factors include:

1- The role of the external powers in pushing the countries towards the transforming to democracy.

The role of the countries that controls others with soft power can be referred to, which means looking upon the countries that lend other countries and the international financial corporations such as the monetary fund, as this gave those countries a tremendous authority in the other countries and a control of the international politics and the countries’ orientation towards the democracy. Furthermore, the donor countries and organizations play a pressuring role on the non democratic regimes to transform them in the direction of democracy, as we find the donor countries confirm on the necessity of the existence of more political participation and the public responsibility if the grant-receiving countries want to use them effectively in the development. The USA and Britain and other donor countries confirm on the existence of the political democracy as a main condition to provide grants and aids to these countries. Also, the establishment of several international associations aiming at motivating the democratic transitions, and sometime the pressuring countries’ role get advanced from the process of motivating the democratic transition to the observing of the process of transition.

2- The impact of contagion or prevalence: We mean by the impact of contagion, the imitation of the successful democratic transition of a country in another country, as this encourages undertaking a democratic transition in another country in the same form. Countries are like humans, they often seek to imitate the successful others; at the beginning of the democratic transition wave and its success the other countries encouraged the pursuit on the way to democracy, as imitation is somehow similar to the snow ball that gets bigger the more it rolls. The impact of the successful models in the democratic experience appeared in 1990, in the cases of Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia and Germany; maybe the enormous evolution of the communication systems and the seen and heard broadcasting networks and the easiness of receiving them all over the world are among the helping factors, although the will of some governments and their attempts to stop such news from reaching their peoples, but due to the existence of powers opposing to these regimes, the news get transmitted easily by more than one means to the peoples which provides the opportunity for the universal public opinion to affect the form and the final shape of the internal public opinion. Besides, other factors play a role in accomplishing the impact of contagion such as the cultural resemblance and the geographic borders between many countries like Eastern Europe countries and their walk out from the control of the Soviet Union which suppresses and take hold of them.


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Second: The Internal Factors9: There are many internal factors that affect the process of the transition towards democracy, the most important are:

1- The transformation and change of the perception of the leadership and the political elites:

From the real side, the political leadership is considered one of the important factors of the democratic transition which help the decision-taking with regards to the possibility of the failure or success of the transition process, as it is necessary for the democratic transition process to have a skillful leadership so it becomes able to face the different political opposition movements in it, manage the range of the political participation in the decision-making process and redistribute the economic resources. Also this leadership bears the responsibility of the democratic solidarity process, the process of protecting the individual from the state’s abuse and dictatorship and having a national dialogue with the different opposing social groups that threat the process of the transition and its interests, and trying to reach the best means that pleases all the parties and achieves their interest and the most acceptable to the society. From here the conditions that lead to the success of the democratic process including the economic and social conditions should be provided, besides the necessity of availability of the desire from the leadership side of the transition process. Both “Linz and Martin Lipset” stress on the effective and decisive role of the leadership that must be distinguished with efficiency and commitment to democracy in an attempt to undertake reforms of the existing authoritative political system, besides, the intuition and the perception of the political leadership that its continuance in the rule leads to weaken it and excludes its role in the democratic process. The reasons that make the leaders of the authoritative regimes tend to choose the democratic option can be listed as follows:

- The absence or the loss of the political system legitimacy. - The leaders’ resort to democracy as an alternative to their authoritative

regime that exhausted all its playing cards and no longer has a chance of internally winning the legitimacy and regaining its control of the public opinion internally, besides its inability to control the external pressures.

- In the leaders’ belief, the democratic transition would bring several benefits to their country like the increase of the international legitimacy, the restraint of the sanctions imposed on their countries by the donor countries, receiving several economic and military aids and the possibility of getting loans from the International Monetary Fund.

- The perception of the political leadership that the costs of their continuance in power are very high and that it is better to take the initiative of transition


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for many reasons like the division of the alliance that supports its continuance in power.

2- The collapse of the authoritative regime legitimacy:

The authoritative regimes were established to get the country out from an economic crisis, social polarization, violence or society rehabilitation, and it is normal to have certain timing and a time period and then their mission becomes complete which means that they succeeded in solving the problems that made them assume power, or their legitimacy ends in case they fail in achieving the tasks that they were assigned with. There are other aspects that add to the political systems loss of their legitimacy including the change in the societal values and the culture of the society. Thus, the society becomes less tolerant and interactive with the system, however, the legitimacy crisis might not mean the collapse of the regime but the matter represents some sort of challenges to the regime and its associations in their confrontation to the waves of rage. Furthermore, the problems of legitimacy differ according to the nature of the regime as in the democratic regime, its legitimacy depends on its successful performance where the rulers are evaluated based on their performance not on what their electors expect from them, while in the dictator or authoritative regime there is no difference between the legitimacy of the rulers and that of the regime.

3- The power of the civil society: This is considered one of the most important internal factors that lead to threatening the permanence of the authoritative regimes, as the interests groups or all the groups of the civil society gain their power as a result of the general deterioration at the social level, the economic development and the manufacture; the power increases due to civilization as well. De Tocqueville says that the civil society associations are: “the foundation stone of democracy as they become the alternative sources of information and communications; they directly challenge the authoritative regimes by tracing the interest that conflict and lead to the erosion of the authoritative rulers’ capability of controlling their societies”. From the individual side, as a result of the increase and the efficiency of education and the increase of culture, the effectiveness of the public get stronger by the information, knowledge and skills to follow up on the democratic reforms.

4- The values and morals that call for democracy: We mean by this, the existence of values, customs and the religious acceptance that encourage the transition of the political system towards democracy, thus, the society must be prevailed by the values of democracy that it needs to be established including the national solidarity, the mutual respect and the belief in the national and general will.

5- The economic situations: The economic situations are considered one of the important factors that affect the legitimacy of the authoritative regimes, as when the economic situations deteriorate, the


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legitimacy of the political system trembles due to a kind of general rage that prevails the society at that time. The Relation between the Civil Society and the State: With regard to the relation between the civil society and the state, we find that when the state fails the civil society becomes the alternative, thus, the relation between them is inverse most of the time, as when the state expands and does several roles the role of the civil society becomes symbolic and spare, while when the state fails or evaporates the role of the civil society appears; this is like what happened with Kuwait, as when the state evaporated in 6 hours due to the Iraqi invasion the collaborative associations were what made the Kuwaiti society kept resistant and standing. It was not among their goals or vision playing that role but when all Kuwait’s associations evaporated there was nothing left but them, so by that time they did not just distribute food but they became the place where the Kuwaitis meet without fearing of the foreign occupier, which made all the resistance thoughts in Kuwait come out from the collaborative associations, thus, they were the cradle of the resistance movement. While in the Egyptian case, when the British occupancy occurred the associations are what resisted it, which were established and started by the Greek Association in 1821 and when they increased in number and after the fall of the Egyptian state in the grip of occupancy, they replaced it. Furthermore, the associations had an important role in establishing hospitals, theater, Bank of Egypt and girls education schools, as all the national associations were established by the civil society that emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century. Further, the first thing the authoritative state does is the attempt of nationalizing the civil society because it realizes that it is their alternative, that is why Abdel Nasser nationalized the civil society with laws that restricted its movement as he did not want an alternative for the central power which is the power of militants, thus, the civil society would have not flourished again unless two important developments had happened: first, Abdel Nasser’s failure in his project in the last phase of his rule after the defeat and second, when Sadat introduced the political pluralism and there the civil society flourished again. The Concept of the Civil Society: Definition Attempt What blemishes the defining of the civil society that it is difficult to find a definition that it is difficult to find a sententious definition of it anywhere, as it is a concept same like other social sciences concepts generally and the political sciences specifically which is difficult for us to find a sententious definition from them. Concepts change according to their geographic area, their emergence history and what taint them of problems expressed at the time of their emergence. It is also related to the specific historical social environment which it emerged in; it is said that the concept is the son of history and idea, as concepts do not come out from a logical derivation reality or a reasoning, but they emerge in relation to the social struggle or by the strategic usage of them.


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This begs the question: What is the Civil Society? When we utter the word “civil society”, it come in our minds that this concept means a society separate from religion or secular society, also we can think it is a non-military society and does not have a relation with the militant institutions. Besides, we think it is separate from the political life, the state and its bodies’ policies. But this view, is considered derogative in general as it does not expand to the study of the concept and the search in its core. These beliefs make us tend to say that this society is a special self-isolated one which has its own rules and its own social contract, which is not true and may be this perception and concept of the civil society was patterning the intellect of the early 18th century. Yet, the best and most realistic definition of the civil society is what defines it as the “free initiatives that are done by the free will of their owners whether they take the form of party, associations, union or other; what is important is the existence of the free will.” On another hand, there are many who define civil society by a group of political, economic, social and cultural, etc institutions which work in their different societies in relative separation from the state’s institutions at the aim and for many reasons including the following:

- Cultural purposes: like the writers unions and the different cultural institutions, such as House of Wisdom in Egypt.

- Social purposes: Which help the contribution to social development works. - Political purposes: such as participation in the process of internal decision making,

including the political parties. - Unionist purposes: represented in the role of unions in defending their members and

their rights. Thus, we find here that the civil society includes some elements which are: First Element: Volunteerism: This is the characteristic that distinguishes the civil society from the different formations that exist in the society and resemble it in the specialization. The basis of civil society’s work is volunteerism. Second Element: Institutionalism: This characteristic is considered to be the feature of any organization or civilized societal formation, as institutionalism is one of the civilian societies’ features in the different political, social, economic or cultural aspects of life. However, it is note worthy that the Arab


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societies, although seem to be institutional societies in its form, lacks in fact the institutionalism that based on liberal contract relation under the law. Third Element: The Purpose and Function: This is represented on what the institutions and the major organizations established for and on, and this to guarantee their independence from the tyranny of the authority. Fourth Element: The View to the Civil Society: The civil society institutions or the concept of the civil society should be viewed as a part of a group of concepts including citizenship, human rights, and the political, constitutional, individual, democratic and civil, etc participation. On the other hand, some tend to define the civil society by mentioning a collection of functions it does and they restricted it in the following functions:

1- The function of trying to achieve group interests. 2- The function of intervention to resolve conflicts. 3- The working on increasing the wealth and improving the social conditions. 4- The working on producing new leaderships in the society. 5- The working on publicizing the culture of democracy and spreading it among the

citizens.

In general, we cannot speak about the concept of civil society without tackling some concepts which researchers call the intellectual triangle, and cannot be separated from each other. The sides of this triangle are: First Side: Human Rights: Which are the rights related to humans’ existence and which allow them to live humanely and acquire their rights and different freedoms they entitled to them by just being humans. Second Side: Democracy: The definitions of democracy abounded and there is no sententious definition for it, these definitions include the following: Robert Dahl defines it by “an unmatchable process for binding collective decision making10, it is also, as George Trabolsy defines it, “a group of practices and work methods, to manage the social conflicts under legitimate institutions that guarantee peaceful alternation of power and ensure rational solving of the emergent problems11”.


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Third Side: The Civil Society: Which is a group of institutions resembles the state’s official institutions; it works independently from the official authority, in the different aspects of the political, economic, social or cultural, etc life. The Emergence and the Historic Evolution of the Civil Society in Egypt: To tackle the civil society associations in Egypt, we should study them with regard to the immergence in more than one stage as follows: Emergence Stage from 1821 to 1952: Civil society associations are not new to the Egyptian society, as the first civil association in Egypt was established in 1821 which is the Greek Association in Alexandria, then it was followed by several cultural associations in the 50th including the Association of Egypt’s Institute for Egyptian Civilization Research established in 1859, then ElMaaref Association and afterwards several associations were established on religious basis like the Islamic Charity Association established in 1878 and Al Masay Charity Coptic Association established in 1881. Those associations had an important role as they were a forum for many intellectuals and a place to magnetize intellectuals who are back from missions abroad; they had an important role also in fighting the British colonialism which led to a conflict between the authority and those associations, and the shutting down of some of them such as Progress Lovers Association and Convention of Progress Association for disseminating the culture of freedom and brotherhood. However, it is worth mentioning that 1919 revolution played an important role in the rise of the civil associations and the spread of their role in Egypt and that was because of the development of the political, social and cultural life and the increase of the social and political awareness. After the constitution was issued in 1923, it helped the establishment of more civil associations because it ensured several rights and freedoms, including the most important freedom and right of forming associations and it stipulated that the authority of dissolving them would be in the hands of only the judicial, and this according to Law no. 54-80 of the civil law which gave the authority of abolishing the resolutions and dissolving the associations to the judicial, the thing that helped in more freedom for the civil work organizations which increased their dissemination during that period until 1945. May be there is another explanation for the dissemination of civil work associations and the increase of their activity during that period, which is that the state was busy with military and security works that made the associations of civil work take the responsibility of trying to relief the displaced and the injured and wars victims; besides that social role there was a cultural role for those associations as they were concerned during that period with the identity of the Egyptian personality, whether it is Islamic, Arab, Pharaonic or Mediterranean.


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Stage of July Coup from 1952 to 1970 “Civil Society Relapse”: As usual, the first thing any new authority or regime, in the Arab countries, think of is tending to eradicate all its opposing powers which may cause a threat to its power, and this what exactly happened in the wake of July Coup, as the Revolutionary Command Council worked on eliminating the opposition, imposing censorship on newspaper and shackling the freedom of press. Moreover, there had been a conflict between it and one of the civil society organizations which is the Labor Movement in Kafr ElDawwar in August 1952 as more than 10,000 workers of the Spinning and Weaving Factory held a strike demanding to keep away the authoritative from the company, move the workers union within the factory and conduct free and fair elections for this union, which was an ensured right according to the slogans of the Revolutionary Command Council. However, reality proved that those were no more than slogans as the way the Revolutionary Command Council dealt proved the first conflict between itself and the societal powers, as they considered that strike to be a communist conspiracy which led to the execution and detention of many of the strike leaders and the command council explained the situation that to encourage the foreign and Egyptian capital the labor struggle should be terminated. This was followed, in 1953, by more diminution to the civil society organizations as on January 16, 1953 the decree of dissolving the political parties was issued by the Egyptian President Gamal AbdelNasser, then followed in 1955 a decree of dissolving the Muslim Brotherhood group and establishing one political organization developed from being an editorial board then a national union to a socialist union. Then followed more resolutions of the diminution of civil society groups as the activity of the Women Union and the Union of Nile Girls was suspended, furthermore, Law 348 of 1956 was issued to impose the dissolve of all the civil organizations; any violation to the provisions of that law was considered a crime that is subject to the Penalty Code. The Civil Society since 1971 till Now “Regaining the Nominal Dignity of Civil Society Organizations”: As we mentioned before, civil society and civil work organizations suffered al lot from 1952 till the early 70th, but this situation changed almost radically in the beginning of the 70th and since President Sadat assumed power, as he issued two of the most important decrees in the history of civil society in Egypt, which are the decree of turning to the restricted political pluralism and the economic opening policy; those decrees helped increase the civil work associations and provide more opportunities for those associations to receive foreign fund. At the beginning of the 80th, the control of political Islam movements of the different trade unions appeared, and the number of law and defensive organizations increased in Egypt from the 80th until present. Fourth: Components of the Civil Society in Egypt The Civil society, according to the Egyptian law, consists of several forms which are:

Civil associations and institutions, subject to Law no. 84 of 2002.


