Opinion Editorials, August 2012

Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, August 14, 2012

There is an emerging category of whining Egyptian, Libyan, and Tunisian Arab liberals who believe that they are more entitled to rule the country than the elected members of Islamist parties, such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

In Egypt, the defunct military council issued decrees and constitutional amendments to decrease the powers of the elected president. President Morsi exercised his presidential power in repealing these decrees and amendments made by the unelected military council.

He called the parliament to convene only for one session but when the Constitutional Court ruled that the Parliament was not elected properly, the Parliament never convened again. Now there's a Constitutional Assembly to draft the new constitution, when that is completed, parliamentary elections will be held in two months.

Until there is an elected parliament, the president will have both the legislative and executive powers (for few months). He is more entitled to have these powers as an elected president than the unelected military council (which also had the two powers for a year and a half).

Part of the democratic evolution, there will be more criticism and more whining from now on, as a result of the revolution, which is fine. There is now a spectrum of political parties in Egypt and other Arab revolutionary states, from Islamists, to liberals, to nationalists, and socialists.

There are also remnants of the old dictatorial regimes representing those who benefited from those regimes. These represent the counterparts of Western conservatives (the wealthy and their supporters in government and business).

They will all be organizing better next elections to compete against the Islamists, which is normal and expected in the new revolutionary republics.

So, from now on, we'll be hearing a lot of liberal whining, conservative thuggery, as well as criticism and protest from nationalists and socialists against the rule of Islamists.

Then, we'll be hearing about wealthy donors in control of the candidates of major parties, who would be servants of these donors, not the people who elect them.

If the new Arab democracies don't pay attention to campaign finance, they will end up copying Western democracies in which wealthy donors rule through their servant, the political entrepreneurs in the executive and legislative branches of government.

Just look at the scandalous competition between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. in serving the Apartheid Zionist Israeli regime, in order to gain support from wealthy Zionists who control the media and donate generously to both parties, in order to guarantee that whoever wins is theirs.

Are new Arab democracies going to avoid this trap and establish true democracies in which the rule is of the people, by the people, and for the people?

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