It has been almost six weeks since President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi promised a national dialogue to allow for a consensus to emerge over ways to tackle pressing political and economic issues.
Alongside the euphoria and scepticism articulated in political quarters, meetings and consultations with political parties, syndicates and state bodies have taken place with the aim of drawing up an agenda for the dialogue, a number of activists in administrative detention have been released and others who had received prison sentences have been freed after receiving presidential pardons.
Journalist and commentator Abdallah Al-Sennawi has been keeping a close eye on the developments. Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly over the weekend, hours after a fresh round of activists were released, Al-Sennawi argued that events already reveal the intentions of the executive and the possible path of the political process.
“There is a committee for the presidential pardons and it has clearly been working,” Al-Sennawi said before adding he would like to see more and faster releases “to allow us to turn a painful page”.
Many activists, said Al-Sennawi, “did not use violence or terror nor did they incite terror”, meaning the charges against them can be qualified as being political in nature.
The whole issue, he suggested, could be resolved with a single decree, from either the office of the president or the prosecutor-general, the latter being the competent authority to order the release of people held in administrative detention.
“According to the information I have, the committee compiled a list of 1,074 names eligible for release” of which “250 [prisoners and detainees] are being released gradually. It is a process and some are on a priority list,” he said.
According to Al-Sennawi, any judgement on the work of the Presidential Pardon Committee and the rate of the release of activists must take account of the context — “the complex situation in the country and of the accumulations of recent years”.
The release process has been met with “aggressive resistance from some quarters” and must therefore be managed prudently and carefully. “The important thing is to keep the releases coming at a reasonable rate,” he said. While it would have been better for all of the releases to have happened at the same time, given the constraints on the process one can only hope it continues as quickly as possible and “without any hiccups”.
Given the context, Al-Sennawi says there have been several positive signs, including the prompt release of Yehia Abdel-Hadi Hussein, founder and coordinator of the Civil Democratic Movement, who was arrested in 2019 and then released days after receiving a prison sentence of four years.
Al-Sennawi believes the sequence of releases has been gauged to pave the way to the dialogue because, for any political dialogue to be constructive and result in
productive state-building, people must believe that their freedom of expression is uncompromised.
“An atmosphere of freedom is an essential requirement for any productive dialogue,” he stressed, and “we are waiting for more releases so that we can move from the phase of preparing for the dialogue to the actual process.” It will, Al-Sennawi thinks, be “around two months” before the actual dialogue starts.
Meanwhile, consultations that involve the state, political parties, public figures, and others is ongoing. “The Civil Democratic Movement is trying to reach a draft of [a paper] that reflects its views and its proposed agenda for the dialogue and to agree to its representatives to the dialogue,” he added.
According to Al-Sennawi, the plan at the moment is that the opposition will have “five seats on the technical committee” that will oversee the national dialogue, with another five seats allocated to “parties in alliance with the government”, while the role of the National Training Academy (NTA), a body established in 2017 and affiliated to the office of the president, will be restricted to providing logistical support.
Al-Sennawi refutes suggestions the NTA will be in charge of the dialogue, insisting “it will not interfere in the content or the path of the dialogue.” Indeed, he argues that it is a positive sign that the body in charge of preparing for the dialogue is directly affiliated to the presidency.
Al-Sennawi is unsure whether state officials will be present in dialogue meetings or whether the government will be represented by political parties and public figures of choice.
“It is far from easy to come up with the name of a political figure who could manage the dialogue. Such a figure will need to have the confidence of the state, especially of the president, and the respect of the opposition, and be capable of efficiently managing the process in a way that produces concrete, consensual conclusions.”
Al-Sennawi argues that Hamdeen Sabbahi, the Nasserite political figure and a presidential candidate in 2012 and 2014, and other opposition figures involved in paving the way towards the dialogue have been doing a good job in conducting “a reasonable, clear, and logical process of negotiations [with the state]”.
According to Al-Sennawi, a lot of ideas are being floated and it is important to realise there will be “two types of dialogue” — the social and the political. The first will have a wide-ranging mandate and “address many problems that we face through meetings conducted by syndicates, parties, and so on” and should produce concrete and consensual ideas.
The second, he argued, should have a fixed timeframe of between two to six months and will require tight structuring. Participants in this dialogue “should not exceed 200 in order to ensure it is productive and not just an open-ended sharing of views” and there must be clearly defined “ceiling and criteria” for both representation and the timeframe.
As for the expected conclusions of the dialogue, Al-Sennawi thinks it too early to make predictions given that political parties are still in the process of compiling their ideas and proposals.
The aims of the dialogue, however, are clear. It should result in “a broad national accord” that allows for “the consolidation of ranks at a critical juncture when Egypt, faced with serious economic crises, cannot afford security disruptions.”