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Law and defense associations and organizations, subject to Law no. 84 of 2002 and Civil Companies Law.

Trade unions, subject to Law 100 and its amendments.

Labor unions, subject to Labor Unions Law.

Work groups, subject to Law no. 84 of 2002.

Commercial and industrial chambers, subject to Commercial and Industrial Chambers Law.

Arab and foreign organizations, subject to protocols with the ministry of foreign affairs.

Which we can state them in details as follows:

1- Civil Associations and Institutions:

Those associations are defined by most researchers as non-profit associations, based on the idea of volunteerism and work in different fields related to different aspects of life including social sponsorship and political awareness, etc. But some come to say that those institutions are established on the basis of allocating some money at the beginning to gain profit, however, generally there are some general features of those associations which are:

They are popular volunteering organizations.

They are non-profit organization, although they provide services with charge.

They are organizations that carry political, cultural, social or economic goals

Law regulates those organizations and they are subject to it; they are also supervised by an administrative entity determined by the state.

We can differentiate between those civil associations as follows:

a- Charity Associations.

Which aim at providing social services to those in need for them, including literacy classes, medical clinics and contribution to building schools and worship places.

b- Developmental Associations

Those associations emerged as an intellect transform, in the civil associations, from the concept of charity work to the concept of developmental work, as they worked on empowering the marginalized segments and providing them with the required and sufficient skills to qualify them to participate in the society and engage in the public life, through developing squatters, small loans projects and raising awareness of the disadvantage of children labor and trying to limit it.

c- Law and Defense Associations:

They are a group of associations and organizations that are established to defend certain issues such as environment protection and human rights issues, among the most important associations are:


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Year of Establishment Association #

1975 Egyptian Organization for Human Rights in Giza

1

1977 The Association of Human Rights in Cairo 2

1978 The Association of Human Rights in Alexandria

3

1983 Arab Organization for Human Rights 4

1985 Egyptian Organization for Human Rights 5

1991 Center for Trade Union and Workers’ Services

6

1991 New Women Foundation 7

1991 National Society for Human Rights and Human Development

8

1993 Al Nadeem Center for the Treatment and rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture

9

1993 The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information in Mahala

10

1994 Center of Trade Union rights in Mansoura 11

1994 Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies 12

1996 Association for Human Rights Legal Assistance

13

1996 Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance

14

1996 Center of the Egyptian Human Rights for National unity

15

1994 Land Center for Human Rights 16

1995 Friends of Democracy Programs 17

1995 Maat for Peace, Development and Human Rights

18

1996 AlKalema Center for Human Rights 19

1996 Al Adala Center for Human Rights 20

1996 The Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights 21

1997 Arab Program for Human Rights Activists 22

1997 Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners

23

1997 The Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession

24

1999 Hisham Mubarak Law Center 25

2001 Candles Association for Sponsoring Human Rights

26

2002 Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights 27

2003 The Egyptian Center for Housing Rights 28

1991 National Associations for Human Rights 29

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2004 The Egyptian Association Against Medical Negligence and for Human Rights

30

2004 Child Rights Center 31

2004 The Civil Observatory Society for Human Rights

32

2004 The South Centre for Human Rights 33

2004 The Egyptian Association for the Support of Democratic Development

34

2004 Rural Studies Center 35

2004 Andalus Institute for Tolerance and Anti-Violence Studies

36

2004 The Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement

377

2004 Egyptian Human Rights Organizations' Collective

38

2004 The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information

39

2004 Children of the Earth Foundation 40

2004 The Egyptian Association for Training and Human Rights

41

2005 The Egyptian Association for Disseminating & Developing Legal Awareness

42

Source: Sahar ElDesouki, The Future of Civil Society after January 25 Revolution, Egypt State Information Service These organizations play a noticeable role in defending human rights especially what is related to abuses of the citizens by police officers. In addition, there are several independent movements within this framework, to which many activists in the country affiliate, including: 6th of April Movement: They are a group of youth who introduce themselves as “we are a group of youth gathered for the love of Egypt..we met on Facebook during the call for April 6, 2008 strike..as we called for it by all means..and many of us decided to proceed in this way by forming a youth movement which is independent from any trend or orientation, called 6th of April Youth Movement, which most of its members are not affiliated to any political trend..and some have previous experiences..nothing gather us except the love of Egypt and the assured desire and determination to rescue it from the bad conditions it reached in all the fields as a result of the tyrannical rule of the national party for more than 28 years. We decided to keep our independence from any political faction in Egypt, and go with our experience, that is different from the previous one, with our youth thought and the gain of the benefits of the previous experiences with all respect and appreciation. We welcomed


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the cooperation with all the political factions without exclusion or pre-sensitivity towards any trend because we are convinced that in this critical moment in Egypt’s history, nothing can work except the coalition and cooperation between all the national trends and powers that seek peaceful reform and change in Egypt’s conditions. We dream of the day when all powers, trends and intellects cooperate to unify in order to get Egypt out of this dangerous situation..We agreed on the vision, goals, plan and rules that govern our dialogue and there are who welcomed and thanks go to them and there are who denied and high respect goes to them as well. Our goals and demands are not different from those of the loyal national powers in the past years, such as providing the freedom of forming parties with just notification, lifting the state of emergency and abolishing the exceptional laws restricting freedoms, issuing new constitution without any ideologies that all political powers agree, a transitional period to apply the principles of real democracy, and establishing rules of the social justice. It is worth mentioning, that the movement notes in every statement it issue that it declines any support from the embassies of any country, however, it welcomes any support or fund from local or international law associations. The Popular Campaign for Running and Supporting Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei: This movement puts in its policy a group of goals including:

- Awareness of the necessity of change for the publics.

- Support for Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei in his run for the Egyptian elections in 2011.

- Attempt to mobilize all the energies for the victory of Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei by using the entire mass media.

Kefaya “Enough” Movement: Kefaya Movement, officially known as “The Egyptian Movement for Change”, succeeded, through its manifesto, in drawing a general image of the serious challenges that Egyptian face on the patriot and national levels, the matter that gave Kefaya a good opportunity to be a popular movement capable of attracting Egyptians from different directions and cultural backgrounds. The signatories of the manifesto agree on confronting the challenges that face the nations represented in, according to the manifesto, the American invasion of Iraq and the continuing Zionist aggression against Palestinians, and also confronting the comprehensive tyranny that hit Egypt. The movement had seen that confronting those two serious matters needs mobilization of all the efforts on all the political, cultural and civilian levels, it all needs carrying out a comprehensive reform made by Egyptians and not imposed on them by under any title. Then the movement manifesto moved to introducing the explanatory vision of the comprehensive reform concept, so it included the following four points: First: Terminating the monopoly of power and open the door to alternate it, beginning from the head of state position, to change the faces and break the political and institutional inaction in all the state’s posts.


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Second: Raising the supremacy of law and legitimacy, judicial independence, respect of all the judicial rulings and the enforcement of equity and equal opportunities among all the citizens. Third: Terminating the monopoly of the revolution which led to the spread of corruption and social injustice, and the prevalence of unemployment and costliness. Fourth: Working on regaining Egypt’s place and role, lost since the signing of Camp David Accord with the Zionist entity and its ally, the USA. The signatories of Kefaya’s declaration had seen that in order to get out of this crisis, the immediate start of this reform is needed and the termination of the ruling party monopoly of power and wealth, abolishment of the state of emergency and all the laws restricting freedoms, and also the release of freedoms, lift the guardianship on press, conduction of free and fair parliamentary and presidential elections under the full supervision of the supreme Judiciary council and the state’s council. Thus, one can consider that Kefaya Movement played an import and unprecedented role in raising the ceiling of the political and popular work in Egypt then the declaration of establishment in August 2004, and the activation of its role after the incidents of security violence on the day of the referendum of the constitutional amendments that paved the way for the presidential elections in mid 2005. New movements have emerged for the mother movements that all call for change and have the enthusiasm and great hopes for implementing it, including and not limited to: “Youth for the Change”, “Children for the Change”, “Women for the Change”, “Doctors for the Change”, “Authors and Artists for the change” and others. Kefaya movement massed clearly first against Gamal Mubarak, president’s son, whose issue of Egypt’s rule inheritance was raised a lot recently, and also against President Husni Mobarak himself, who is heading Egypt since October 1981 after the murder for President Sadat in the Famous accident of the stage, to be assuming the longest power in Egypt’s history, since the age of Muhammad Ali, the founder of modern state in the 19th century. Kefaya Movement, was the first to dare cheering slogans like “Down with Mubarak” for the first time in the entire history of Egypt, as Egyptians since the age of pharos used to deal with their rulers as gods whose actions cannot be discussed, that is why Kefaya movement had an incredible crazy precedence in releasing a cry like this. However, the role of the Kefaya movement, the most popular movement in Egypt’s history, kept declining noticeably since the beginning of 2007, only three years after its establishment, which call those engaged in the civil and political work within Egypt and the observers of the street movement from outside Egypt, to ask: Is it high time seeing Kefaya Movement off for good? and consequently, the fall of one of the most important pillars of the new civil society in the new millennium of Egypt?


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Disorder spread all over this movement, and their more committed advocates kept leaving space for invisibility and incapability of capturing the imagination of the Egyptian people, its leaders divided fighting over everything beginning of veil “hijab” till accusations of corruption, and the government kept crushing its motivating powers through laws and legislations that justify the avoiding of punishments and the deployment of security soldiers like locusts to arrest dozens of activists and intimidate others, and stressing on the rest of the soldiers not to tolerate any un-allowed protesting demonstration. Within this gap, the supporters and the enemies of the government agreed on the belief that the American pressure for change, which gained some influence in the past, is the main driver behind the emergence of Kefaya Movement in Egypt. Shayfeenkom “We are Watching You” Movement: Shayfeenkom Movement for Popular Monitoring was established in 2005 at the aim of monitoring the parliamentary and presidential elections, and it had a cautionary for itself that those in charge of it was believed to choose it right, as the word “shayfeenkom” or “we watch you” is used in the Egyptian slang as a cautionary phrase means: do not make something wrong because there is an eye or rather watching eyes. Yet, this new popular movement could not stand out, in terms of the content and endeavor, for a long time although its strong start which attracted several attentions of the world towards itself. Although it comprised among its founders an information officer with large history such as Butheina Kamel, the baby movement role was restricted quickly to just publications and posters distributed on activists and those concerned in the demonstrations or the cultural centers from time to time. Judiciary Independence Movement: The launch of the movements of judges in mid 2005 was synchronized with the constitutional amendments that paved the way to the presidential elections then the people’s assembly elections with which the state allowed the full judicial supervision on the elections for the first time. The launch of this movement had a shaking effect on the ruling system and the Egyptian government, as the judiciary was considered all the time as a part of the executive establishment that is controlled by the ruling system and a loyal follower to it. The Judiciary Independent Movement was launched form the Judges Club under the leadership of Counselor Zakaria Azmy, after the government dared to destabilize the judicial authority through its attempt to bring honorable judges, who wanted to expose the forgery of the elections, to trials. Since its establishment, the movement had specified and clear demands represented in amending some law provisions and providing the full independence to the judiciary from the country’s executive authority represented in the ruling system and the government. May be those demands, so to speak, kill two birds with one stone, as from one hand they


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target achieving the judges’ factious interests in the capacity of being workers in the judiciary profession, and from the other hand, judges drove a number of general democratic demands that target achieving their interest as citizens among the Egyptian masses. Despite the big influence of the Judiciary membership with all its power and respect, on the lay men, the judges movement did not succeed in reflecting the overall attitude of Egypt as much a movement such as Kefaya succeeded in doing that. 9th of March Movement: The 9th of March movement, known also by “Universities Independence Movement”, was launched by white-collar workers including Egyptian universities professors in 2004. Its main target was achieving the independence of the university from the control of the state and the security forces, following the example of the brave action that Ahmed Lotfy ElSayyed took 70 years before. The movement manifesto mentions that “On March 9, 1932 Ahmed Lotfy ElSayyed, the President of the Egyptian University back then, handed in his resignation from his post protesting against the Minister of Education’s decision of transferring Dr. Taha Hussein from the university without his approval or consulting the university. In the memory of this brave action defending the university independence and the dignity of its professors, the members of the movement thought of having an annual celebration in which we reminded the academia and the entire powers of the state with the importance of the university independence and its necessity so it regains its efficiency and role in the society. We also take this day as an occasion of reviving the discussion about the future of university and the education in general; we hope that this year’s celebration would be a start of a dialogue and work on enabling the universities of practicing its role as independent and democratic institutions; we also call everybody to share us in order to keep this celebration on year after year as a motivation for us to hold with setting up of an academic environment that is “based on the devotion to education, the sacrifice to serve it, the independence of opinion, thought and work as Ahmed Lotfy ElSayyed wanted it”. Perhaps 9th of March Movement is the only one which was able to maintain its coherence and the steadiness of its steps towards the desired goals, since the date of its establishment till the day, and it did not witness the same decline of the other popular movements parallel to it. Thus, it can be said that the combination of the academic experience of the esteemed professors in charge of the movement, the enthusiasm, the specified and clear goal of the movement and adhering to it, the holding of regular meetings, and the conducting of organized protests with clear goals when required and in carefully considered timings, is the real reason behind the stability and the progress of 9th of March Movement than the similar popular movements in Egypt, yet we aspire for more activation of the role of the movement to encompass all the sectors of the society not just the education sector.


