EGYPT: OUTLOOK FOR POLITICAL REFORM

C O N F I D E N T I A L CAIRO 002436 SIPDIS SIPDIS NSC STAFF FOR SINGH E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/23/2016 TAGS: PGOV PHUM EG SUBJECT: EGYPT: OUTLOOK FOR POLITICAL REFORM Classified by DCM Stuart Jones, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) While it may seem easy to be skeptical about the outlook for political reform in Egypt, the fact is that a process is underway, and it is a process entailing more than currently meets the eye. During his 2005 reelection campaign, Mubarak outlined a modest agenda for political reform. There are clear indications that the GOE is acting to move this agenda forward, albeit according to its own slow timetable. Before it adjourns in late June, parliament is expected to pass legislation that will modify laws governing the judiciary and press freedoms, as well as revisions to the criminal code. Multiple sources confirm that work on a much more ambitious and sweeping package of constitutional reforms is also in preparation, but this effort will not bear fruit until mid-2007. End summary. -------------- Constitutional Reform - Taboo Shattered -------------- ¶2. (C) As recently as early 2005, GOE officials, from Mubarak on down, had categorically ruled out constitutional reform, a long-standing demand of Egypt's opposition. In January 2005, the leadership of the ruling NDP convened several gatherings of Egypt's legalized opposition parties and eventually persuaded all but Ayman Nour's Ghad Party to publicly sign on to the idea that constitutional reform demands should be deferred to 2006, after the parliamentary elections and the anticipated referendum on another six year term for the President. Only two weeks later, Mubarak took all by surprise by calling for the amendment of Article 76 of the Constitution - to allow for competitive presidential elections for the first time. The call was almost uniformly hailed as an historic breakthrough, which promised to significantly alter Egypt's political system and, more importantly, shattered previous assertions that the constitution was sacrosanct. Many were disappointed with the final result. The "fine print" set seemingly impossible hurdles for independent presidential candidates, and even legal party candidates, to compete - effectively guaranteeing the NDP's lock on the presidency, at least in the near term. -------------- -- Mubarak's Campaign Promises on Political Reform -------------- -- ¶3. (C) The GOE has remained publicly committed to continuing an ongoing process of political reform. The clearest blueprint for this process was laid out by Mubarak himself during his reelection campaign in the summer of 2005. In reaction to calls for political reforms in key areas, Mubarak undertook to: -- Replace the emergency law with a modern counterterrorism law; -- Revise and update the law governing the judiciary; -- Revise the law governing the media to expand press freedom; -- Promote decentralization through new legislation that would restructure and strengthen local councils; -- Revise the penal code to narrow the powers of authorities to hold suspects without charge; and -- Seek parliamentary input on broader constitutional reform. -------------- What to Expect in 2006 -------------- ¶4. (C) A range of Embassy contacts in the executive, the parliament, and the ruling party confirm that there is intense, if still preliminary, activity underway to implement each of Mubarak's pledges outlined above. Parliamentary sources tell us to expect three political reform outcomes during the current legislative session, which ends in June: -- A new judiciary law, -- A new press law, and -- A revised penal code. ¶5. (C) Parliamentary contacts tell us the new judiciary law will take into account the demands of the Judges Club for an autonomous budget and other steps to shore up judicial independence. (We understand however that the bill is unlikely to give in to the Club's core demand - a Supreme Judicial Council - elected by the judges themselves rather than the current system of presidential appointment. It is unclear whether a new judiciary law passed this term will cool the current confrontation between the GOE and the Judges Club.) The new press law will ostensibly make good on Mubarak's 2004 pledge to protect journalists from frivolous prosectuion, but we are told the bill will stop short of completely eliminating imprisonment as a penalty for journalistic malpractice, as the President had earlier indicated. Both laws may well fall short of the demands of activists in the Judges Club and the Press Syndicate, but the GOE will nonetheless market them as signifcant political reforms. ¶6. (C) Parliamentary contacts also tell us a bill revising Egypt's penal code will set stiffer limits on the ability of police and prosecutors to hold suspects without charge. However, authorities will continue to be able to hold detainees indefinitely under