Egypt

Synopsis

Since the beginning of 2011 the civil society of Egypt has demonstrated against the old government of the former autocratic president Mubarak. The civil society of Cairo consists of political movements, the so-called revolutionary movements, young and older political parties, individual activists, women movements, non-governmental organizations and religious groups. Altogether they represent at least those interests of the Egyptian society which are able to observe and politically articulate. These interests require democracy, however, the military functioning as an interim government doesn't respond to the requested level of transparency and participation. Thus, strains towards the military government constantly grow. The political interest groups of the revolution increasingly fear a solely change of personnel at the top of the power pyramid. In this regard both a more and more radicalized as well as a more restrained stream looms among the revolutionists. Furthermore, a conflict becomes more and more visible between the poorer rural population outside urban centers and the wealthier urban metropolises. The latter continued to demonstrate for the goals of democracy but are on the verge to lose the support of the rural population which is already drastically marked by the economic losses of the so-called revolution.

Conflict Analysis

The Egyptian society is in danger of splinting into two conflicts and thereby, to miss out its democratic transition. Firstly, there is the threat of fragmentation of the young democratic landscape through internal competition among themselves and disunited political movements. Secondly, tensions grow between the numerically smaller young graduates of the upper middle class and the large rural population of poor day laborers and farmers. Both developments are already clear signs of conflict escalation and are a threat to the still unstable developments towards democracy. The conflict can be partially attributed to the 30-year long rule of former President Mubarak. As a dictator he prevented any strengthening of a heterogeneous political landscape by state security police, disappearances and torture. Additionally, Egypt increasingly neglected the needs of its own population. Under the guise of economic reform and market opening, rampant corruption and patronage emerged, which solidified the power of only a few old and new elites. While Egypt's economic elites profited, yet 40% of the population is living on less than two dollars a day. The Corruption Perception Index listed Egypt on rank 111 out of 180 countries. Concluding, the Egyptian population may now suffer from the critical economic reputation.

Due to different incidents which apparently tested the tolerance limit of the population, there were demonstrations across Egypt in early 2011. Due to the additional pressure of the military and some external factors former President Mubarak resigned. Since then the military was a non-legitimate, but apparently tolerated interim government. Still, the revolutionary movements kept feeling a lack of transparency and participation in the enactment of new laws or the constitution. The frustration especially young academics from the upper middle class had let demonstrations for justice and participation grew. In addition, they are still about to lose the vast, poorer sections of the population in Egypt. Day laborers, farmers and unemployed have to face the biggest burden of the democratic transition at the moment since they lack the usual tourists and suffer most from the withdrawal of foreign capital. Initially they were part of the revolution for democracy, but they are increasingly turning away from the demands of the present revolutionary movements, as it seems they are economically worse than during Mubarak times.

Besides the above mentioned revolutionary groups mainly active in Cairo, the Muslim brotherhood plays a major role in the Egyptian society and as such in the revolution. This was reflected in the recent results of the first two election rounds as their political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party, could reach majority in the future parliament. Although women are an integral part of the new political scene – as they are represented in all parts of the population, whether liberal or conservative, religious-revolutionary – notwithstanding their pre-revolutionary activities and their concrete political demands their rightful share of the population scale does not correspond with their political participation: the proportion of women in leadership positions of parties and movements appears correspondingly low, especially in consideration of the fact that almost all groups proclaim strengthening women's rights as a central theme.

The conflicts emerging from the fragmentation of the Egyptian society have been increasingly visible in the elections. The new parties have complained about the absence of professional advice in this phase of building up structures that could improve the party's work. Thus, the new non-religious movements barely had opportunities to communicate their political content to a large numbers of people outside of the cities, as well as setting up their own candidates for the elections. Contrarily, religiously motivated groups have lesser difficulties to reach out to the rural population. They seem to get far more support from this part of the population than the secular and liberal parties. Thus, for example the Muslim Brotherhood has built up close contacts with the rural population for more than 30 years and suffered for it under the Mubarak regime by receiving substantial penalties. Especially the last brings in acknowledgement from the rural population. The fragmentation of political movements and their difficulties to integrate the silent majority of rural laborers and farmers into their goal to democratic transition threatens peace in Egypt.

CSSP Approach

The project aims at strengthening capacities in political negotiation among the political movements and interest groups in Egypt. The capacity strengthening process will go along with the development of platforms for political dialog between those political stakeholders active in the Egyptian Revolution that have only been connected not too strong so far. Egyptian civil society represented on Tahrir Square is on the verge of breaking apart and with it the way to democracy. Egyptian initiatives are currently working to prevent this.

Regarding crisis prevention, the project aims at strengthening those initiatives. With the help of meditative initiatives, the project seeks furthermore to support the so far numerous, but largely unfruitful political discussions into a method that not only produces concrete results, but is moreover inclusive with regard to Egyptian particularities. Based on the results of bilateral discussions held by CSSP with politically engaged civil society groups in Cairo and Ismailia, CSSP sees the activities mentioned above as imperative, as some important participants have described the "National Dialog" as failing. In order to establish the result-oriented method sustainably, local initiatives will be brought together. In this way, the various civil society stakeholder groups and their respective platforms for dialog will be enhanced with local expertise and developed into an effective forum for political dialog, integrating educated middle class as well as the rural population.

CSSP Action

Through different formats, such as bilateral consultations, political advocacy, workshops, and roundtables CSSP provides capacity strengthening workshops in each quarter of 2012. Herein, participants will be enabled to engage in dialogue with less moderate groups that tend to more radical initiatives, in order to integrate them into ongoing negotiations. Moreover, political interests will be negotiated non-violently within democratic structures, enabling workshop participants of the political groups mentioned above to negotiate their interests non-violently within the newly established democratic structures.

Additionally, CSSP will conduct joint round tables with the leaders of the mentioned stakeholder groups following the workshops of the first element, once per quarter respectively. Those round table discussions aim at mediating between the various stakeholder groups and are furthermore meant to strengthen their ability to cooperate with each other. Moreover, they aim at bringing all groups together to find mediating ways to strengthening cooperation. On a regular basis, representatives of the respective groups come together in order to coordinate their political activities and recall their common goal of democracy building. In this respect, the project supports the transformation of loose movements and traditionally opposing positions into politically capable and organized structures. The looming fragmentation of the various political groups will be countered by mediating the round table discussions and developing political (leadership) capacity among the stakeholder groups. A sustainable Egyptian method in form of a platform for political movement will be worked out and concrete results regarding political participation will be produced.

Both elements of the project will be implemented in Cairo as well as in Ismailia. The implementing partner of the project working in Ismailia will involve participants from the entire region from Port Said over Suez to Sinai, strengthening bonds between Cairo groups and representatives of rural civil society groups. The project brings together already established structures in order to strengthen local structures sustainably and moreover integrate Egyptian particularities.