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Egyptians against Torture Movement: “Egyptians against Torture Movement” is one of the other important popular movements, which played a great role in raising the level of Egyptian people’s awareness and stirring it, and may be it is also the only popular movement that could achieve tangible goals in reality. It was established after the success of some bloggers, internet youth, independent activists and NGOs in exposing the violent practices and the humane violations committed against citizens by police officers inside the Egyptian prisons and police stations. Egyptians against Torture Movement saw light for the first time in the syndicate of journalists on September 9, 2007 in the presence of a number of civil organizations and parties’ representatives, civil society activists, Egyptian bloggers and internet activists. The establishing conference started be declaring solidarity with the Association for Human Rights Legal Assistance and rejecting its dissolve, then taking the attendees’ opinions about the nature of the committee’s membership and it agreed on making it open for all the Egyptians. Then some of the attendees presented their suggestions about the tools of the committee which was centered about: issuing an annual report about torture cases that took place in Egypt to be edited according to what the ministry of interior declares, which helps the international society keep up to date with the real image of the relation between security and citizens. Moreover, preparing a black list with the names of the police officers who practice torture, to be updated constantly at the aim of exposing them to the society. Second: Trade Unions: There are 24 trade unions that their membership requires the necessity of having a certain profession such as education and art, etc. Those trade unions are:

1. Bar Association: established in 1921 2. Syndicate of Journalists: established in 1941 3. Engineering Association: established in 1946 4. Medical Syndicate: established in 1949 5. Pharmacists Syndicate: established in 1949 6. Veterinary Syndicate: established in 1949 7. Agriculture Professions Syndicate: established in 1949 8. Teachers Syndicate: established in 1954 9. Cinema Professions Syndicate: established in 1955 10. Theatrical Professions Syndicate: established in 1955 11. Musicians Syndicate: established in 1955 12. Commercial Professions Syndicate: established in 1955 13. Scientific Professions Syndicate: established in 1964 14. Social Occupations Syndicate: established in 1973 15. Applicators Syndicate: established in 1973 16. Applied Arts Designers Syndicate: established in 1976 17. Plastic Artists Syndicate: established in 1976 18. Nursing Syndicate: established in 1976 19. Tourist Guides Syndicate: established in 1983


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20. Mohaffezy of Holy Qura'an Syndicate: established in 1993 21. Sports Vocations Syndicate: established in 1987 22. Customs Workers Syndicate: Established in 1994 23. Physical Therapy Syndicate: established in 1994

These syndicates play an important role in the awareness and formation of the culture and minds of those affiliated to them, they also play an important role in defending the rights of their affiliates and speaking on behalf of them. Third: Labor Unions: There are 23 labor unions, which are:

1. General Syndicate of Agriculture, Irrigation and Aquatic Wealth Workers 2. General Syndicate of Spinning and Weaving 3. General Syndicate of Trade Workers 4. General Union of Banking and Insurance Employees 5. General Railways Workers Union 6. General Union of Telecomms 7. General Syndicate of Public Utilities Workers 8. General Syndicate of Education and Scientific Research Workers 9. General Union for Health Services Workers 10. General Union for Workers in Food Industries 11. General Trade Union of Workers of Engineering and Metal Industries 12. General Syndicate of Construction and Wood Industries Workers 13. General Syndicate for Road Transport Workers 14. General Trade Union of Maritime Transport Workers 15. General Trade Union of Air Transport Workers 16. General Syndicate for Chemicals Workers 17. General Syndicate for Mine and Quarry Workers 18. General Trade Union of Press, Printing and Media Workers 19. Union of Tourism and Hotels Operators 20. Union of Administrative Services 21. General Syndicate of War Production Civilian Workers 22. General Syndicate for Mail Workers 23. General Union of Petroleum Workers

Fourth: Businessmen Associations: Businessmen Associations are defined as “a group of administrative organizations that has a self-independent structure from the government, includes members who meet in their interest in the economic politics, and expresses the interests of their members in addition to its capability of contributing to backing development activities.” These associations emerged due to the economic opening policy which Egypt followed in the early 70th of the last century; they started with the Egyptian-American Board of Businessmen in 1975, then Egyptian Businessmen Association in 1977. The number of these


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associations reaches 97 according to 2007 statistics and the number of businessmen members of them is approximately 15000, among these active associations are:

- Federation of Egyptian Industries

- Egyptian Businessmen Association

- American-Egyptian Chamber of Commerce (1981)

- Businessmen Association in Alexandria (1983) Egypt’s Economic International Forum These associations work on affecting the economic and social policies and contributing to legislations formulation through joint committees with the government. Fifth: Chambers of commerce and Industry: The chambers of commerce establishment dates back to 1880, when the first chamber of commerce was established in Alexandria; they are entities that represent the commercial and industrial interests at the governmental authorities. There are 26 chambers of commerce, in the amount of one chamber in each governorate except Luxor governorate. While with regard to the industrial chambers, there are 16 chambers of industry in Egypt which are:

- Chamber for Building Materials Industries

- Chamber of Chemical Industries

- Chamber of Engineering Industries

- Chamber of Information Technology & Communication

- Chamber of Leather Tanning

- Chamber of Petroleum & Mining Industries

- Chamber of Printing Industries

- Chamber of Textile industries

- Chamber of Cereals & Its Products

- Chamber of Cinema Industry

- Chamber of Leather Industry

- Chamber of Food industries

- Chamber of Pharmaceutical Cosmetics & Appliances

- Chamber of Private Sector Healthcare Providers

- Chamber of Wood Working & Furniture Industries Besides those organizations, there are other organizations within the framework of civil society including:

- Social Movements

- Faculty Clubs in Universities

- Sports and Social Clubs

http://www.fei.org.eg/chambers_info.asp?id=4















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- Youth Centers and Student Unions

- Free Press and Media and Publishing Independent Bodies (not affiliated to the state)

- Research and Studies Centers and Cultural Associations Division of Civil Society Organizations according to their Activity:

a- Human Rights Organizations: These associations are registered under Law no. 84 of 2002 and some of them were registered as non-profit companies, their number reaches, according to 2007 statistics issued by the General Federation of Associations, 61 organizations; their activities are limited to the following functions:

- Observation of human rights violation cases.

- Dissemination of human rights culture through awareness and seminars.

- Providing of direct legal counseling to those whose rights are violated. Some consider the associations working in the field of human development, as human rights organizations as they work on improving the conditions of the citizens. Most of the associations working in that field focus on the civil and political rights, citizenship rights, women and labor rights, etc. of the rights of the individuals and the different society segments.

b- Consumer Protection Associations They are 671 associations according to the General Federation of Association; they play an important role in confronting the high prices and fighting corruption. However, in fact, their role in Egypt is almost unknown.

c- Environment Protection Associations They are a group of associations that defend environment rights and their number reaches 4416 associations registered with Ministry of Social Solidarity in Egypt until 2007.

d- Women Organizations These organizations aim at defending women rights and trying to rise and empower them, in a society where the percentage of women’s political participation decreases, through raising awareness of their political, social and cultural rights. In fact, we find two types of the organizations defending women rights: organizations established by women to defend their rights and other organizations concerned with women issues. Second Chapter Introduction: Revolutions do not emerge from nothing nor happen suddenly, but there must be previous mobilizers that lead to their outbreak and this what happened with January Revolution which came because of many reasons, one of the most important is the continuous movement of the civil society in including associations, organizations and websites such as Facebook and Twitter. The goals of the civil society before the revolution were:


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- Trying to rationalize and fix the rule.

- Working on carrying on constitutional and legislative reform.

- Terminating the project of inheritance.

- Assuring the human rights and freedoms and the necessity of respecting them. This was briefly before the revolution, but during and after it the civil society took the responsibility of contribution to the country direction towards the democratic transform. This will be shown in the coming pages.

1- Participation of Civil Society Institutions and Civil Associations The civil society is the base of the revolution in Egypt as no one can deny the role that civil society played with its different forms before the revolution. This was not just the role of the civil society; as it had different forms such as documenting the diaries of the revolution, observing human rights violation cases, forming fact finding committees and seeking to change Law 84 of 2002. It also demanded the release of youth detained on January 25 and worked on monitoring the government and evaluating what it does. During the revolution many civil society associations tended to ally together under the slogan “Together for Solidarity for the Sake of Egypt”, trying to help the revolution-affected people who either their economic conditions were affected by the revolution due to the close of some shops, coffee shops, stores and factories, or their health conditions were affected because they were injured in the revolution. These associations are:

- The Egyptian Association for Integrated Development

- Rabaa ElAdaweya Association

- ElBaqeiat ElSalehat Association

- Misr Elkheir Association On the other hand, several popular movements took out during the revolution and organized demonstrations and strikes such as: 6th of April Youth Movement: It had an important role on the days of rage, as it is considered one of Egypt’s biggest youth movements in number; it is based on the decentralization in its formation and it is a movement that was formed via Facebook and twitter upon a call for a strike on April 6, 2008 to protest against high prices and the increasing percentages of corruption. Indeed, the strike took place in several governorates, especially in Gharbeya and particularly Mahala Kobra city. Freedom and Justice Group: It is a group of youth affiliated to the New Generation Institutions, and it is one of the activist civil society associations. Khalil Said is coordinating it.


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“We Are All Khaled Said” Group: This group emerged due to the crime of killing the Khaled Said, the young man who lives in Alexandria, by policemen who later accused him of dying due to drugs overdose. This case drew the sympathy of many Egyptians which made of it the spark of the Egyptian revolution. This group is considered the largest gathering of Egyptian citizens on Facebook, the website of social interaction. Role of Civil Society Foreign Associations in the Revolution:

Civil society foreign associations that have different offices in Egypt, were not far from what is happening on the Egyptian territories like demonstrations and different movements seek liberation from the tyrannical regime and improvement of the conditions of the Egyptians inside, as those associations doubled their funds for the Egyptian organizations after the revolution, to reach 200 million dollars for those organizations who are subject to Law no. 84 of 2002 and other organizations and movements that are not subject to the supervision of the Ministry of Social Solidarity. Funding some popular movements including the coalition of the revolution youth and 6th of April movement and other active movements of the civil society, raises the percentages of the political participation and works on raising the awareness and urging the Egyptian citizens to contribute to decision making in their country and elect who they see suitable for them and would achieve their goals and the country’s and go with the country up. Among the most important associations are:

1- The International Republican Institute (IRI):

It is an association funded directly from the American administration; IRI’s board of directors is chaired by U.S. Senator John McCain and its president is Lorne Craner. IRI aims at helping the states that have tyrannical regimes to establish democratic associations, and fostering the role of civil society and political parties in those states so they would be able to influence the decision maker to be directed towards democracy. This appears in IRI president’s words before the committee on foreign affairs in the USA “It is important, when we necessarily have relations with authoritarian governments, to plan for the day when they may no longer be in power, and to cultivate and assist those who may replace them and we must have existence in these countries to help establish democratic associations and provide a helping environment for the political parties and the civil society to be able to organize and prepare to take their part in the elections.”

2- Friedrich Naumann Foundation

It is a German foundation funded by the German administration and some churches there; it also has close relation with the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany and it conducts several studies and discussion panels on the civilization, the role of the civil society and the necessity of participating in it. Moreover, it works on qualifying several individuals for running for different offices including party leaderships and national elections.

http://www.iri.org/learn-more-about-iri/board-directors-and-executive-officers

http://www.iri.org/learn-more-about-iri/board-directors-and-executive-officers


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3- Famous Ford Foundation

One of the most ancient foundations that work in the field long time ago, as it funded several civil society organizations and has many branches, under the name of the International Center for Transitional Justice, such as Egypt and Iraq after the occupation and in Tunisia.

4- Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Foundation

It works on disseminating the principles of democracy and the multipart culture in the Middle East; it also declares on its website a main goal which is the contribution in achieving security in the Middle East region between Israel and the Arab Countries and Turkey. Generally, the goal of foreign associations in Egypt can be limited to the following:

1- Helping in establishing an internal political current that serves the country of every association.

2- Working on raising awareness of democracy and disseminating its culture in the different countries, and the multipart culture.

3- Helping in supporting the market’s economy.

Thus, we find that the civil society played an important role in the process of the democratic reform through different group of axises as mentioned before; it contributed in the dissemination of the democracy and citizenship cultures and it also played an effective role in confronting the injustice and tyranny of the previous regime and some of them faced grave consequences due to that. Moreover, there is an another big role for the civil society in the democratic transform which is the contribution to the supervision and monitoring of the electoral process which appeared from observing of civil society organizations while monitoring the Egyptian elections, whether the parliamentary including People’s Assembly and Shoura Council as their number reached 60 or presidential which some organizations rejected the law governing them for its restriction to the monitoring process, and decided to monitor without relying on the law; Ibn Khaldun Center is one of those biggest organizations which mounted Free and Fair campaign to monitor the electoral process in cooperation with a network of civil society organizations, explaining its point of view of rejecting the law regulating the monitoring process in a statement it issued with the following script: Legal Reading of the Legislative Deficiency of the Electoral Process The presidential electoral Commission is a supreme judicial commission that has wide unprecedented authorities, and it was supposed to handle every deficiency its work may encounter. According to Article 28 of the constitutional declaration which stipulates that: A supreme judicial commission named the “Presidential Elections Commission” will supervise the election of the president of the republic beginning with the announcement of


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the opening of candidate nomination and ending with the announcement of the election result. The Commission will be composed of the president of the Supreme Constitutional Court as the head, and a membership made up of the president of the Cairo Appeals Court, the most senior deputies of the president of the Supreme Constitutional Court, the most senior deputies of the president of the Court of Cassation and the most senior deputies of the president of the State Council. The Commission’s decisions will be final and carry the force of law, and will not subject to objections from any party, in the same manner as it is forbidden for the decisions to be stopped or canceled. The purview of the Commission will be by law. The Commission will form committees to supervise voting and counting according to the stipulations in Article 39. Draft legislation for presidential elections will be shown to the Supreme Constitutional Court before being issued to determine the extent of compliance with the constitution. The Supreme Constitutional Court will issue its decision on this matter within 15 days of receiving the draft legislation. If it decides that the text is unconstitutional, more work must be done before the law can be issued. In all cases, the decision of the Court will be obligatory for all authorities of the state, and will be published in the official gazette within three days of being released. It is also regulated by Law no. 174 of 2005 as amended by Decree No. 12 of 2012 concerning the presidential elections. It is the law that stipulated the existence of the commission and assigned it the issuing of decisions that regulate its work, thus, the commission issued several regulating decisions, among the most important are:

- Commission decision no.1/2012 of amending the rule of the commission exercise of its specializations.

- Commission decision no.2/2012 of updating the data base of the electors.

- Commission decision no.3/2012 of the regulations of the ratification of the signatures of the electors who support those want to run for Egypt’s presidency.

- Commission decision no.4/2012 of the rules and the procedures of the voting of the Egyptians living abroad.

- Commission decision no.5/2012 of calling the electors for electing the president of Egypt.

- Commission decision no.6/2012 of banning the election publicity during the period that is not legally authorized.

- Commission decision no.7/2012 of the rules of funding the election campaigns.

- Commission decision no.9/2012 of forming a committee to monitor and evaluate the amount of the election publicity spending.

- Commission decision no.10/2012 of the regulations of the election publicity.

- Commission decision no.11/2012 of the regulations of monitoring the civil society local organizations.

- Commission decision no.12/2012 of the regulations of monitoring the international organizations.

- Commission decision no.13/2012 of the procedures and rules of specification of the election symbols.


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- Commission decision no.14/2012 of the final list of 2012 presidential elections candidates.

- Commission decision no.15/2012 of listing Mr. Ahmed Mohamed Shafik Zaki on the final list of candidates.

- Commission decision no.16/2012 of the regulations of the media coverage.

- Commission decision no.17/2012 of the amendments of some of the provisions of Decree no. 1 of 2012 of the commission exercise of its specializations.

- Commission decision no.18/2012 of the amendments of some of the provisions of Decree no. 4 of 2012 of the rules and the procedures of the voting of the Egyptians living abroad.

- Commission decision no.19/2012 of the amendments of some of the provisions of Decree no. 11 of 2012 of the regulations of civil society local organizations monitoring of the elections.

- Commission decision no.20/2012 of the amendments of some of the provisions of Decree no. 12 of 2012 of the regulations the international organizations monitoring of the elections.

