Egyptian boycott?

Kefaya and the Wafd are calling to boycott the constitutional referendum, and possibly the Presidential election.  The Muslim Brotherhood is thinking about it. Khaled Muhi al-Din of the Tagammu Party has evidently just said that he won't run.  Mohamed (FCWL) is pissed: 

"Kefaya and the opposition are urging Egyptians to boycott the Constitution amendment referendum. Shame on you. Is that all you could do. Ask me to be more passive and apathetic!"

Boycotting elections have always been tough calls. In 1997 Jordan's opposition had to decide whether to participate in elections under rules carefully designed to minimize their chances of success.  They chose to boycott, which probably hurt the opposition more than it did the regime.  Hamas's decision to boycott the first Palestinian elections back in 1996 may have expressed their rejection of the Oslo process and minimized the PA's legitimacy, but it also badly hurt Palestinian political and institutional development.   

But on the flip side, if the rules are blatantly stacked against the opposition - and it's hard to see how the revised Article 76 is anything other than a blatant rigging of the game - then what is gained by participating in a charade?  I don't have an answer to that.  For now, it's early in the game, and it's possible that the boycott call is meant to put pressure for changes rather than a fixed, final decision to abstain from the political process.  I hope so, and I hope the US might find some way to strengthen their position against Mubarak's fait accompli.

UPDATE:  good reporting from Issandr el Amrani on an NDP rally.   Funniest, and saddest, part, comes when NDP and Kefaya demonstrators face off against each other:

The highlight however — a real moment of epiphany — was when the two sides started pointing and chanting the same thing at each other: “They are with America! They are with America! They are with America!”

So much for winning hearts and minds.

Brutal.

Comments

[praktike]

Nazif gave interviews to the Guardian and the FT and was fairly explicit that the rules were designed to exclude the MB.

[Mohamed]

"if the rules are blatantly stacked against the opposition ... then what is gained by participating in a charade?"

I just posted a comment in my blog answering that same question. I'll copy it here (sorry for the length):

So, if the majority vote in the referundum is No, the old text is kept intact. Guess what, that is still a victory to me. Everyone will know that the overwhelming turnout of the people to the polling stations was to reject the cosmetic and restrictive changes in the text, and they should be forced (by the supposed political powers) to give in more, and change it properly, even if there's no time before the elections. The problem is not for this election (those strict rules are already relaxed for this one).

So if people show up and say yes, the cosmetic restrictive changes (which we don't want) applies. If people don't show up and boycott, there's absolutely nothing new there, and the few people who are paid to go are the only ones who will count. If people show up and say No, the old text remains, but the regime will be under intense pressure to make the changes in the amendment real. Just a large show-up is a massive shift in the political scene that the regime cannot ignore. And this, only this is what the opposition should be working hard for, not boycotting, damn it.

The problem here is not what the text of the amendment says, its the disassociation of the people from the whole process, its that the regime has a free hand to do whatever they want, because they're working in a big void. No political powers are filling that void, and when people can attempt to partially fill it by going to the polling stations, they are urged not to by the opposition ("keep the void, keep the void", huh!).

You know what, even in those old rigged presidential referundums, if an overwhelming number of people turn out at the ballot boxes to say No, it would be very hard for them to rig it. Just by showing how people are involved and care about the outcome would scare the hell out of the regime. This is what we should be calling for. I find it shameful that an opposition or a national movement calls for people to stay even more apathetic, by boycotting any political process, even if its a farce process. How else can you turn it into a real process!

What good is it if the whole constitution is changed but people are still not involved! I'd rather have people involved in a sham constitution than have a perfect constitution that is not used by the people and does not benefit them.

[Nur al Cubicle]

22:41 EGYPT: JUDEGES SUPPORT REFORM, 120 OPPOSITION MEMBERS ARRESTED.

After a day of pro and anti Mubarek demonstrations, the confereence of Egyptian magistrates has decided to increase its pressure on the government to implement long-overdue reforms. The judges threatened to refuse to monitor the upcoming presidential elections if the government does not guarantee their complete autonomy in monitoring the election process. 1,500 magistrates participated in the extraordinary meeting and the concluding communique closely aligns itself with the demands for reform that opposition parties have been making for weeks.

