Three possibilities have been suggested for the presidency: maintaining a system with a strong executive president moving to a parliamentary system, with a figurehead president and a strong prime minister chosen by and responsible to the parliament and adopting a mixed system similar to the French one, in which executive power is shared by a president elected by the voters and a prime minster chosen by the parliament. There will also always be a president, but his power may change dramatically. The new constitution may make some changes to the powers of the parliament, but there will always be a parliament making laws. The problem of electing officials for the long term when the rules are about to change is particularly acute with regard to the presidency. By contrast, Tunisia addressed the same problem in the time-honored way of electing a constituent assembly with a one-year mandate, to be replaced at the end of the period by a parliament elected under the new constitution. Rather than addressing the chicken-and-egg problem faced in all transitions-that you cannot elect new institutions until there is a constitution, but that you cannot have a constitution without electing a body to discuss and approve it-Egypt decided to ignore the challenge, electing institutions for the long term while their powers are likely to be altered in the short term. The parliament is being elected to a five year-term, but the constitution will be revised shortly, possibly in only a matter of weeks according to some proposals. The transition steps are not well designed and their sequence is flawed. The absurdity of elections for the Shura Council-an institution many believe should be abolished and one that may not be able to function until a president appoints its remaining members-highlights the difficulties of the present situation. In the meantime, drafting the constitution has been delayed until after the election. Regardless of the election, the upper house will be a truncated organization for the foreseeable future: only two-thirds of its members are elected and the rest appointed by the president, but the courts have decided the SCAF cannot make these appointments. The council has always been a powerless institution-de jure as well as de facto-and accordingly, few Egyptians are bothering to vote. Paradoxically, while the People’s Assembly is now ready to act and gives all signs of wanting to be a strong and combative institution rather than the rubber stamp Egyptian parliaments have been in the past, the transition is pretty much on hold while elections for the upper house, the Shura Council, take place. And the military is unhappy that parliament is already trying to flex its muscles by challenging the legality of the presidential election law the SCAF decreed in mid-January, and weighing in on the timing of presidential elections. Not everybody is happy about the choice of officials and committee heads-some of the smaller secular parties walked out of a parliamentary session after receiving no posts. The legislative body is preparing to debate new laws and it strongly opposes the propensity of the SCAF to continue issuing decrees. It has elected its officials and chosen the committee heads. Parliamentary elections are half complete: the lower house of parliament, the People’s Assembly, is now seated. What they strongly disagree about is the sequencing of the three tasks. More >Įgyptians agree on the need to accomplish three tasks in short order: completing the parliamentary elections electing a president and transferring executive power from the military back to a civilian government, with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) presumably reverting to its original role as a council that discusses military matters under the chairmanship of the president and writing a new constitution. Before joining the Endowment, Ottaway carried out research in Africa and in the Middle East for many years and taught at the University of Addis Ababa, the University of Zambia, the American University in Cairo, and the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.
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