These are beside the other several decisions issued by the commission and its head. Despite these regulating laws and several decisions, there are still several legal and practical problems that accompanied the electoral process and did not find legislative solutions, and the commission was helpless before them with tied hands. First: The Position of the Nationality of the Candidate’s Family: Article 26 of the constitutional declaration, issued on March 30, 2011, stipulated that who runs for the president’s post should be Egyptian of Egyptian parents, and did not nor his parents hold the nationality of other country, and should not be married to non-Egyptian. This provision considered in its definition that the dual nationality of the candidate or one of his parents could mean a conflict in the loyalty required in the person who holds such high post, the thing that made the commission exclude the presidential candidate Hazem Abu Ismail’s papers because his mother holds the American nationality. Free and Fair Campaign sees that according to the same definition and criterion, that provision should have been applied on the children of the candidates, which is not included in the constitutional provision and considered a clear legislative deficiency. According to the clear interpretation of the mentioned provision, there should be no sentiment towards another country that conflicts with the president of Egypt loyalty because he, one of his parents, his wife holds its nationality. However, the parenthood emotion exceeds the sonhood and the marital emotions, according to all the psychologists’ interpretations, and by reviewing the Egyptian case one can ask a real question: does the presidential candidate Dr. Moahmed Morsi children’s American nationality is less dangerous and influential in his loyalty than the American nationality of Hazem Abu Ismail’s late mother.


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Second: Elections Schedules: The commission justified its inability of giving a copy of the electors’ lists to the candidates, by legal provisions related to the data base which hinder this, the nonexistence of this provision in the presidential elections and that in the parliamentary election the law of People’s Assembly allows this and accordingly that list of the parliamentary elections were given to the candidates. This is a strange and illogical justification especially that the electors’ lists and their obtaining by the candidates is a logical and axiomatic matter for insuring the flawlessness of the electoral process, especially because it was actually accompanied by an extreme clamor regarding those lists. The Campaign sees that the commission must, according to its specializations, handle this defect immediately and demand the inclusion of a legal provision that allows it to give the candidate these key data. Third: Election Campaign: This is regulated by the articles from 36 to 30 within the commission decision no.1/2005 and amended by Decree no. 1 of 2012. And Commission decision no.6/2012 of banning the election publicity during the period that is not legally authorized. Commission decision no.7/2012 of the rules of funding the election campaigns. Commission decision no.9/2012 of forming a committee to monitor and evaluate the amount of the election publicity spending. Commission decision no.10/2012 of the regulations of the election publicity. Yet, through the work of the campaign we find that with regard to:

1- The Spending Ceiling:

The commission, despite the issuance of its decisions, is still unable to put a real mechanism for calculating the amount of the candidates’ spending and regulate it for real. Free and Fair sees that to stop the mess of spending on the electoral processes, the legislation must be congruent to the reality so that the allowed number of spending increases in commensuration with the practical reality of the electoral process and the reality of the expenses according to the known and common prices in the field of publicity and advertisement. In addition to putting a real regulator to monitor the spending, we see that a bank account should be opened for the campaign, that spending should be only through it and we also see that any publicity for the candidates should not be done without a permit stamped from the commission to the candidates or who is legally on behalf of them. Moreover, the competent bodies, each according to its specialization, should not allow any kind of signs, the distribution of any paper publicity, or holding election conferences without this permit which allow a real monitoring of the spending.

2- Violations of the Election Publicity Rules:


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In fact, the commission is unable to stop the transgressions of the candidates and their supporters under the absence of real mechanisms that allow its tuning of the electoral process. Free and Fair Campaign sees that the commission by being not having the possibility of excluding a candidate for violating the rules and laws of the electoral process is a matter that increases the violations of the candidates. The referral to the general persecution is in fact not enough and the campaign previously alerted that both the presidential candidates made clear violations to the rules of the election publicity which are considered electoral crimes can be sentenced with prison or fine according to Article 54 of Law 174 of 2005 and amended by Decree 12 of 2012, as Dr. Mohamed Morsi, the presidential candidate, held an election conference at Mansoura University and the LT General Ahmed Shafik, the other presidential candidate, held a press conference at the morning of one of the first round days, which breaks Article 21 of Law 174 of 2005 and amended by Decree 12 of 2012. This is of course beside the inability of the commission to stop the transgressions that happen in front of the committees during the days of elections. Fourth: The Rules of Civil Society Monitoring of the Electoral Process:

a- The commission acts as if the previous regime did not fight the work of the civil society or restrict it

It requires that the organizations should be registered according to Law 84 of 2002, which is the law that most of the activists and human rights advocates in Egypt reject because it fights the freedom of organization. Furthermore, it goes more far by requiring that the work of the organization should include, at the time of its license, the fields of political development, human rights and democracy (which are the same fields that licenses of organizations are denied because of them by the administration entity by recommendation from the former state’s security body). We find no justification for the insisting on this condition, given that several organizations managed to add those fields later on and after the revolution and the fall of the state’s security body.

b- The commission breaks the traditional international rules of the observers’ work and delegates their job:

We find it does not allow monitoring but observing for just half an hour, from inside the committees, that could be shrunk or even the existence of the observers can be denied on the plea of the crowd by the head of the committee according to the text of the decision itself. It does not also allow any kind of interaction or communication between the observers and the electors to survey their opinion about the electoral process which is one of the obligatory combining matters to the electoral processes, furthermore, it bans giving any statements or reports to the media and press about the progress of the electoral process, or issuing reports after the end of the voting about the prospects of the electoral results which makes us refuse to bow to the decisions of a commission that does not want us to document or observe what is happening inside the committee and does not want us to report what is happening outside them, communicate with the citizens and survey their opinions about the elections.


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Fifth: Announcing the Results: We are living a real mess because of the commission’s inability to cope with the rapidity of the candidates and the media in following the vote count process and the calculation of the results, as the commission cannot, under the absence of a legislation that criminate announcing the preliminary results before the official announcement, stop at all this real farce as it criminalized this action on the civil society organizations which it authorized them to observe the elector process. It could not, under a clear legislative absence, play any real role to stop the announcement of every candidate’s progress in exchange; the reality of those announcements is a direct accusation to the commission of forging the electoral process as the final numbers came different from what every candidate announced, so how the commission allowed itself to be accused of such accusation. Free and Fare Campaign would like to confirm for one more time on the importance of developing the vote count and results calculation process, and introducing new technologies for counting and calculating the votes and the papers that allows finishing those process quickly and thoroughly in due time Thus, we see that the civil society had a big and effective role that allows it to take such decision of breaking an enforced law for a vision in which it find it a curtailment to itself and its specializations as an observer. From here we see that the role of the civil society became big and effective, that would allow it to take such a decision of violating an existing law because of a vision where it found a curtailment of itself or its specializations as an observer. Several suggestions had appeared to increase the role of the civil society in Egypt during the last period, one of them was calling for establishing a ministry for civil society in Egypt, yet this suggestion does not represent a practical solution, as such bureaucratic solutions lack imagination and effectiveness because any societal activity controlled by a ministry fails. There is an example of this related to the Egyptian sport; when the ministry of sport was established, the result became very bad but in 1936 Egypt achieved the biggest number of medals under the non-existence of a ministry. However, generally we find that there are several suggestions that would activate the role of the civil society and make it more capable of supporting the democratic transition process in Egypt; the most important suggestions are that the civil society organizations themselves adopt a draft law to be introduced to the People’s Assembly upon its formation, this law aims at providing the full freedom of the civil society with regard to the establishing, the number of members or the funding notice, and to establish a unit for studying the problems of the NGOs as this unit would work on providing legal and technical services to those organizations, in addition to the importance of working on raising the street’s awareness of the civil society concept and ending the turmoil about the idea of the foreign funding of the civil society organizations, and the necessity of having practical programs to modify the citizens’ negative stereotype about the civil society, in addition to


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the necessity of establishing a training and educational activity that serves the civil society and its calibers. Moreover, the real problem that faces the civil society organizations is their incapability of creating a state of partnership with the state, as the state regards them as a follower not a partner, thus, their role will remain deficient because any new laws the state will issue, would come within this regard and hence, the problem will persist. Thus, the priority now is trying to change this regard of the state and the people in charge of it, and make it based on the idea of partnership so the civil society can do its role in real efficiency that facilitates the democratic transition process in Egypt.

Study Indexes

The percentage of males in the sample reached 58% while the percentage of females reached 42% Age:


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1- Have you volunteered before with one of the civil society institutions?

Yes No


160

The percentage of those who volunteered with the civil society was 38% of the size of the sample, while the percentage of those who did not participate was 62%

2- What is your evaluation of the role of civil society in disseminating the culture of human rights and the necessity of respecting it?

- Very Good

- Good

- Average

- Weak


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- Very Weak

The percentage of those who see that the role of civil society in disseminating the culture of human rights is weak reached 31%, while the percentage of those who see it is good reached 27%

3- What is your evaluation of the role of civil society in disseminating the principle of separation of powers?

- Very Good

- Good

- Average

- Weak

- Very Weak


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The percentage of those who see that the civil society contributes to the dissemination of the separation of powers principle in a good way reached 35%, while the percentage of those who see that the contribution is weak reached 23%.

4- Did the civil society have a role in monitoring the election process?

- Yes

- Somehow

- No


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- The percentage of those who see that the civil society has a role somehow in monitoring the election process was 37%, the percentage of those who see that there is no tangible role of the civil society organizations in this activity was nearly 36%, while the rest of the sample said that they have a role.

5- Did the civil society work on disseminating the culture of citizenship and the awareness of it?

- Yes

- Somehow

- No


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- -

The major percentage of the sample which is 41% said that the civil society does not help with disseminating the culture of citizenship and the awareness of it, while a percentage of 31% of the sample said that it somehow contributes and the rest of the percentage which is 28% came saying that the civil society has a role in this.

6- Do you see in the civil society organizations a good tool that allows you to effectively participate in affecting the decision-making process in the country?

- Yes

- Somehow

- No


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- The major percentage of the sample which is 42% saw that it is somehow possible considering the civil society organizations a good tool for affecting the decision maker in Egypt, while a percentage of 30% saw that it is indeed a good tool to pressure the decision maker. Due to these results, we see that the street does not feel largely the role of the civil society and this is because that it does not do the role requested from it in the Egyptian society and does not work on raising awareness of it, thus, we see that to activate the role of the civil society, it is a must to:

1- Increase the awareness campaigns in the Egyptian street. 2- Increase the attempts of intermingling and interaction with the citizens. 3- Staging awareness campaigns in the popular areas of gathering.

references : 1 See: Hala Gamal Thabet The Democratic Transition in Uganda (1986_1996) MA. Thesis (Cairo University: Faculty of Economics and Political Science) 1999. 2 See: Balqis Ahmed Mansour The Political Parties and the Democratic Transition in Yemen (1991_2001) MA. Thesis (Cairo University: Faculty of Economics and Political Science) 2003. 3 See: The previous reference.


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4 See: Ali Said Semaikh, The Democratic Transition in Qatar (1995_2004), Ph.D. Thesis (Cairo University: Faculty of Economics and Political Science) 2006. 5 See: Abdel Wahed Belqasry, The Problem of the Democratic Transition in Morocco and the Comparative Experiences- Portugal as a Model http://www.ahewar.org/debat/show.art.asp?aid=.33331 6 See: What is Democratic Consolidation?

7 See: Abdel Wahed Belqasry, a previously mentioned reference. 8 For more details see: Ali Sayed Semaikh, a previously mentioned reference. 9 See: The previous reference. 10 See: Ali Khalifa AlKawary and others, The Democratic Issue in The Arab World, (Beirut: Center of Arab Unity for Studies) 2002 11 See: Borhan Galion and others, The Democracy and political parties in the Arab Countries: Mutual Situations and Fears (Beirut: Center of Arab Unity for Studies), First Edition, 2011 12 Gamal Thabet, Hala, The Democratic Transition in Uganda (1986_1996) MA. Thesis (Cairo

University: Faculty of Economics and Political Science) 1999.

13 Ahmed Mansour, Balqis, The Political Parties and the Democratic Transition in Yemen

(1991_2001) MA. Thesis (Cairo University: Faculty of Economics and Political Science) 2003.

14Said Semaikh, Ali, The Democratic Transition in Qatar (1995_2004), Ph.D. Thesis (Cairo University:

Faculty of Economics and Political Science) 2006.

15Mohamed Salama, Hassan, “The Democratic Transformation in Egypt”, MA. Thesis, Faculty of

Economics and Political Science, Cairo University 1997.

16Ezz ElArab, Mohamed, “The Political Elite and the Democratic Transition in Bahrain: 1992-2002”

MA. Thesis, Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University 2008.

17ElRefaei, Naglaa, The Transformation from the Authoritative Regime in Korea Republic and

Taiwan, MA. Thesis (Cairo University: Faculty of Economics and Political Science) 1997.

18Sayed Kamel Sayed, Esraa, The Impacts of the Parliamentarian Elections in Egypt in 2005 on the

Democratic Transition Process, MA. Thesis (Cairo University: Faculty of Economics and Political

Science)

19 Shaimaa Mohey ElDin, “The Democratic Transition in Cameron Republic since 1990”, MA. Thesis,

Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University 2010.

20Saleh Ayoub, Hassan, The Horizons of the Democratic Transition in the Palestinian Political System

The Problematic Relation between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Palestinian

National Authority 1993-2003, MA. Thesis (Palestine: An-Najah University, Faculty of Post Graduate

Studies) 2006.

21 Nassr Mohamed Aref, Civilization..Culture..Civility: A study of the history of term and the

implication of concept” 1990

22 Borhan Galion, Establishing the Arab Civil Society: The role of the internal and external factors”

23 Sahar ElDesouki, The Future of Civil Society after January 25 Revolution, State Information Service

2011.

24 ElSayed Yassin and Others, The Civil Society in the Arab Nation and its Role in Achieving

25 Democracy, The Center for Arab Unity Studies Issue no. 1 2001

The Economic Reform and the Democratic

Transformation in Egypt

Basma Mahran

Ibn Khaldoun center for development studies Economic Reform and Democratization

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Introduction: The issue of the economic reform is considered one of the key issues that the

countries, which are undergoing a phase of democratic transformation, are concerned with. The economic reform is closely associated with the process of the democratic transformation; on one hand, we find that the democracy is one of the key mechanisms which work on consolidating the economic reform, as the economic reforms need effective legal systems that are capable of guaranteeing the rights and the privileges of the investors and the private sector, and curbing the prevalence of corruption in the state’s institutions, the thing that guarantee achieving a real economic development, and that is what democracy provides.

On the other hand, the process of the democratic transformation needs the economic

reform that guarantees the rise in income and the increase of the level of the economic security that individuals enjoy, the dissemination of higher education and the raise of awareness, and all of these are factors that add to the democracy, and thus, the economic development is considered a precondition of achieving the democratic transformation.1

The need for the necessity of searching for the perfect economic model, which Egypt

can follow in its march towards the democratic transformation that guarantees achieving the required economic development for achieving a real democratic transformation, emerged from here. How far is the possibility of achieving this under the current authority and the previous experiences of the countries that preceded us on that way, is the question which this paper will try to answer, as it will tackle several main axes like the following:

The economic situation in Egypt before the revolution

The economic situation in Egypt after the revolution and the most important challenges that Egypt faces

The proposed model to be applied under the previous international experiences

The expected economic system under the current authority First: The Economic Situation in Egypt before the Revolution

Egypt faces after the revolution a heavy heritage from the former reign which witnessed an unprecedented economic and social downfall in the modern age, as unemployment crises, poverty, misdistribution of income, and corruption of privatization processes and distribution of the state lands, head the general scene of the Egyptian economy in addition to what resulted in the decrease of production, the weak rate of the investment necessary for the economic development, and the weak spending on health and education to an extent that infringes the rights of the poor and the low segments of the middle class of education, healthcare and other issues.

