Too late for a face-saving deal?
As hundreds of thousands of demonstrators thronged into central Cairo and provincial cities today, delicate negotiations were under way between Egyptian officials, the Obama administration and opposition voices to establish the ground rules for a military-backed interim government that could pave the way for free and fair elections.
The transitional arrangements may allow President Hosni Mubarak to remain in office until elections later this year but only if he formally transfers authority to a provisional authority led by vice-president Omar Suleiman.
“There must be a credible transfer of powers,” Egyptian political scientist Amr Hamzawy said this morning.
Pro-democracy protesters will accept a “face-saving” deal allowing Mubarak to remain in office, he told Al Jazeera, if certain “safeguards” are in place, including an end to the state of emergency, the dissolution of parliament and separating the ruling National Democratic Party and the government.
Hamzawy was one of a “Group of the Wise” made up of independent intellectuals, lawyers, opposition figures, and diplomats. The group does not claim to be representative of the protest movement, he said, but it has consulted widely and openly with demonstrators and opposition figures.
The group, which has issued a statement outlining the key requirements of a transitional agreement (detailed below), also includes Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, Ahmed Kamal Abou El Magd, a leading Muslim intellectual, Ahmed Zewail, winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry, billionaire businessman Naguib Sawiris, former NDP stalwart Osama Ghazali Harb, Wafd Party leader Munir Fakhri Abdel Nour, and Egyptian TV host Mahmoud Saad.
Even if Mubarak remains for a six-month transition as “more or less an honorary president,” the “transition process must start now,” Hamzawy told a forum at Washington’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace by telephone: ”This is a face-saving solution which is to my mind widely accepted in Egypt among many people.”
Mubarak may stay until September’s election, but events are unpredictable, said Moussa. “There are extraordinary things happening, there’s chaos and perhaps he will take another decision,” he told Reuters.
A former foreign minister, Moussa said he would consider running for the presidency and he joined today’s protesters in Tahrir Square.
“Institutionally, there is support in Egypt for this road map among the military, vice president and prime minister,” government official told CNN. “The bureaucracy thinks it has a degree of legitimacy and if the objective continues to be deposing the president now, they clearly don’t understand the advantage that this road map will create a constitutional and administrative voice to the transition and is not going to lead to confusion.”
The official said Mubarak is viewed as a “receding figure” in politics, but forcing him to resign would lead to a “murky” state of affairs.
The move towards a gradual transition is welcomed by some analysts who believe the democratic opposition needs time to build its credibility and capacity after decades of political suffocation. While the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest opposition movement, is an organized, disciplined and ideologically coherent force, the country’s liberal democratic forces are weak, fragmented and lack a mass base.
“Egypt needs a buffer period during which political opposition movements can get organized and create a relatively safe transition of government,” says Cornell University law professor Chantal Thomas, a former law faculty member at the American University in Cairo.
“Make no mistake: Though established constitutional procedures should be followed to maintain national order and safety, constitutional change is needed to open the way for more effective democracy going forward,” she writes. “It is absolutely imperative that the international community keep pressing to see that this transition is peacefully carried out.”
But other analysts stress the constitutional and logistical obstacles to a smooth transition, including reform of the political parties law, lifting the state of emergency, and the issue of parliamentary as well as presidential elections.
“They have to reach agreement on the lifting of the emergency law and the lifting of banned parties that have been prevented from running in elections, so there’s a certain amount of legality they have to negotiate,” said former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco Marc Ginsberg.
“Secondly, you have two competing issues: presidential elections, but then they had essentially bogus parliamentary elections that everyone rejected,” he said. ”So will they also have new parliamentary elections? The Muslim Brotherhood is far more interested in that.”
The manifesto of the Group of the Wise (translation by the Carnegie Endowment):
- The President must delegate to his Vice President the responsibilities of managing the transitional period that began yesterday and will be completed by the end of the president’s current term.
- The Vice President must agree to the following: dissolve the Shura Council and People’s Assembly and form a legislative committee consisting of constitutional experts and independent judges who will prepare for the necessary constitutional amendments.
- Form a government of experts and independent figures that are accepted by the public to administer executive operations during this transitional period.
- End the rule by Emergency Law and create specific mechanisms to hold accountable those responsible for attacks on the people as well as public and private property and for unprecedented intimidation of the public. Those in the various state institutions who contributed to exposing the nation and the public to the effects of this absence of security must also be held responsible.
- Ensure the safety of the youth that have congregated in Tahrir Square and other streets in Cairo and various Egyptian cities during this transitional period, and protect them from prosecution, persecution and violation of their rights. Their rights, including freedom of expression and peaceful assembly and their legitimate means of expression, must be protected. We note our full solidarity with the youth and call on all signatories of this statement to protect the protesters and their personal safety.
- We assert on record our appreciation and praise of the responsible, patriotic role of the military.
