AMMAN — Egypt’s new constitutional text resurrects the long-time dominance of the army in the politics of the Arab world’s most populous country, according to Egyptian political scientist Amr Hamzawy.
Addressing an audience of intellectuals, journalists and researchers at the Columbia University Middle East Research Centre on Sunday, Hamzawy said Egyptians are called upon to say “yes” or “no” to a new constitution that has the same mistakes of the 2012 constitution drafted during Egypt’s ousted president Mohamed Morsi’s one-year rule.
No public debates have been organised on the new constitution, which was written by a 48-member committee who were appointed and not elected, he noted in his lecture, titled “Why did Egypt’s Democratic Transition Come to a Halt?”
Under the new constitutional text, which Hamzawy described as a setback to Egypt’s democratisation, the president-elect will not be able to appoint the army chief nor will it be possible for the parliament to discuss the security budget.
He added that the draft constitution stipulates the trial of civilians before military tribunals.
“If the Egyptian army was a state within a state, it is now becoming a state over the state.”
For Hamzawy, public freedoms, mainly the right to belief and to practise religious rituals are still not fully safeguarded in the 2013 draft constitution, as was the case in the 2012 constitution that was drafted by the Muslim Brotherhood in hopes of ruling Egypt in the same manner as ousted president Hosni Mubarak did.
“One of Morsi’s many mistakes is that he built alliances with the same political powers Mubarak allied himself with,” the political scientist argued.
Hamzawy, a former MP, also said that Egypt’s politics have been shaped by the longstanding struggle between the state and the Brotherhood, which has caused, and is still causing, a state of “severe polarisation” within the Egyptian community and political forces.
“You are either with the state or with the Muslim Brotherhood. Nothing in between,” Hamzawy said.
“This has led to the marginalisation of the dynamics of political forces within Egyptian society, weakening their ability to forge a space between the two giants [the army and the Islamists].”
This state of binary politics is also one of the reasons that have brought the Egyptian democratisation process to a halt.
The over indulgence in politics at the expense of economic and social issues, which he described as “prerequisites to democracy”, is also a major hindrance to having a full-fledged democracy in Egypt.
In an interview with The Jordan Times before the lecture, Hamzawy said he and other political figures who are not allied with the army or the Brotherhood now suffer from isolation as a result of the severe polarisation in Egypt.
“Choosing to distance ourselves from such polarisation, we are described now in both giants’ rhetoric as traitors, agents or a fifth column.”
Hamzawy joined the Department of Public Policy and Administration at the American University in Cairo in 2011, where he continues to work today.
He also serves as an associate professor of political science at Cairo University’s department of political science.
Hamzawy studied political science and developmental studies in Cairo, The Hague and Berlin.
After finishing his doctoral studies and after five years of teaching in Cairo and Berlin, he joined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC, from 2005-2009 as a senior associate for Middle East politics.
Between 2009 and 2010, he served as the research director of the Middle East Centre of the Carnegie Endowment in Beirut.