Egypt witnessed in the last years that preceded the fall of the dictatorial regime of

Mubarak, particularly in 2010, an unusual level of disturbance in the public services that directly touch the life of people, which contradicts the official governmental statements which the government of Ahmed Nazif and behind it the official media machine of the


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regime of Mubarak, the toppled dictator, swamped Egypt with, and which all of them refer to the awesome economic performance of the government such as the economic development and the receded poverty and unemployment, and those were vulgarly contradicting the facts of the reality of poverty, misdistribution of income, unemployment and the economic deceleration2.

First: Some important indicators on the Egyptian Economy3

January 2102 2100 2101 2119 2118 Indicator

EGP 141 bn. EGP 112 bn.

EGP 99 bn. EGP 70 bn. EGP 61 bn.

Budget Deficit

EGP 157 bn. EGP 128 M EGP 103 M EGP 127 M EGP 92 bn.

Total Subsidy

EGP 1.3 tn. EGP 1.142 tn.

EGP 962 bn. EGP 820 bn.

EGP 719 bn.

Total Debt

EGP 114 bn. EGP 81 bn. EGP 73 bn. EGP 54 bn. EGP 51 bn.

Debt Service

USD 16 bn. USD 18.1 bn.

USD 36 bn. USD 31.1 bn.

USD 34.57 bn.

Foreign Fund Reserve

EGP 6.02 EGP 5.96 EGP 5.69 EGP 5.59 EGP 5.69 Dollar to Egyptian Pound Exchange Rate

16% 14% 11.1% 12.6% 12% Interest Rate

0 EGP 2.22 bn.

EGP 4.38 bn. EGP 6.71 bn.

EGP 9.5 bn.

Direct Foreign Investment and Capital

EGP 1.372 bn. EGP 1.207 bn.

EGP 1.42 bn. EGP 896 M EGP 745 M

Gross National Income

In rise 11.0% 11.6% %16.5 %11.6 Inflation Rate

Second: The Followed Economic Policy before the Revolution

The economic system that Mubarak’s regime followed was characterized by being a

selective transition to capital market economy, which takes what suits the ruling class, without taking the rest of the elements of the capital market economy system, particularly what relates to the democratic freedoms, the alternation of power and the equality of all before the law, the redistribution of income through an ascending tax system, and the effective system to support and improve the conditions of the poor and the unemployed, as those policies are considered the general framework of the economic system in President Mubarak’s reign which caused the deterioration of the economic and social life of the Egyptian citizen largely and led to the aggravation of the state of anger, the thing that led to the rise of the revolution.


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The most important aspects of the deterioration of the Egyptian economy conditions during the period proceeded the revolution can be monitored through several axes; the most important are: The Unfair Tax System:

The tax system in the capitalist regimes aims generally to have the rich and the capitalists and their commercial and industrial institutions pay the bigger part of the taxes so they comprise the greatest part of the general revenues of the state which uses them in funding its public spending. As they are the most beneficiary factions from the public spending, and starting from this truism the capitalist countries had put multi-bracket ascending tax systems with which they exempt the poor from paying taxes and impose moderated graduated taxes on the middle class that fit its financial capabilities, while they impose high moderated taxes on the upper class and on the top of it the senior capitalists and their companies in all fields. However, Mubarak’s regime did not care to apply this part of the free market system, which its followers alleged, and it breached it when it declared a law of taxes in 2005 which is considered one of the most important milestones of the economic policy of the ruling system in Egypt. That law was tailored for the interest of the major capitalist class at the expenses of the rest of the society; for example, that law imposed taxes on the free professions and shortened the exemption period to three years that start from the beginning of practicing the profession and reduced to one year if the profession is practiced after 15 years of the graduation; this carries a real oppression to the core of the middle class which is the professionals and particularly the doctors, lawyers, engineers and the tradesmen who needed to have the exemption period doubled so their offices or clinics can establish strong bases for continuity and expansion. Also, widening the range of tax brackets and increasing their number in the law came clearly at the expenses of the justice considerations, and the worst of that law is probably its unification of the tax rate to those their annual income reaches LE 40,000 with those whose their incomes or profits are more than that amount even with dozen billions of pounds.

Moreover, that law came to encourage a certain kind of investment at the expenses of

the more important other kinds, as it exempted the shares and bonds profits from taxes which helped escalating stock house speculation although this kind of investment is where local and foreign interlopers spread, those who are ready to destroy the stability of the economy to achieve exceptional profits. Also there are no taxes on profits transfer by foreigners from the Egyptian stock house to abroad, the thing that helped the outflow of capitals to abroad without getting the Egyptian economy benefit from them.

It really seems strange that who risk their money and establish an industrial,

agricultural or commercial project pay 20% of taxes on their profits, while who speculate at the stock house, which is a parasitic activity at the most, get exempted from taxes.

Thus, and as a result to that unfair law, the vast majority of the tax receipts come from

the middle class or from the general rights of the poor, and that appears clearly on the state’s general balance sheets which means that the poor and the middle class are those who fund the vast majority of the public spending to become more miserable while the senior capitalists become richer.


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That’s why this unfair situation, which worsens the income distribution rather than

improves it, must be changed and this can be achieved through changing the current tax system and undertaking an ascending multi-bracket system following the applied systems at the developed and developing capitalist countries, together with the necessity of raising the minimum tax exemption to at least LE 20,000 in commensuration with the high living costs, especially that the dependency rate in Egypt is high and reaches 3.5 persons to 1 working person, in addition to moving this minimum and the others of the different factions annually by the same percentage of the real inflation rate.

Deterioration of the Commodity Economy Sectors:

The sectors of the commodity economy (agriculture-industry-construction-electricity- mining, oil and gas) represent the base of any modern economy and which without it the economy becomes prone to any external dangers.

The sectors of the commodity economy have been exposed during the last 40 years to

harmful changes that made the Egyptian state as a whole under the pressures of the external powers and their local extensions of the money and business men class especially the faction of the importers and the local agents (compradors), as their interests and impact on the economic, political and legislative decisions making process intensified to commensurate with their financial gains regardless the consequent harms of this policy on both the short and long terms4.

The extent of the deterioration of these sectors can be monitored as follows:

- Agriculture Sector: this sector was exposed to deliberate negligence by lack of providing the required bank credit for developing the production tools, the necessary guiding care or the appropriate fertilizers and pesticides. Moreover, a group of negative procedures were taken which eventually led to decreasing the average of our self-sufficiency of all the biological food commodities to less than 45%, as according to the data of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), the percentage of self-sufficiency of meat decreased from 88% in 2001 to reach 74% in 2006 and the dependence on importing through certain companies increased, and what makes it worse is that the percentage of the self-sufficiency of beans is decreasing at the same time from nearly 65% in 2001 to 43% in 20065.

Furthermore, the agricultural area shrank by granting the reclaimable lands to money and businessmen who transformed them to touristic and personal resorts, also the lands of the new agricultural projects (Toshka – Owainat – Paris Oasis – Salam Canal in Sinai) were granted to Arab and Egyptian investors who harmed the agricultural future of Egypt and made it prone to several dangers. All these had led ultimately to serious outcomes like the exposure to crises in bread, the main food of the poor Egyptians; industry is not the least but the submission to limited groups of importers who did not hesitate to import the worst kind of wheat in order to intensify their gains and profits (which were estimated annually by more than LE 500 M during the last five years only), this


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also reflected negatively on the increase of the trade balance deficit and the grow of the receipt of our imports of the food material to exceed USD 25 bn. in the last year (2010).6

- Industry Sector (privatization policies): the Egyptian national industry was exposed to wastage through the privatization policies which started in Egypt in 1991; the privatization program passed, with regards to the number of companies that were submitted to the program, through three main stages illustrated in the following shape:

We find that during the first phase: the official call focused on the necessity of

giving the private sector an opportunity to participate with the public sector in the development plans, and by this the share of the private sector in the industrial production increased from 25% in 1979 to nearly 70% in 2009/2010 and the banks, the governmental and non-governmental banking sectors safes kept opening to fund that sector, so the loans granted to it increased from LE 32 M in 1970 (which was not more than 3.7% of the total credit facilities granted by all the banks) to LE 798 M in 1979 ( to reach 15% of the total granted credit facilities) and by 2010 the private sector or what is called the business private sector was acquiring more than LE 350 bn. ( which represents more than 60% of the credit facilities granted by all the banks) and the implication of industry which is funded through this sector nor how far is its participation in building a modern economy was not taken into consideration as the private industrial sector did not get but less than 20% of that credit while the larger percentage went for funding the sectors of tourism, trade, finance and services sectors. That’s why we find that the dominant pattern of the private investment stayed, in fact, away from industry so the Egyptian economic structure remained fragile and prone to the universal, regional or even the local fluctuations and trembling7.

During the second phase: the industrial and non-industrial public sectors suffered

from a deliberate banking uptightness as the government intended to weaken the companies of this sectors and cause them losses in order to sell them and achieve personal gains for the senior rulers and the executives, instead of trying to set them right.

Third Phase: the phase of selling and privatization which comprised all the destinies

of the state and the Egyptian society of industrial and non-industrial companies and from bank to insurance companies to trade companies and distribution outlets within the biggest dismantling process of the Egyptian state’s capabilities.

2004)-Third Stage: (1999 A large increase of the total

number of the companies

used within the privatization

process to reach 194

companies.

98)-Second Phase (1996 Increase of the total

number of the companies

used within the

privatization process to

reach 118 companies.

95)-First Phase (1992 Implementation of the first

privatization processes as

three companies were

totally sold.


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Afterwards, and since July 2004, the privatization program started to be called

“State-Owned Assets Management Program”, and the stated goal of this program was expanding the base of the public business sector companies’ ownership and the participation of the private sector, developing the performance of companies according to the restructure program and handling the unused assets and applying the governance rules on the state-owned companies. However, privatization did not consider the social dimension of the process of selling the state-owned assets and caused thousands of workers to lose their jobs; it also focused on selling the good assets which their management could be improved in order to multiply their profits instead of selling them, and neglected the losing assets which the program was supposed to handle8.

Moreover, the processes of evaluating the assets were exposed to the criticism of the

specialists in both the privatization and assets management programs, also the fixed assets of the state were squandered by selling vast areas of the state lands to non-Egyptians. Reality proved the failure of the assets management program and the proof was the stumbled deal of selling “Omar Effendi” and the government’s tendency, back then, to promote a new program that was no of economic worth, publicly known by “Public Ownership Shares” program. Furthermore, the monopolistic attitude rose within this sector, and the government and the businessmen with it made efforts to raise the prices and impose taxes on the ordinary citizen. To really benefit from the privatization program in supporting the private sector without contravention of the development requirement, an authority for managing the state-owned assets must be established in affiliation to the Cabinet, which aims at putting a clear plan of transforming the bad and troubled assets to good and productive ones within a known time range together with restricting and reclassifying the state’s assets and following assets management programs that consider not wasting the fixed assets and privatizing the management rather than the ownership9.

- Construction and Building Sector: Despite the vitality of this sector and the size of the huge

governmental and the private investments employed in, what happened from corruption and spoilage within it through the enormous commissions and bribes had led to the waste of huge resources from the Egyptian society which could have been used in other developmental fields, as the amount of the commissions and bribes wasted and the leakage that happened and reached nearly LE 40 bn. (nearly 10% of the business amount) went, during that gloomy period of Egypt’s history, to the pockets and the accounts of limited number of senior contractors, ruling men, administrators and the consultancy offices that are close to the rule and the administration and their number does not exceed few hundreds10.

- Electricity and Power Sector: where having a broker between the Egyptian governmental petroleum corporation and the importers of oil and natural gas, was introduced, as what happened at the East Mediterranean Gas Company owned allegedly by Hussein Salem, the direct partner of the toppled president Hosni Mubarak, who made Egypt lose nearly from USD 5 to 8 bn. yearly since 2001 till this day, which is equivalent to USD 45 to 70 bn. that were enough to achieve a quality shift in the Egyptian life. Also what happened previously in “Midor” project which caused a loss to the Egyptian National Bank and the Petroleum


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Corporation that exceeds LE one bn. to the interest of Hussein Salem and “Mirhav” the Israeli company11. The Disruption in the Wages Distribution System:

The distribution of the primary income is determined in any country by the wages

system, while the redistribution and improvement of the income is done through the systems of taxes, subsidy, transactions, and the free or semi-free public services.

The distribution of income in Egypt has worsened to the extent that the majority of

citizens do not sense any fruits of the economic development, and that is because the inefficient wages system which gives the employers the free hand to determine the wages of their workers, under a farcical minimum of the monthly wage which is LE 118 and the lack of a ceiling of wages in the public sector, the public economic organizations and the governmental body that makes some employees get a comprehensive income that reaches dozens of thousands pounds monthly and equals thousands of doubles of the minimum wage. The most recent statistics indicate that the average of the weekly wage in the private sector reached nearly LE 214 which is approximately LE 11.13 thousands annually in 2007, and due to that the number of employees in the private sector in the mentioned year reached about 15.1 M persons, the total of what they earned reached LE 168 bn. The average of the weekly wage in the public sector and the government reached LE 308 which is LE 16.02 thousands annually, and due to that the number of employees there reached 6.4 M persons according to the data of the statistical bulletin of the Central Bank (April 2010, p. 118), the total of what they earned reached LE 102.5 bn. and thus, the total of those who have the rights of work (who earn their living from their work and wages) has reached nearly LE 270.5 bn.. Furthermore, as the gross domestic product reach approximately LE 895.5 bn. in 2007/2008, the total share of those who have the rights of work reaches about 30.2% only to nearly 69.8% of those who have the ownership rights, given that the share of those who have the rights of work from the gross domestic product was 48.5% in 1989 and the share of those who have the ownership rights was 51.5% in the same year. This deterioration of the share of those who have the rights of work and who make life with their work and efforts reflects the increase of the inefficient income distribution which led to increasing the poverty of the poor and the wealth of the rich12.