The situation across the region is frail, though details of specific foreign policy issues, including the operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam which Ethiopia is constructing over the Blue Nile, the major source of Egypt’s share of Nile water, are unlikely to appear on the agenda of the national dialogue.
Al-Sennawi warned against turning the dialogue into a space for political point scoring.
“This is not what we want to do. We need to address pressing risks and work out how to steer Egypt out of harm’s way.” Only when the big crises are averted, he said, will it be time to revisit all policies of concern though even then “the revisionism should not descend into provocation and squabbling.”
While Al-Sennawi accepts that some political forces have questions on the process and possible conclusions of the dialogue, he insists that “all political forces with any weight” have shown interest in the dialogue “with or without conditions”.
“It is only logical”, Al-Sennawi said, for political entities to put forward their ideas about what makes a political dialogue productive and none of Egypt’s political forces are completely opposed to the proposed dialogue.
He argued that it will take time to take stock of recent political developments and for all parties to be reassured that this is a serious political process. “Let us wait and see,” he says. “What really count are the measures being taken on the ground and how serious and meaningful they are.”
According to Al-Sennawi, there is already an interest from the international press to learn “about what is actually happening in Egypt” and that such interest “is quite positive”. The proposed political dialogue is receiving more attention from the international press than the launch of the National Strategy for Human Rights in 2021 and will garner more attention on Egypt’s political ambitions than any PR campaign, no matter how costly, could deliver.
“What Egypt needs is for things to be said and then to be done. This is how credibility is built, which is why the recent releases are so important. We can change the image of the country by implementing concrete and tangible measures on the ground.”
“To change Egypt’s image we need to have liberties, including freedom of the press. We want the media to have more space in which to operate. We want modern and democratic laws that allow for public elections to be conducted.”
Al-Sennawi argued that many of the goals political forces want to attain via the national dialogue are already enshrined in the 2014 constitution, but in a situation where “politics have all but dried up” it will take time to build “a modern constitutional state”.
It would be wrong to assume that all the objectives can be secured at once. “Nothing gets done overnight and the important thing is to put a process into motion and move steadily forward.”
It is possible, Al-Sennawi argues, for the government to suspend some of its economic plans that have raised concerns, including its privatisation drive, pending a process of consultation that could produce innovative ideas to help boost the economy while keeping state assets as intact as possible.
While Al-Sennawi is fully aware of the reaction to recent jail sentences against former presidential candidate Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh and the debate about the number of death sentences passed in Egypt in recent years, he does not want to see such issues derail the dialogue.
He said that recent sentences of 10 to 15 years handed down to Abul-Fotouh and other activists, including Mohamed Al-Kassas, a prominent figure in the now defunct Strong Egypt Party, were already scheduled.
“Khaled Dawoud, former chair of the Dostour Party, proposed a [political] truce whereby nobody would be arrested for expressing their political views and I am hoping that soon this will happen.”
Al-Sennawi is unwilling to speculate about whether decision-making circles have really changed their mind about the need for ultra-strict security measures.
“Let us hold on to what we have now. Something positive is happening. We are seeing a certain willingness, which is still to be explored, to allow politics to come back to life.”
“The real test will be acts on the ground and the conclusions that emerge from the dialogue.”
Amendments to the 2014 constitution, Al-Sennawi argued, are unlikely to be welcomed by the state despite speculation on the issue. Nor, he adds, would they help lead to a successful dialogue. Indeed, they “will immediately undermine the dialogue. We should not tamper with the constitution.”
In April 2019 several amendments to the 2014 constitution were passed. They extended presidential terms from four to six years each. Cumulatively, the amendments extended the president’s term until 2024 and allowed him to run for re-election that year.
Unwilling to dwell on the 2019 amendments, Al-Sennawi said “underlining the [concept of] a constitutional republic should be the most important outcome of the dialogue.
“We are now talking about a civil modern republic with social and economic rights.
“Freedom of the press is the core of all public liberties. If freedom of the press is compromised then there is no point talking about public freedoms. The press is about public scrutiny and if it is compromised it means that people are not allowed to speak their mind, leading to political sclerosis.”
The credibility of the press in Egypt has been undermined not just in relation to political context but also by a decline in professional standards. “Today we need to move forward and open windows for liberties, though again, this is something that is going to take time.”
In terms of the economic crisis — “possibly one of the reasons behind the invitation to dialogue” — Al-Sennawi believes there is a need “to invite leading economists to pitch in their ideas. Some ideas are already being promoted, including a temporary suspension of mega projects and revision of priorities.
“There is a need to underline the rule of law to allow investors and entrepreneurs to work with greater confidence and within clear guidelines” without being subject to unexpected or unpleasant surprises.
And what of the ultimate goal of the dialogue?
By the end of 2022 Al-Sennawi is hopeful that concrete steps will be in place along a path that will lead to reclaiming the dream of a modern and civil state as articulated in the January 2011 and June 2013 revolutions.
*A version of this article appears in print in the 9 June, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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