/ 26 October 2005

Egyptian Parliament’s love affair with big business

To the untrained eye, Egypt’s Parliament list could easily be mistaken for a who’s who of big business.

To stay in one of the two clubs, you need to be a member of the other, say observers and opposition members of the incestuous relationship between politics and money in Egypt.

According to varying estimates, up to a fifth of the People’s Assembly are wealthy businessmen and, as the campaign for the November legislative polls heats up, the opposition is taking the ”ruling oligarchy” to task.

Kamal Khalil, a senior member of the Kefaya (Enough) movement who is contesting a seat for Cairo’s Imbaba neighbourhood, does not mince his words in the manifesto he posted on his blog.

”Never did the political hegemony of businessmen reach that level at any point over the past 50 years.

”This country has become the target for the biggest organised looting operation, carried out by a handful of monopolists allied with the ruling gang, headed by Mubarak and his family,” he says.

Criticism of the rise of the business elite under President Hosni Mubarak’s reign does not come only from leftist activists such as Khalil.

”The problem isn’t so much that there are businessmen in Parliament, it’s the type of businessmen,” said Ibrahim Kamel, who is also vying for a seat and is a millionaire himself.

”This intelligentsia … is made up of people who became rich by buying former socialist state companies,” he told Agence France Presse.

”These so-called businessmen from the [ruling] National Democratic Party are the same people who financed the mockery we witnessed last month,” he added, in reference to September 7 presidential poll which saw Mubarak sweep to victory.

In the Nile Delta province of Menufiya — home to Mubarak, his predecessor Anwar Sadat and much of the ruling elite — Kamel faces Ahmed Ezz, the country’s top steel magnate and right-hand man of Gamal Mubarak, the president’s son whom many believe is being groomed for succession.

”Some estimates put at £500-million ($87-million) his contribution to Mubarak’s presidential campaign. He gave it with one hand and took it back with the other by raising the price of steel,” Kamel charges.

”Looking at the loans he took and never paid back and the circumstances under which he acquired the national steel industry, Ezz needs his parliamentary immunity really badly,” Kamel said.

Ezz could not be reached for comment.

Kamel’s brother Mohammed is running in the neighbouring Menufiya constituency against Kamal al-Shazli, a symbol of the regime’s old guard who has been in Parliament since 1969 and is in charge of picking NDP candidates.

”It costs an average of one million pounds ($175 000) to be selected as a candidate for the NDP, so it’s not anybody who can enter Parliament,” said Mohammed Kamel.

”The sum is in cash and to be paid to the party. Of course the man in charge of selecting can take his cut,” he said.

Kamel is a member of the old liberal Wafd party, which allied itself with other opposition movements in a bid to start chipping away at the dominance of the NDP, which currently controls 404 of Parliament’s 454 seats.

Moheb Zaki, from US-Egyptian rights activist Saadeddin Ibrahim’s Ibn Khaldun Centre, argued that ”the privatisation of Parliament” could have positive effects on Egypt.

”It’s a natural thing to have businessmen in Parliament. The government has clearly decided that the driving force of development would be the private sector. Businesses are funding the party and both are working hand in glove.

”They may be in there to protect their own interests but at the end of the day, they do a better job of serving the people,” he said.

Zaki argued that businessmen were more efficient in giving the population what it needed, especially in rural areas where campaigns are fought over the number of roads, schools and hospitals each candidate has financed.

”It’s important to understand that the ruling party is a party of patronage, not a party of ideology,” Zaki said, adding that the prominent role of businessmen in politics was key in attracting foreign investors. – Sapa-AFP