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Wasting the State’s Resources (subsidy policies):

The total of the subsidy allocations and the transactions in the general budget of the state of the fiscal year 2010/2011 reached nearly LE 115.92 bn. which is equivalent to nearly 8.4% of the gross domestic product estimated for the mentioned fiscal year which is nearly LE 1378 bn. Egypt is considered the less spending country in the world on the subsidy and transactions as a percentage of the gross domestic product, but what is more important than this is the structure of the spending which indicates that the vast majority of it is deliberately allocated for the large capitalist class and not for the poor and the low factions of the middle class as supposed. The following illustration shows the beneficiary society factions of the subsidy13:

3.85

27.26

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Precent for the lowest tenth… Percent of the top tenth…

Income Distribution in 2010


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Moreover, we find that the total of the power subsidy allocations reaches nearly LE 74 bn. in 2010/2011 budget, and that this large subsidy of power materials goes at the most to the big capitalism of the owners of the iron, concrete, fertilizers and aluminum companies and all the power excessively consuming companies in addition to the equipments, machines, transportation means and the bakeries. Such subsidy would be accepted if the companies have sold their production with low prices in commensuration with what they receive of subsidy and with the levels of wages and incomes in Egypt, but they sell their productions with the universal prices and much higher as what happens with regard to the concrete which the foreigners own the vast majority of its companies which they bought from the public sector within the privatization program deals that were not above suspicion, and as what happens with regard to the iron and fertilizers as well.

In the time when the allocations of the petroleum materials subsidy that most of it

is directed to the big capitalism and the higher levels of the middle class rose, the allocations of the supply goods subsidy directed to the poor and the majority of the middle class declined from LE 21.1 bn. in 2008/2009 budget to LE 14.1 bn. in 2009/2010, to LE 13.6 bn. in the budget project in 2010/201114.

In return the exports subsidy, which is provided for the senior exporters, lasted at

the level of LE bn. in 2010/2011 budget, although all the criticism directed to it such as the lack of clear rules of it and that a handful of politically powerful exporters and some cooperating capitalists with their Israeli counterparts in are the ones who gets it.

Moreover, the value of Upper Egypt development subsidy reached nearly LE 200 M,

the low income people’s housing subsidy reached LE one bn., the medicines and health insurance subsidy reached nearly LE 421 M, and the farmers and the agricultural crops subsidy reached nearly LE 2.2 bn. and the agricultural capitalism gets a big part of it. Which means that the subsidy that a handful of politically powerful exporters is more than the total of the subsidy of peasants, medicines, health insurance, low income people’s housing and Upper Egypt development15.

Corruption and Power-Wealth Marriage16:

31%

69%

Subsidy Division

Petroleum materialssubsidy

Food and other thingssubsidy


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Corruption and favoritism are defined by the exploiting of the state’s authorities in issuing laws, resolutions and regulations in order to achieve personal interests of a certain group of the politically privileged by conveying it general state-owned assets or distinguished positions in the market, and this happens at the aim of the personal enrichment of the members of the political systems and the businessmen related to them or at the aim of reproducing the political system. Favoritism in the Egyptian case appears in four ways as follows:

1- Sultanic Circles: they mean the extended networks in the settings of the officials and

businessmen and the revolved around the family members of the former president Hosni Mubarak, as in this context Mubarak and his sons Alaa and Gamal used their power and the power of their father officially and unofficially to issue resolutions of privatizing the general assets or grant competitive distinguished positions in the market for the interests of their close allies at the aim of the mutual enrichment. The grounds of Palm Hills and Madinaty issues had revealed the interference of Alaa and Gamal Mubarak using their authority to allocate state-owned lands illegally and they made several direct financial gains and the former Minister of Housing Mohamed Ibrahim Soliman helped them with that. Appears from here the pattern where the official becomes grateful to his post and getting promoted in it and what result of privileges, and to his unofficial connections with the members of the president’s family in a way that is based on the mix up between the official and the unofficial17.

2- Mamluki Feudalism: where certain bodies dominate the economy sectors and take advantage of their authorities to achieve gains, and this attitude was taken in Egypt by the army, police and the Intelligence18.

3- Oligarchic Pattern: means the reach of the businessmen to the political power by parliament seats or government portfolios using their economic resources. In this context, the wealth leads to power and later the power is used to gain more wealth, and that what happened with Ahmed Ezz who was so close to Gamal Mubarak and whose economic and political shares were associated with the inheritance project that aimed at stepping Gamal Mubarak up to inherit his father. Ezz’s rise in the constituencies of the National Party and parliament through his post as the head of the economic committee in 2005 was concurrent with his acquisition of ElDekhila for Iron and Steel Company through a deal that its nullity was rendered after the regime fall. Ezz managed, by taking advantage of his influence, to impact the drafting and amendment of the anti-monopoly law although he himself was repeatedly accused of practicing monopoly in the market of iron and steel19.

4- Junior Partners Form: this form is based between the local or foreign private companies on one hand and the senior governmental bureaucracy men on the other hand to achieve personal gains through allocating general assets or enjoying a distinguished position in the market (monopolies, licenses and general bids) and in return, the achieved gains are distributed between the two parties20. In general, the networks of favoritism in Egypt consist of three main components which are:


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- Senior governmental officials and their families, starting from Mubarak’s family and his relatives and passing by the important minister and the leaders of the ruling National Party.

- Businessmen and their families who managed to establish giant companies that work in various sectors; they are very close to the state’s body through connections that are characterized by favoritism, and several senior businessmen were employed in executives posts in the economic team of Nazif’s government and others were employed in leading positions in the ruling National Party and the People’s Assembly.

- Foreign and Arab capital which was merged successfully in the local corruption networks through circulating the general assets by bribes and the participation of the local favorites21.

The Repercussions of the Economic Situation on the Egyptian Citizen:

The UNDP report, which was issued under the title “Development Challenges in the Arab Countries 2100: Towards Developmental Countries in the Arab Region”, revealed that Egypt came at the top of the Arab countries where the human poverty is high, to hold the second rank at the level of 22 countries in the human development index prepared by the United Nations, which measures the deprivation the citizens suffer in health, education and living standard. The United Nations considered the poverty which the Egyptians suffer from is bigger than one can expect with regard to the individual share of the gross domestic product in the country. This matter began to clearly appear since 1997, according to the estimations of the international institution which showed that by looking to the individual share of the gross domestic product in Egypt in 1997, Egypt should have been on point 33 of the human development index yet it was ten ranks lower, which was the situation that got worse in 2007 as Egypt should have been on point 23.5 but by then the human development indications decreased to point 15.8. Thus, the more the number of points achieved by a country on the index declined, the more this reflects how far the deprivation and poverty that the country citizens suffer from22.

Moreover, the Egyptians suffer from deprivation of the free health services as the

general spending on health reaches 1.4% of the Egyptian gross domestic product in comparison with nearly 5.8% at the universal average. They are also deprived of free educational services under a low public spending that reaches 3.4% of the gross domestic product in comparison of nearly 4.65% at the universal average and nearly 5.2% in the region of Middle East and North Africa, the thing that is considered eventually a kind of deprivation of the educational and health qualifying of the poor and the low factions of the middle class, and that deprives them from many chances of work, participation in the economic activity and earning a living respectfully and pushes them to a gulf of deprivation, economic marginalization and poverty23.

Furthermore, the percentage of unemployment in Egypt developed since 2001 until

it reached 9%, then it reached its highest percentage in 2005 which was 11.2% and then it decreased again to reach 8.9% in 2001. It reached also 25% among youth. The following table shows the different percentages of unemployment during the last years24:


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Also the percentage of the Egyptians living below the line of poverty had developed;

the studies indicate that the percentage in 1995 was almost 22.5% of the total population then it decreased to 16.7% in 1998 and then it increased again from 19.6% in 2005to 22% in 2008 and then decreased to 20% in 201125.

In addition, almost 10 M of the people are diagnosed with cancers and kidney

failure because of the food contaminated with the cancerous fertilizers which the former Minister of Agriculture Youssef Wally, currently in prison, imported, and the drinking water that is mixed with sewage water while it was supposed that a part of the American aid would be allocated to develop the infrastructure including connecting drinking water and sewage networks to the villages and hamlets of Egypt, however, this did not happen as the money of the aid and also the money of the Egyptian national income used to go to the accounts of Mubarak and his associates. This was revealed by the reports of the regulators which confirmed that Mubarak and his regime men smuggled round USD 225 bn. outside Egypt and left more than a half of the number of Egyptians which is estimated by 82 M live in the cemeteries, eat the leftovers thrown by the rich in the garbage cans and drink water contaminated with sewage26.

All these repercussions would have consolidated with the other social and political

bad conditions which the Egyptian people was suffering from to produce a status of public anger and wrath appeared in the form of repetitive waves of protests and sit-ins that were dispersed by the government promises to fulfill the people’s demands, yet this was not accomplished which led to a state of explosion resulted in January 25th Revolution that ended with overthrowing the Egyptian regime and toppling the former President Hosni Mubarak after he stayed 30 years in power. Second: The Economic Situation in Egypt After the Revolution (The most important challenges and goals):

The Egyptian economy is passing through a critical period, at the time that countries are transforming to democracy. This period is accompanied by several negative impacts

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and repercussions that reached the different activities of the Egyptian Economy, as we find that the first year after the Egyptian revolution had witnessed a decrease in the credit rating of Egypt by five times which means the inability of the state to fulfill its commitments to others, and this according to the point of view of the international organizations that decreased the credit rating of Egypt due to the state of uncertainty resulted from the state of the political instability.

Many of the Egyptian economic performance indicators had declined largely after

January 25 Revolution affected mainly by the weakness of production that stopped during the last period, and the state of security chaos. The production started to gradually return, but in certain sectors that might not affect the economic growth largely.

Moreover, the balance of payments witnessed a slope as a result of the decrease in

the Egyptian exports and the increase in the Egypt imports from abroad, and the decrease in the general income from tourism which decreased from USD 14 bn. yearly to nearly USD 2.8 bn. only during the end of 2011 as a result of the security chaos that Egypt witnessed during the last period. Also the value of the Egyptian currency opposite to the dollar decreased by nearly 12%, and the Egyptian economy was affected by the increase of the external debts from USD 34 to 36 bn. and that of the internal debt to approximately LE 100 bn., furthermore, the Egyptian stock house lost LE 200 bn.27. The official reserves had decreased by a percentage of USD 9 bn. during the first half of 2011 and it is expected that Egypt might face a gap in the external fund by USD 11 bn. in the second half of 2011 and the first half of 2012.

Although the decline of production on the local level, there are some resources that

rose noticeably; one of the most important of which is the transfers of the Egyptians abroad that rose from USD 10.46 to 13.14 bn. by the end of last June in comparison with last year’s same period, and also the revenues of Suez Canal that rose to USD 4.0 bn. comparing to USD 4.5 bn. Then, there comes the severe decline in the revenues of tourism and the direct foreign investment. The decline of the direct foreign exchange reserve declined to less than USD 25 bn. in comparison with USD 36 bn. in last December28.

In general, we find that this economic crisis that Egypt is passing through is a

natural matter that accompanies the process of the democratic transformation we are in course for now, and that a successful transition process could be easy through a sound economy that achieves an economic welfare for the citizens. For this to happen, there are several economic challenges that Egypt must overcome at the aim of achieving that desired economic welfare.

The most important economic challenges that the Egyptian economy is facing are represented in the following:

Lack of investment:

This is due to the state of the political and economic uncertainty that Egypt witnessed after the revolution and led to the decrease of the direct foreign investment by 68% in


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2010/2011 as the rate of investment decreased to reach 17% in 2010/2011 after it was 22% in 2009/2010, and thus, the increase of the size of investment, attracting the businessmen and maintaining the levels of production and operation are considered one of the most important challenges that the Egyptian economy is facing and what need several steps at the aim of improving the climate of investment29.

Thus, there are several procedures the government must take that could improve the

climate of investment; the most important are:

- Disregarding the malicious complaints against the honorable investors to help them with investment and production, as the large number of the alleged criminal investigations that currently exceed 6000 cases led to creating a hostile environment against the private sector investments.

- An urgent need of lightening the strict systems that hinder the new investing activity and the commercial initiatives, as opening a new commercial project in Egypt needs long time, bureaucratic steps and a cost equivalent to 6.3% of the individual’s income, so those systems must be changed immediately in case providing real opportunities of entering the job market is wanted. There is a pressing need of reformative procedures to facilitate the practice of business as the costs, time, required procedure to open a commercial project should be decreased and the minimum capital requirements should be shrunk to just a symbolic value30.

- Engaging the unofficial sector as it represents almost 40% of the Egyptian economy; it works outside the span of law because no improvements in the business environment have been undertaken for many centuries. The improvement of the business environment and the limitation of the routine could encourage those who work in the unofficial economy to register their business and enjoy the privileges that could come with the official registration and this could also expand the tax base and truly increase the governmental revenues31.

- Doing what is necessary to facilitate the direct foreign investment which can be improved if the security situation is improved and the elected government announced its plans and economic strategies.

Implementing social justice and solving the problem of wages:

As the Egyptian economy as mentioned before suffers from a core disruption in incomes so the development considerations together with the justice are required to fix this disruption and this can be achieved through two main procedures which are the ascendancy of taxis, as mentioned before, and reducing the variance of incomes and wages by setting a minimum and maximum limit of wages on the condition that this will take place through linking between the incomes and the prices from one side and between the incomes and the productivity from the other side, as the linking between the incomes and the prices only leads to the increase of the inflated pressures and therefore the competitive capability of the local productions gets less due to the high prices. Setting a minimum limit of wages takes place through several measures, the most important are32:


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- This limit should not be less than the national poverty line of the state. - This limit should not be more than 50% of the general average of the monthly wages on the

national level. - This limit should be modified by time so the living standard of workers could be

maintained.

Abolishment of unemployment and poverty:

Generally, poverty fighting and lightening its pressure are completely possible matters even under the social economic systems that poverty is its main product, and this if those systems followed effective policies to achieve a strong economic development by inciting saving and investment, corruption fighting, massing the state and the society’s energies side by side with regard to this and developing the banking policies to be suitable with achieving these goals. Moreover, the restructuring of the public spending and employing it in a way that helps create new and permanent job opportunities in industry, agricultural and the real services, is a necessary process to stop the premonitory increase of the unemployment rate.

The high rate of unemployment in Egypt is considered a materialization of the weak

rate of investment there, as the new investments and the expansion in the existing ones are the main factor of determining the movement of operation and the level of unemployment in any economy. The rate of investment in Egypt reached nearly 18.7%, 20.9%, 22.4% and 19.3% in the fiscal years 2005/2006, 2006/2007, 2007/2008, 2008/2009 respectively, and nearly 16.9% in the first half of the fiscal year 2009/2010 noting that the corresponding rate is approximately 30% in the total of the low and medium-income countries, approximately 40% in the countries of East Asia and the Pacific Ocean, and 44% in China, which are the countries that have a will of achieving a real strong development.

Consequently, the increase of the investment rates through setting an economic

environment and restraining the bureaucracy hindering the economic activities could provide new job opportunities and thus contribute to the abolishment of the unemployment problem and the high rates of poverty33.

Returning the whole balances in the Egyptian economy with regard to: - The balance among the sectors of the goods production and the sectors of the trade and

the financial and social services. - The balance between the physical economy and the financial economy. - The balance among the business markets and the capital, goods and services markets. - The balance of Egypt’s international economic dealings among the regions and the

different areas. - Getting rid of the monopolist feature in the Egyptian economy and fostering the

competition on the fields of production, distribution and trade.