Meanwhile police arrested dozens of protesters in Cairo and the in the province of al-Bahira. All are Muslim Brotherhood activists, including candidates for Parliament and the children of elected members. Eight al-Jazeera reporters and cameramen arrested earlier in the day were released. No charges were lodged against any of them, confirming the intent on the part of the Egyptian authorities to prevent live broadcast of the proceedings of the magistrates' conference.

[Nur al Cubicle]

More...

~Professional Associations Strike Back~

The judges held their extraordiary meeting at the Magistrates' Club, which functions as a magistrates' union. This is a battle which not only involves the judiciary but the people as well, says Mahmoud Reda Khodeiry, President of the Magistrates' Club in Alexandria.

Judges met the first time in April in Alexandria and threatened to boycott the elections if Parliament did not amend the law restricting the authority of judges and the exercise of political rights. Elections may be considered free and fair only if the people consider them free and fair, continued Mr. Khodeiry.

On Tuesday, the Egyptian Parliament ratified a Constitutional amendment permitting other candidates to run in the presidential elections for the first time. The amendment will be subject to a national referendum on 25 May. The amendment stipulates the formation of an Elections Commision to be composed of 9 members: 5 judges and four notables. The magistrates demand that all members be appointed from the Judiciary. According to the magistrates, the text of the amendment limits their role to the Elections Commission. The 2000 legistlative elections were monitored by the Ministry of the Interior and were marred by widespread fraud and irregularities.

[simsim]

The spokesman for the magisterates said on an interview on Al Jazeera (11 o'clock news ) that judges who attended the meeting were slightly over 5000 , rather than the often quoted number of 1500 . This is most probably because the attendants were from other areas of Egypt rather than from Cairo only .

The election commission was originally suggested to consist of 4 judges and 5 notables but a fifth judge was finally agreed to join the commission.

The judges said in fact that the amendement of article 76 is unconstitutional as approved by the representative in the Parliament

[Stacey]

While the fit of the analogy is not good, this makes me think of the boycott of Christian leaders in Lebanon in the first post-war election. They weren't happy with the rules, so they didn't participate. As a result, Christian MPs were elected (they have to be), but the didn't really represent their community. This gave the Christian community (to the extent that I can use the singular there) a "legitimate" complaint against the parliament, but in the end, all they lost was voice in the further reconfiguration of institutional rules at an important transitional time.

As I said, not really directly analogous, but it does make me question whether the motive of the Opposition here is simply to protect its position as an Opposition. To participate would be to "muddy" their position and probably be accused of being coopted - as the Christian leadership thought in Lebanon - but in the end, those who don't participate risk having no voice whatsoever, at the critical time in which institutional rules might be reconfigured.

[Penta]

The highlight however — a real moment of epiphany — was when the two sides started pointing and chanting the same thing at each other: “They are with America! They are with America! They are with America!”

Pardon me while my head repeatedly goes against the wall.

Meanwhile...Jeez, the Magistrates have a union? That doesn't seem a little...bent to everybody else?

(Besides, I thought Egypt used common law, in which case a judges' union is sort of...insane. Or do they use civil law, in which case I must feed my source to the Rancor at Jabba's palace?)

[praktike]

Egypt uses a combo of civil and islamic law, Penta. Fire your source.

[collounsbury]

Union, mandatory professional association. It's a Code Civil or Civil Law feature, but you can find equivalents even in Common Law structures. Nothing wrong with that.

Oh yes, no, Egypt does not use common law. The Egyptian adaptation of Code Civil in Arabic was pretty much the regional reference.

[Anna in Cairo]

It's a professional association more than a union. Baheyya, referenced in another post here, has a long historical article on the judges and their opposition to the regime in the matter of elections. It's a wonderful source. I work with judges in a USAID funded project and am finding their sudden political involvement to be really interesting.

[Penta]

Thanks, everybody. My source screamed quite expressively as he was thrown into the Rancor pit.

The Rancor burped, quite appreciative of our contribution.

More seriously, thanks for the info.

[praktike]

You're working on the AOJS stuff, Anna? That sounds very interesting, although I imagine there's some frustration that the program is limited in scope by the politics involved.