emergency law powers. While the GOE has, by multiple accounts, formed a distinguished experts' committee that is now actively studying models (including the Patriot Act) for a new and modern counterterrorism law to replace the emergency law, Mubarak and other officials have made clear that a new CT law will not be ready before the emergency law expires at the end of May. Therefore, the state of emergency will again be renewed this spring, though presumably for less than the standard three-year period. Opposition members of parliament, and civil society activists, are already getting ready to loudly protest the anticipated renewal. We expect the GOE will remain steadfast in its determination to extend it, until a new CT bill is ready next year. In the meantime, public debate on the issue will increase and may put the GOE on the defensive. -------------- 2007 - A Watershed Year (?) -------------- ¶7. (C) The most significant outcomes of 2006 deliberations are not scheduled to emerge until 2007. According to parliamentary contacts, an intensive survey of MPs (commissioned by the President during his campaign) is underway regarding priorities for constitutional reform. Before the end of the 2006 session in June, our contacts tell us, parliament will hammer out and submit to the presidency a consensus document identifying articles of the constitution recommended for revision. Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Mufeed Shehab told the Ambassador "about 17-18" articles were likely to end up on the chopping block. NDP insider Mohammed Kamal earlier told the DCM as many as 22 articles could be up for revision. ¶8. (C) Among those constitutional articles expected to be amended, we are told, are articles 74 and 75, which grant powers to the President now viewed, by Shehab and others, as too broad. Shehab told the Ambassador the articles had been drafted to mimick the powers of the President in Charles DeGaulle's Fifth Republic constitution, but Sadat, who presided over the changes, omitted some of the checks built into the French model. Other key areas of the constitution likely to change, our contacts tell us, are articles which currently ascribe very limited powers to local and municipal councils. Indeed, the GOE justified its controversial February decision to postpone local council elections by asserting that forthcoming reforms would overhaul the local governance system in Egypt and give local councils "real powers" and a "meaningful role." ¶9. (C) Perhaps most controversially, Articles 41-43 of the current constitution may also make the list, both Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shehab and People's Assembly Speaker Fathy Surour have told us. These articles essentially prohibit searches and detention of citizens under almost any circumstance, absent a judicial warrant. As written, Shehab and Surour argue, any CT law drafted would either be completely toothless or else obviously unconstitutional. Thus, they contend, the state of emergency cannot be lifted, and a new CT law cannot be implemented, until these articles are revised, a view no doubt shared by Egypt's enormous and powerful internal security apparatus. ¶10. (C) The overall scenario outlined for us by parliamentary and ruling party insiders has parliament identifying constitutional articles for amendment (perhaps as many as 22) before it adjourns in summer 2006. Parliament's recommendations are to be reviewed and approved (or rejected) by the Presidency in time for the start of the 2007 legislative session, at which time MPs will begin working on the modalities of these amendments. By the end of the next parliamentary session, in the summer of 2007, the entire set of amendments are supposed to be assembled into one large political reform package which can then put to public referendum, - as required to amend the constitution. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶11. (C) Skeptics can be expected to argue that further amendments to the constitution pursued by the GOE will follow the model of the Article 76 amendment - and be diluted to the point of meaninglessness, at least in the short term. There is certainly a danger that the NDP-dominated parliament will settle for half measures that will fail to open the system and only masquerade as genuine reform. However, given the major political reverberations generated by the amendment of only one constitutional article in 2005 (even if its near-term practical effect was limited),it is hard to believe that the GOE can find a way to amend as many as 20 other amendments to the constitution and still preserve the overall political status quo. We should be able to take a more indicative measurement of this process by the end of the current legislative term, when parliament presents its recommendations to the presidency. The debate engendered by this process is likely to give us multiple opportunities to engage. End comment. RICCIARDONE