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Other general goals34:

- Although making major achievements concerning the economic liberation and the rise of the economic development indicators, the efforts of reform faced the challenge of the political stagnation and corruption which deprived the poor factions in the Egyptian society from collecting the fruits of development, thus, corruption fighting is one of the priorities that the current government must bear in mind in order to achieve any economic reform and therefore a sustainable economic development.

- Also, the political reform could boost the investors’ confidence and secure the achieving of development characterized by sustainability and justice in order to achieve welfare for an increasing number of the population in Egypt.

- Increasing the efficiency of the corporations, applying the rational governance and transparency, applying the law, and fighting the bureaucracy and corruption.

- Rationalizing the governmental spending which carries the reform of the subsidy system so it can be directed to the deserved in a better way and consequently the abolishment of wasting the spending, and the achieving of justice in a better way.

- The efforts of improving the performance of the public sector must continue, especially the state-owned projects.

- It is important to move forward with the plan of activating the partnership between the public and the private sectors to decrease the pressures on the general budget and engage the private sector in the infrastructure and the capacity building.

- Creating more job opportunities to support the productive activity in the purpose of helping the low income-people not to depend continuously on the subsidy. Third: The Egyptian Economy under the Previous Experiences of the Countries

The process of transition to democracy in all the world’s countries is characterized by a great deal of complexity from one hand, and by the multiplicity of its channels and the clear difference of its results, from the other hand. This depends largely on the level of the socioeconomic development in the meant country, and on the prevalent regional and universal circumstances at the historic moment when this transformation happens. Thus, it can be said that the experience of a country in the transformation is not mechanically transmittable or applicable in another country, however, examining the previous experiences of the countries help us understand the process of the democratic transition and hence, we can avoid the mistakes made by those countries, and benefit from the lessons they learnt35. Thus, this axis tackles the experiences of some countries that managed to achieve an economic reform during its march towards democracy, at the aim of suggesting some policies that could be adopted in Egypt to achieve the desired democratic transition.

The precedent countries faced several challenges during their march towards

democracy and they managed to overcome them through several procedures that led to achieving stability and economic development that helped with efficiently consolidating the democracy.


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First: Chile Experience: Chile took several procedures at the aim of achieving the economic development as

it was suffering from a high rate of unemployment, decreased investments and increased percentage of poor which reached 40% of the population, and at the same time when the rate of inflation was almost 30%, so it focused on two main issues which are: achieving an economic development and a social justice. With regard to the economic development; it did the following36:

Economic openness to expand the market scale through bilateral and multilateral economic agreements.

Supporting exports.

Applying flexible policies pertaining to currency price.

Encouraging the direct foreign investment.

Establishing a partnership between the public and private sectors in the field of the main structure.

Reforming and building a sound financial system to manage the public debt, regulate the banking dealings and increase the foreign exchange reserves.

Supporting the public sector and fighting the monopoly.

Encouraging the medium and small industries.

Encouraging the fast growth of the internal demand.

Reforming the tax system.

The corruption of the selling processes of the public sector companies was handled by: - Forming parliamentarian investigation committees. - Developing a system to improve the monitoring, a draft that guarantees transparency and

press censorship. - Developing a clear system for accountability and reform the general administration so

performing its tasks efficiently and effectively can be guaranteed. Moreover, Chile placed the administration of the financial sectors and the budget

under the monitoring of the executive bodies, while with regard to the financial inflation it exerted great efforts in the reform of the financial system and achieved positive results. All over 16 years of dictatorship, the economic development rate was revolving round 3.1% annually and that rate was multiplied three times since the beginning of the reform process which let the multiplication of the gross domestic product and the decrease of the percentage of the poor to 3.6%, and this all helped increasing the internal demand which gave the development a push37. Social Justice Procedures:

Concerning the social protection and equitability, Chile has supported the low income-families and funded their activities since the beginning; it focused on that because it is usual in the policies focusing on supporting the medium-income families. Furthermore, Chile put ambitious programs to generalize and disseminate education, provided breakfast meals and food for poor students which encouraged them to join schools and extended the duration of the school day till 4:00pm so the students can spend longer time in a proper and favorable environment rather than spending their time in poor environments. It also


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allocated large investments for the local health services and housing planning on a wide scale, and with regard to the minimum limit of wages, Chile has faced a big challenge from the conservative factions who said that increasing it will lead to the prevalence of unemployment, however, this in fact did not reflect negative impacts on the economy but the economic sector started to grow. There is another key point which is that the social development cannot be achieved without a tax reform as the social program cannot be put into effect while the taxes on the income of the institutionalized entities and the high-income social factions are low38. The Social and Economic Policies:

Providing support to the exports and encouraged the public and private foreign investment and the partnership in the general operations projects.

Encouraging the private investment and at the same time preventing the concentration of resources.

Increasing the internal demand.

Supporting the low income-families and not the individuals.

Expanding the capacity of the educational system, providing breakfast and lunch meals to school students and extending the duration of the school day.

Supporting the local health services and the housing.

Setting a minimum limit of wages.

Accomplishing a tax reform.

In spite of the general trend of limiting the number of the state-owned economic corporations, companies such as: copper and petroleum which are of great importance to the Chilean economy remained owned by the state. Second: Indonesia Experience39: Economic development procedures:

Taking immediate decisions to improve the total economy indicators, and stop the fleeing of investments to abroad.

Setting policies accompanied by measurable policies to abolish corruption.

Issuing an antimonopoly law.

Forming an independent committee assigned with insuring the straight practices in the business sector at the aim of curbing the existing monopolies and preventing the emergence of new ones. Third: Brazil Experience: Social justice procedures:

There were four challenges facing the transformation process, three of them are of an economic nature which are: the necessity of achieving the economic stability, the problem of inequality and it is considered the more difficult and complicated problem among the mentioned challenges, this problem was intensifying at the same time when the


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Gini coefficient in Brazil was decreasing, which means that the inequality problem is not just an economic but also a social and political problem as the Brazilian society is multiracial, the thing that is one of the causes of the inequality problem.

Brazil has accomplished a lot of progress in this arena but it would not have

succeeded in this during Lula’s rule without what it achieved of economic stability as there is some sort of relation between the social inequality and the political instability. In fact, democracy is not only regarding principles but also the mechanisms which mean the systems of elections, voting and disciplining or controlling the election campaigns to insure the integrity of the election process and the constitution. Also policies that ensure the redistribution of incomes and the increase of the governmental spending were adopted, in addition to adopting the policies of positive discrimination40.

Moreover, the Brazilian president Lula Da Silva established a program for aids based

on giving financial aids to the poor families to raise their standard and improve their living, on the basis that the poor family is defined by the family that its income is less than USD 28 monthly. What is important is linking these aids with strict conditions that include the commitment of the family to send its children to school and get the serum and vaccines for them regularly, and after making sure of the adherence of the family to the previous conditions, the family gets an aid of average USD 87 monthly which equals 40% of the minimum limit of wages in the country; the aid is paid for every child with a maximum of three children, which means 64 M persons equal to nearly 33% of the Brazilian people. The benefit of the poor families from the program can be explained as follows: it was not a magic project to completely abolish poverty but it was a realistic project which led to tangible outcomes such as the ability of living better, getting food and owning some durable goods for the first time in their life41.

So Lula’s programs did not completely abolish the poverty but it moved millions of

families from the poverty zone to the zone of the “new middle class”, as Cetelem Association that is specialized in the consumers research mentions that more than 23 M persons rose from the classes (D) and (F) to class (C) which its income ranges from USD 457 to 753 monthly42. The economic reform procedures:

Brazil implemented an austerity program according to the plan of the International Monetary Fund at the aim of fixing the budget deficit and abolishing the crises of trust, and what is important that when Lula assumed power he did not recede with this program that his precedent Cardoso had already started, but he went on with it against the expectations and the fears of the higher classes, as he resorted to the clarity and honesty, announced that the austerity policy is the first and perfect solution for the economy problems and called for the support of the poor classes and patience on these policies and he gained them because of his popularity and successive successes43.

The austerity program led to decreasing the budget deficit and increasing the credit rating of the country and thus, this contributed strongly to the abolishment of the mistrust


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in the Brazilian economy and based on this, Brazil received nearly USD 200 bn. of direct investments from 2004 till 2011, in addition 1.5 M foreigners entered to reside in Brazil in 2011 and almost 2 M Brazilian immigrants returned to the country. Those investments had led to the rise of the productive energy of the country which means providing new job opportunities and hence, contributing to solving the problem of poverty, and after the IMF was refusing to lend Brazil at the end of 2002, it became now, after eight years of working in Lula’s economic program, indebted to Brazil by USD 04 bn.44

Moreover, the policies of lending and providing the credit facilities as the interest rate was decreased from 13.25% to 8.75% which facilitated the lending for the junior investors and hence, this led to the facilitation of building small projects, providing job opportunities and raise the level of the productive energy and the growth, which generally contributed to solving the problem of poverty.

Figures show that the income of half the world’s population increased during the

last decade by 68%, in addition to the expansion in each of the agriculture, the oil extraction and the mining due to what Brazil has of huge natural abilities including vast agricultural lands, rivers, abundance of rain and a climate that made it produce distinguished agricultural crops highly demanded and not available in other countries like coffee and kinds of fruit, and also huge mine and oil resources, and expand in industry as the economic policies directed in this regard to be concerned with two sections of the industry, the first is the simple industries that are based on the raw materials like metals mining, food and leather industries and textile.

While the other section is the advanced technical industries, as the country took

large steps in the last decade with the industries of cars and planes; one of the most important examples is Embraer Company which is considered the third biggest commercial planes manufacturing company after Airbus and Boing, and the biggest exporting company in Brazil, in addition to promoting the tourism sector45.

The proposed economic model for the upcoming period In the light of the local and universal experiences, the economic system suggested

for Egypt during the upcoming period is the market system together with the reorganizing of the state system so it does not leave the scene completely, as the first thing should be concerned again is the mix up that happened to us between the idea of the state’s gradual exit from the economic activity to clear the way for the private sector, and what resulted in shrinking its role in managing and organizing the society, the matter that made the undertaking of free economy policies associates with the aspects of the state’s weakness in general and its refraining to confront the issue of development. This is because that under an economy of a market that is still growing, and with incomplete mechanisms and unrefined rules, the definitive results is a large gap in the development requirements that neither the private sector can fill nor the state wants to confront it; this gap is what makes the economic development possible but without resulting in societal and human development. In other words, building a free economy requires a strong, effective and intervening state as all the known success stories that rose on the base of a free economy


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in the last decade confirm, such as Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Mexico, Turkey and others which would not be able to advance without a strong state that is doing a positive role in development46. This all is not contradicting encouraging the free economy, the private sector, nor the investment and trade but they are the terms of success in it. The state here intervenes in:

1- Regulating the acquirement of lands and putting an end to the continuous confiscation of

them, it intervenes in regulating the private investment in the education and health instead of leaving them to the adventurers, in applying the law firmly and quickly and in investing in the development of Upper Egypt and other disadvantaged areas. All this is not a return to the centrally planned economy but it is the only guarantee of the success in the partnership between the public and the private to achieve the desired development47.

2- The state must intervene also to regulate the markets in order to prevent the use of power, protect consumers, support the capability of the workers negotiating force in its contractual relation with the capital, guarantee the fair distribution of the development fruits, and apply tax policies and general spending that consist with interests of the poor and undertake deep reforms to the tax system to reach a better allocation of the subsidy so it can reach the deserved and to absorb the citizens in the decision making process with regard to the budget matters48.

3- Also there is a need to redefine the private sector in Egypt and this by transforming it from a sector where a little minority enjoys the governmental privileges (80% of the market in concentrated in the hands of a little handful of individuals), to a renovated competitive sector that can play a constructive role in the new economy which is creating job opportunities49.

4- In addition, a special care should be directed to the very low saving rates or dependence on the foreign investments will be a must to compensate the weakness of the local investments, in order to achieve an economic development. The state will also need the free trade to expand the scale of its markets and there is an urgent need of investing in the human capital especially in the circles of the poor by providing the productive and decent job apprentices for them to develop their skills. Moreover, there is a necessity to face corruption and determine those who are involved in it and interrogate them in a way that does not threat the economy, works on encouraging the expansion of the job opportunities range, and does not scare the investors or frustrate the companies that contribute to the economy.

5- The new Egyptian state must solve the problems pertaining to the social justice, yet this should not be done away from considering the rights of the rich classes not only because they are a part of the state’s citizens that has all the rights, but also from the sense that protecting the investors’ rights and the local and foreign businessmen led to the revival of the markets and the increase of the job opportunities which is eventually for the good of the economic development generally and the improvement of the condition of the poor classes specially, but with confirming that the necessity of having programs for the social aid beside direct decisions from the government to raise the minimum limit of the wages


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cannot be disregarded to guarantee that the economic development is not for the good of the rich only and results in widening the gap between the rich and the poor like what happened in most of the world’s countries since the 91s, where the new liberal thoughts introduced by Chicago school and adopted by several countries of the third world appeared and prevailed, and on the basis of them Egypt adopted the model of privatization and the policies of the free market in addition to the corruption of the special unique nature, and eventually Egypt lived during the last two decades a state of the degradation of the middle class, the drift of millions to the rank of the poor class and the provocative wide gap between the rich and the poor, until the social justice and the earning of a decent living were one of the January Revolution demands. What is important here in Egypt is not to fall in the mistake of the complete inverse to the opposite and resorting to repeat the mistakes of nationalization and the apostasy from the economics of the free market as whole, but rationalize these policies and purify them from the suspicion of corruption and personal gaining, and we have an example to follow of the leftist Lula in Brazil who was not brutal in using the socialist policies50.

6- The programs of social aid must be conditional as they are in Brazil, where the citizens do not receive this aid in case they do not commit to send their children to school or give them the preventive serums. Thus, the goal of the program was only to help the families to be able to leave their children learn and not force them to leave school for work, and here lies the real benefit which is redirecting the children of the poor so the poverty and illness will not be hereditary and stratified. In Egypt and in spite of lack of governmental aids to be mentioned in the previous age, the role of the Muslim, Christian and youth charity associations cannot be disregarded which were disseminated widely in Egypt, even many famous television shows have also engaged in that role and worked as a connection between the askers for aids and the donors, to the extent that who is following this field in Egypt gets surprised that there is a pretty good section of Egyptians fully get their food, medicines and clothes without a minimum of work or job through the semi-fixed aids from those associations. However, those classes kept inheriting the poverty, sickness and ignorance from generation to generation, but even got wider because of their big approach to give birth. Thus, what is important is not granting social aids but to be conditional with education and health because it is high time breaking this closed circle that releases more illiterate children, sick and poor51.

7- The concern with developing the local production whether the agricultural or the industrial and at the same time following economic policies which could raise the local buying capacity to protect the national economy from being prone to the universal economic crises which are blowing the world economy today. The Egyptian society that approaching 90 M with its population could represent a big and varied productive energy, in addition of being a wide market. It cannot be overlooked that this what made Brazil be the country in the world affected by the last world financial crisis which reached its peak in 2008.


