First, the president in Egypt does not take office through voters’ choice but through the power of the security agencies and their ability to suppress opponents, so he does not attach much weight to public opinion, knowing that his survival in office does not depend on people liking him but rather on the ability of the security agencies to protect him from any rebellion or coup. The security agencies in Egypt are the authority that has the decisive say in every sphere and in every detail, starting with the appointment of the mayor in the smallest village to the appointment of deans of faculties and university presidents, and even allowing political parties to be formed, granting licenses to newspapers and satellite channels, and appointing and disqualifying people for ministerial positions. So many competent people have been candidates for ministerial office but were immediately disqualified when the security agencies objected to them. And so many incompetent people have been elevated to senior positions thanks to support from the security agencies. Among the countries of the world Egypt is in a uniquely abnormal situation: the state spends nearly 9 billion Egyptian pounds a year on the Ministry of Interior, twice the budget of the Ministry of Health (which is less than 5 billion pounds a year). In other words the Egyptian regime spends twice as much on subjugating, detaining, and repressing Egyptians as it spends on providing them with healthcare.
Second, there is no legitimate way to compete with the president for office and the supreme objective is to ensure that the current president stays in power. That’s why, if any public figure surfaces who enjoys the people’s confidence, the regime gets upset and endeavors to get rid of him as soon as possible. This has always meant Egypt is deprived of major talents who are excluded because they have qualities that might make them eligible, even notionally, to assume the presidency. What happened to Dr. Zewail himself is the best example of that: after winning the Nobel Prize for Chemistry he returned to Egypt to submit a project for a technological university that could help move the country into the scientific age. But rumors and security reports warned that he was immensely popular among young people, many of whom said they wished to see Ahmed Zewail become president of Egypt. That was the death knell. The regime blocked every path in the face of Dr. Zewail, started to harass him, and lost interest in the university project he had hoped would benefit the country. A few months later the U.S. president quickly appointed him as his scientific adviser to benefit from his rich knowledge. Dr. Zewail is one example of the thousands of outstanding Egyptians who cannot contribute their talents because of despotism.
Third, in Egypt the president has absolute powers and no authority can hold him to account. We have no idea how large President Mubarak’s fortune is or how much money his sons, Gamal and Alaa, have in the bank. What is the budget of the presidency and how does it break down into categories of spending? Is it proper that the state should spend millions of pounds of public money on the president’s rest houses and palaces while millions of Egyptians live in wretched shantytowns without basic human necessities? The president’s complete immunity from accountability also extends to senior officials. Audit departments in Egypt go after junior civil servants, hold them to account for the slightest lapse, and often bring about their dismissal and imprisonment. But faced with senior officials their authority is weak; they merely submit details of any transgressions to the president, and it is up to him alone whether he wants to hold them to account or turn a blind eye to their transgressions. In this way enforcement of the law is confined to the small, the weak, and senior people who have fallen out of favor. To fight corruption selectively, besides being meaningless and ineffective, is in itself a form of corruption.
Fourth, in Egypt the president has the authority to appoint and dismiss ministers. He does not consider himself responsible for explaining his decisions to Egyptians, who never know why ministers are appointed or dismissed. And competence is not the prime factor in choosing ministers, as it is loyalty to the president that is most important. Last week we saw how Ahmed Zaki Badr was appointed minister of education although he has no accomplishments to his name and has no experience of improving education. His sole achievement when he was president of Ain Shams University is, in short, that for the first time in the history of Egyptian universities he called groups of thugs armed with knives and petrol bombs onto the university campus and allowed them to attack protesting students. This disgraceful behavior, which in any democratic country would have ensured the dismissal and immediate trial of a university president, was apparently the motive for Ahmed Zaki Badr’s appointment as minister of education.
On top of this, the appointment and replacement of ministers generally takes place for subjective reasons no one understands. So the prime minister, who holds the highest political office after the president, is someone who has never in his life engaged in politics; the minister of social solidarity was originally responsible for the postal authority; the minister of information was originally a specialist in selling scientific encyclopedias; and former housing minister Mohamed Ibrahim Suleiman was appointed by presidential decree to be the chairman of an oil company. It appears that the president likes some officials and trusts their loyalty, shuffling the top positions among them without thinking too much about their suitability or experience. The regime excludes major talents because it doubts their loyalty or fears their popularity, whereas it grants positions to followers, even if they are incompetent. Because most members of parliament belong to the ruling party and have won their seats through rigged elections, they carry out the government’s instructions instead of playing their supervisory role. In Egypt a minister does not consider himself responsible to the people and knows full well that his survival in office does not depend on what he achieves but on whether he pleases the president. Now we can understand why ministers fall over each other to extol the president, laud his wisdom, and sing the praises of his amazing and historic decisions. Even the minister of manpower, Aisha Abdel Hady, had not the slightest qualms about bending down in public and in front of the media to kiss the hand of Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak.
For all these reasons we are falling behind day by day as the world around us is progressing. Egypt has millions of educated people and thousands of honest people with rare talents who, if given a chance, are quite capable of bringing about a major renaissance within a few years. But despotism is the fundamental reason why Egypt and Egyptians are falling behind.
Democracy is the solution.
January 17, 2010
The Only Way to Evict Mr. Battista
Dr. Galal Amin lives with his English wife, Jan, and his children in an elegant house surrounded by a beautiful garden in the suburb of Maadi. In the summer of 1971, Dr. Amin decided to go to Beirut with his family on a one-year assignment. He had the idea to rent his house and he easily found a tenant—a diplomat from Panama by the name of Mr. Battista. Dr. Amin signed a lease with him for just one year. Battista could live in the house for the year and was expected to leave when the lease expired. Matters proceeded normally but Dr. Amin came back to Egypt at the end of the year to find a surprise awaiting him. Mr. Battista refused to leave the house, arguing that Dr. Amin had not given him notice by registered letter, as the contract required. Dr. Amin tried to convince Battista that he had agreed from the start to lease the house for one year, without the possibility of renewal, and reminded him that he had telephoned him before the lease expired in what amounted to friendly notice that he should leave the house. But Battista requested one postponement after another, kept prevaricating and equivocating about when he would leave, and in the end openly declared he would not leave the house. Dr. Amin had to rent a furnished flat where he lived with his family, but a sense of injustice weighed on him until it became a violent rage.
On Christmas Eve Dr. Amin said to his wife, “Tomorrow we’re going to spend the night at our house.” Throughout the night Dr. Amin made calls to the tenant’s number and then hung up on him without saying a word. He did this dozens of times, depriving Battista of sleep and also putting his nerves on edge. Early the next morning, Dr. Amin hired three carts and put his bags and furniture on them, then knocked on the door of the house. Battista came out and Dr. Amin asked him to vacate the house