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Fourth: The Features of the Egyptian Economy under the Current Authority The economic trend of the current authority:

The Islamists adopt the principle of the economic freedom and the systems of the economy of the capitalist market, with the strive to give these trends the form of Islam; according to the platform of the Freedom and Justice Party known by the renaissance project, “the economic activity is done through the Islamic market that relies on the fair competition, restricted economic freedom and the formulas of the Islamic funding”.

The platforms stresses on the “necessity of reexamining the banking system” by which

allows it to take a growing role in the economic life”, and the platform does not exclude the role of the state and specifies it in “the continuous work on building a healthy environment and a suitable investment climate surrounding the productive process” and “developing the main structures and, the general utilities and the strategic projects especially those that the private sector refrain to enter”.

However, the base of development and the economic work is the private sector, as the

platforms mentions: “While the main role of the efficient use of the resources and the creation of a sustainable development is the responsibility of the private sector” and “the economic freedom and the honorable competition are the base of progress and advancement, hence, the private sector has a pivotal role in the economic life”. Furthermore, the platform calls for “promoting the culture of the free work and the self-employment.52”

Concerning the income distribution, the platform of the Freedom and Justice Party

speaks in general phrases about the necessity of carrying out the distribution according to “fair” distribution standards that consist with the exerted effort, or according to the desired social solidarity. The platform decides that the incapables care is the responsibility of the state and the rest of the capable individuals of the society through the imposed alms, with the Zakat on the top, and the voluntary ones and the other spendings, and through the taxes”.

There is a focus on the role of Zakat association, trust and all the works of charity” and

the platform supports putting a minimum and maximum limit to wages but does not present a particular trend concerning the taxes and does not mention the ascending taxes or the taxes on the capitalist profits, it also does not mention any thing about the redistribution of wealth and consequently it does not specify real work mechanisms with regards to this, but general talking about those principles. While the preparers of the project consider that it the most suitable for Egypt in the upcoming period because it combines the two goals of promoting the investments and fulfilling the social justice; some of the economy experts sees that the project reflects the vision of businessmen within the biased group to the market economy and that it might not succeed in achieving its social goals53.


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The start of the renaissance project

The preparation for the renaissance project started by prominent members in the Muslim Brotherhood Group headed by Khairat ElShater in the same year (1998) when Gamal Mubarak started establishing the Future Generation Foundation, which is the association that introduced his appearance on the political life. While the liberate policies of Gamal Mubarak produced a public rage that kept accumulating until it led to the revolution, the makers of the renaissance project are adopting a similar new liberalism but they are confident that it will succeed this time in releasing the powers of the market and achieving the social justice54.

To achieve this, businessmen members of the group like Khairat ElShater and

Hassan Malek are trying to form a leadership for the Muslim Brotherhood to represent a neo-liberal face for the party and the group, and this is according to a report prepared recently by Bloomberg Agency as it referred that “It is probable that millionaires like Khairat ElShater and Hassan Malek form a leadership for the Muslim Brotherhood that represents a neo-liberal face for the party and the group, as those two Muslim Brotherhood members that belong to the 1% class of the society think that they are able to support a new class of businessmen, and also improve the life of the poor Egyptians and attract investments from abroad”55.

In spite of Khairat ElShater’s criticism of Mubarak’s corrupt practices, he never

criticized the economic policies themselves and this is out of the conviction of the project preparers that Egypt is rich in its resources, but the way of managing the resources and the corruption are the main reason of the current crisis. He also confirmed that he does not tend to impose ascending taxes on the high-income persons and that is the same what the former regime did, moreover, the renaissance project does not carry any clear wording about modifying the price of the income tax on the richer factions and does not direct to impose taxes on exempted activities like the capitalist profits. The economic platform of the Muslim Brotherhood bets that their success in fighting the corruption will contribute to decreasing the inflation rate to be half the rate of the economic development, as they see that half the current rate of inflation was caused by the manipulative practices, and this is what should be fought.

The opposition of the preparers of the renaissance program to Gamal Mubarak’s

economic policies is based on that they granted wide privileges to the private sector without imposing social policies that ease the pressures caused by those liberal policies. As Ashraf Serry, one of the businessmen participating in the preparation of the renaissance project, says: “The state has granted the investors reduced taxes, cheap lands and subsided power, and left the private companies sell the products with over prices; the state could have entered as a partner, for example, in some projects and direct its profits to subside the products for the needy factions”56.

The renaissance program adopts a number of trends of expansion of the social

spending, as it aspires for increasing the allocations of the spending on health in the budget by the end of the presidential term to 12%, increase the number of the beneficiary families


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from the social security pension from one and a half million to 3 million families. Besides, the program of the Muslim Brotherhood focuses largely on the expansion in developmental projects in partnership with the private sector, yet the program does not clarify the sources of providing this increase, also it ignores the probability of repeating the elections after putting the constitutions if it is put with different terms of reference than the currently existing, and this what makes the presidential term of office less than expected and consequently these promises will not be fulfilled in it57.

The opinion of the economists:

Several economy experts see that ElShater’s management of the economic file of

the Muslim Brotherhood will lead to the same economic policies of the old regime, as Amr Adly the economic researcher and the head of the social justice unit at the Egyptian Initiative for the Economic Rights sees that “ElShater is similar to Gamal Mubarak in his description of the Egyptian economic crises as a problem of resources management, in both cases the matter in its reality is the unwillingness of confronting the centers of the social powers of redistributing the resources, and without the fair distribution of the wealth to reform fields like education larges sectors of the society will not benefit from the economic development”58. Also Ashraf Elsherif, lecturer at the American University and Islamic currents specialist, considers that: “the current economic vision of the Muslim Brotherhood, with the leadership of Khairat ElShater’s current is on the right side of Gamal Mubarak, and one of the proofs is its adoption of policies that depend on the private investments to achieve the social goals instead of redistributing the wealth within the society through policies like the ascending taxes. This besides the Muslim Brotherhood focus on the idea of the social solidarity, as it is getting closer to the model of the American right represented in the Republican Party and its norms about the theistic development and the moral economy”. While several advocates of the renaissance project see that it will put Egypt on the way of repeating the experience of the Justice and Development Party in pushing the Turkish economy to the boom, this is unlikely under the current circumstances, as there is a big difference between the circumstances when the Turkish party applied its economic experience and the circumstances of Egypt nowadays. The Justice and Development Party came after long years of the military rule, and during that period the economy was liberated with a severely strong restriction of the political freedoms, so when the party came to the rule it found the way paved to apply rightist policies that combine between the economy of the free market and the economic growth, to achieve high rate of development ranging from 8% to 9% of sectors like exportation, tourism and transport. Even this successful experience had many negativities in the fields of education and health which largely affected the fairness of distributing the fruits of that growth, besides, Turkey did not succeed in transforming to the deep industries. Moreover, there are differences that will hinder ElSahter from repeating the experience of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as the revolution in Egypt was staged against the unfair growth policies, and no authority in Egypt can practice

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recep_Tayyip_Erdo%C4%9Fan


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tyranny now after the collapse of the security states. I think that there is no big chance of achieving economic and social reforms without a political struggle to redistribute the wealth, and this is what the renaissance project trying to avoid by avoiding policies like the ascending taxes.

The Egyptian economy under the powers of the political Islam: The economic platform of Al-Nour Party is characterized by deep generality and noticeable ambiguity, as it is satisfied with mentioning general goals such as raising the living standard, fighting the unemployment, providing support and achieving social justice and this without declaring the implication of these goals and the means of achieving it. Although the party did not state its situation with regard to the role of each of the private sector and the state, some of the clauses that came in its economic platform and also the political refer to its tendency towards the private sector and the free market economy, as it stresses for example on “the society right of protecting the individual property and the honorable free economic competition”, also it prefers “liberating the trade in the agricultural goods in case of the economic activity boom, and following the policy of reinforcing the prices in case of the economic stagnation”59. The platform calls for, in its platform of the health care, “supporting the private sector hospitals and medical centers” and as the matter in the platform of the Freedom and Justice Party, Al-Nour Part focuses on adopting the models of the Islamic funding and putting the Zakat and trust into effect; there is some sort of a call for “expanding in the models of the Islamic funding that are based on the participation in the profits and production, instead of the usurious system that is based on the interest”. As the party is frightened that his call might lead to a disturbance of the economic situations, it conserves in its call on the condition that “this happens gradually and within several years so there would be no negative impacts on the economy”. While in the social justice field, Al-Nour Party stresses on the “necessity of activating the associations of Zakat and trust and the participation of the state and also of the rich citizens, and the capable of establishing economic and social associations that help achieve the social solidarity in the society”60. Thus, it is clear that the Islamic powers will adopt an originally capitalist system that is based on the pivotal role of the private sector and the free market economy, so it is likely that the economic social system under the prevalence of Islamists in the parliament and the government will not be fundamentally different than the common system in Mubarak’s reign, especially that this system is also the preferable one from the side of the liberal powers. The difference than what was existing during Mubarak’s regime would be represented in the association of the economic social system with a less degree of corruption and with some limited improvements in the income distribution. It is not expected that the issue of the slow and gradual applying of the Islamic funding models would raise a severe conflict between the Islamists and the liberals, as these models were effective years ago in Mubarak’s reign and they carried only a variation of the banking services and they did not cause a bouleversement in the banking system.


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references : 1 Dr. Abdel Azim Mahmoud Hanafi, The Economic Crisis and the Non-Existence of the Relation between Democracy and the Economic Development, Al-Seyassah Kuwaiti Newspaper, 18/9/2009 http://www.al-seyassah.com/AtricleView/tabid/59/smid/438/ArticleID/71416/Default.aspx 2 The Economic Performance and the Way to the Egyptian Revolution, a report issued by Al-Ahram Center for the Political and Strategic Studies, 1/1/2011, http://acpss.ahramdigital.org.eg/Articals.aspx?Serial=794629&Arch=26 3 The Challenges of the Egyptian Economy and the Priorities of Getting out from the Crisis, House of Wisdom for Strategic Studies, April 2011. 4 AbdelKhalek Farouk, The Deadlock of the Egyptian Economy on the Eve of January 25 Revolution and How to Get out of it, The National Council, http://www.almaglesalwatany.org/economics.aspx . 5 The previous reference. 6 The previous reference. 7 The previous reference. 8 Dr. Medhat Nafie, Towards a Futuristic View to the Investment and the Financial Sector in Egypt, a study by the National Council 9 The previous reference. 10 The previous reference. 11 The previous reference. 12 Ahmed ElSayed ElNaggar, The Egyptian Economy and the Dilemma of Poverty in Mubarak’s Reign, Al Jazeera Center for Studies, 24 September 2011. 13 Challenges and Alternatives of the Egyptian Economy, previous reference p. 17. 14 The previous reference. 15 The previous reference. 16 Amr Adly study (Corruption State in Mubaral’s Reign) contains many case studies of several corruption issues in Egypt which can be referred to get a clearer image of how far is the corruption institutionalized in the Egypt. 17 Amr Adly, The State of Corruption in Mubarak’s Reign – Power and Wealth Interactions 1990-2011, a study issued by the Arab Reform Initiative p. 4 18 Ahmed ElSayed ElNaggar, The Economic Downfall in Mubarak’s Reign, (Cairo, Merit House, 2117) 19 The previous reference. 20 Amr Adly, previous reference, p. 5 21 Amr Adly, Previous reference, p. 9 22 The United Nations Reveals the Deterioration of the Egyptians’ Conditions in Mubarak’s Reign, Resalat Iranian Newspaper, Tuesday 21 February 2012. 23 Ahmed ElSayed ElNaggar, previous reference. 24 Challenges and Alternatives of the Egyptian Economy, House of Wisdom, April 2012, p. 6 25 The previous reference, p. 7 26 The United Nations Reveals the Deterioration of the Egyptians’ Conditions in Mubarak’s Reign, Resalat Iranian Newspaper, Tuesday 21 February 2012. 27 The Egyptian Economy in a Critical Situation after the Revolution, Wafd Newspaper Website, 17 September 2001, http://www.alwafd.org 28 Dr. Abdel Monem ElSayed, The Economic Situation in Egypt One Year after the Egyptian Revolution, Wafd Newspaper Website, 21 January 2012. 29 Ibrahim Seif, The Challenges of the Economic Transformation in Egypt, Carnegie Middle East Center, November 2011.

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30 The previous reference. 31 The previous reference. 32 The Egyptian Economy after January 25 Revolution: Point of View, The Cabinet, IDSC, June 2011. 33 Ahmed Sayed ElNaggar, Previous reference. 34 The Egyptian Economy: The Current Challenges and the Future Vision, The Egyptian Center For Economic Studies. http://www.eces.org.eg/Uploaded_Files/events/%7B211B1F3B-332D-4F1C-8EF4-58809BDB9115%7D_Jan25_Analysis_Final-A-Fatma%20Home.pdf 35 The International Forum on the Channels of the Democratic Transition: A Report on the International Experiences, the Lessons Learnt and the Way Ahead, UNDP, 5-6 June 2011. 36 The previous reference. 37 The previous reference. 38 The previous reference. 39 The previous reference. 40 Democratic Transformation Tracks, Previous Reference, p. 42 41 “The Pioneer of the Brazilian Renaissance: Lula Da Silva” book, Mohamed Salah Eldin, Dar ElFarouk, 2012 42The previous reference, p. 66 43 Amal Mokhtar, The Experience of the Economic Growth in Brazil: A Guiding Model for Egypt, AlAhram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. http://acpss.ahramdigital.org.eg/News.aspx?Serial=84 . 44 The previous reference. 45President Lula’s Brazil: The fighter Became an Employee, Berry Anderson, Lebanese AlAkhbar, Issue 1478, 3/8/2011 46 The Egyptian Economy after January 25 Revolution: Point of View, Previous reference, p. 6 47 Dr. Ziad Bahaa ElDin, The State’s Return, AlMasry Al Newspaper, 8/02/2118, http://today.almasryalyoum.com/article2.aspx?ArticleID=189535 48 The Democratic Transformation Tracks, Previous reference, p. 47 49 The Previous reference, p. 47 50 The Experience of the Economic Growth in Brazil: A Guiding Model for Egypt, Previous reference. 51 The Experience of Economic Growth in Egypt: A Guiding Model for Egypt, Previous Reference. 52 Egypt and its Revolution: the Outcome and the Horizons, A report issued by Al-Jazeera Center for Studies, 7 March 2012 http://studies.aljazeera.net/reports/2012/02/2012226112854884980.htm 53 The previous reference. 54 The Renaissance: An Ambitious Program that does not Prevent the Mistake of the Former Regime, Shorouk Newspaper, 20 June 2012, http://www.shorouknews.com/news/view.aspx?id=b1b0fe55-abc5-41d3-ad00-31e4804f9720 . 55 The previous reference. 56 The Muslim Brotherhood Renaissance Project: Economy with Islamic Reference, AlMasry Al Project: Economy with Islamic Reference, AlMasry AlYoum Newspaper, 26 April 2012, http://www.almasryalyoum.com/node/797201 57 The previous reference. 58The Renaissance: An Ambitious Program that does not Prevent the Mistakes of the Former Regime, Previous reference. 59Egypt and its Revolution: The Outcome and the Horizons, Previous reference 60 The previous reference.

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