POLITICAL SUCCESSION IN EGYPT

POLITICAL SUCCESSION IN EGYPT Middle East Policy volume IV, Number 3, September 2002. Samer Shehata, Georgetown University Introduction Who will become Egyptís next President and how will this be determined? Will Hosni Mubarakís son follow his father as the countryís next ruler in a manner similar to what transpired in Syria? And what, if anything, does hereditary political succession have to do with ëArab political cultureí? From the fateful day on which Anwar al-Sadat was assassinated in 1981 until today, Egypt has been without a vice-president. Mubarak is now 73 years old and serving his fourth sixyear term, having survived at least one assassination attempt. Despite his good health, he is only mortal and the question remains, who will succeed him? The Egyptian constitution is clear as to what should happen if a president dies or leaves office without a vice-president. Article 84 states that ëIn case of the vacancy of the Presidential Office Ö the President of the Peopleís Assembly shall temporarily assume the Presidency; and if Ö the Peopleís Assembly is dissolved, the President of the Supreme Constitutional Court shall take over Ö on condition that neither one shall nominate himself for the Presidency.í One would be hard pressed, however, to find anyone in Egypt who believes that succession will be resolved constitutionally. This is worth mentioning because both the President and his son have invoked the constitution as an answer to the question of succession. Realistically, however, the constitution does not provide a definitive answer. Potential Rivals Some have speculated that the reason Mubarak has been reluctant to appoint a vicepresident is for fear of creating a potential rival. The only person who has ever come close to the position ñ Field Marshal Abd al-Hail Abu Ghazala, the charismatic Defense Minister for most of the 1980s - was unceremoniously removed after many believed that he had become powerful enough to remove Mubarak from office. Mubarak learned his lesson and has not allowed anyone to reach the level of popularity, visibility or power that Abu Ghazala achieved. More recently, 1 when it was announced early in 2001 that Amr Moussa would leave the Foreign Ministry to become the Head of the Arab League, many speculated that it was because he had become too popular and that the President did not like the attention showered on the well-spoken and dashing Minister. In light of the Abu-Ghazala incident, the prolonged absence of a vice-President, Amr Moussaís removal from the cabinet, and the increasing political activity of Gamal Mubarak, one can understand why many Egyptians believe the Presidentís son is next in line. For a number of years now Gamal Mubarak has increasingly been in the spotlight. And unlike the Presidentís eldest son ëAla`, Gamal has not been shy about his activities, emerging as an important figure on the political landscape. Thirty-seven years old, Gamal spent over six years working in London before returning to Egypt to become a prominent businessman, now the executive director of MedInvest Associates, a financial advisory firm. It was at the MENA conference in Cairo in the mid 1990s that he was first featured prominently in the media spotlight. At the conference, he could frequently be seen on stage with cabinet ministers, delivering speeches on Egyptís investment zones and the benefits of international trade. Today Gamal Mubarak also serves on the prestigious US-Egypt Presidentís Council, made up of only a handful of the nationís top business leaders. He is also the chairman of both the Future Foundation, a non-profit concerned with low-income housing and the Future Generation Foundation, an NGO committed to training and educating Egyptian youth in order to create ìresponsible citizens.îi In the summer of 1999 reports of a new political party further fed the speculation about Gamal Mubarakís political aspirations. In addition to the presidentís son, it was rumored that the party - Hizb al-Mustaqbal, or Party of the Future - would be established with the help of Osama al-Baz, the Presidentís long-standing political advisor and a number of prominent Egyptian politico-businessmen. The party, it was thought, would have been a way for the younger Mubarak to officially break onto the political stage differentiating himself from the characterless and ineffectual National Democratic Party (NDP), establishing ëa new channel of government patronage.íii Both al-Baz and the President eventually denied that the party would be founded but implied that something of the sort had been considered.iii Afterwards, in February 2000, Gamal 2 Muabrek was appointed to the General Secretariat of the ruling NDP and has been active in this role ever since, speaking to university students, youth and other groups and playing an increasingly prominent role in domestic politics. Thus, from quite unmistakable official and institutional signals like inclusion in the ruling party and membership on the US-Egypt Presidentís Council to smaller seemingly trivial signs such as his presence at official Presidential ceremonial functions (national holidays and festivities such as the Eid prayers), today in Egypt one cannot help but get the impression that Gamal Mubarak is being groomed for the Presidency. ëWe are not Syria.í President Mubarak The Washington Post and Al-Quds newspaper April 2001 Many, however, believe that Egypt will not go the way of Syria because of fundamental differences between the two nations. In Syria, ìthe ruling elite rallied around Bishar, as perhaps their best bet to maintain the regime itself.îiv By supporting a father to son succession, the beneficiaries of the Hafez Al-Assad regime were maintaining ëBaíthist and/or ëAlawi privileges and power.ív Gamal Mubarakís succession, however, would not necessarily constitute regime stability. Rather, it would mark a departure from the existing model of succession in Egypt, which since the establishment of the republic in 1952 has always taken place through the military.vi And unless high-ranking security and military personnel were unified in their support for Gamal ñ something seemingly unlikely ñ his succession could potentially be more disruptive than that of a military man. For despite the demilitarization of Egyptian society over the last thirty years, the military is likely to play a key role in any succession process. In the current moribund state of Egyptian politics with increasingly limited political freedoms and impotent opposition parties, the military remains the only institution with coherence, legitimacy and the economic and political power to influence the succession process. Thus, many believe that we are likely to see more of the same, another military man in civilian clothing with a similar group of civilian technocrats managing the economy. 3 Conclusion With the succession of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and speculation that similar father-to-son transitions will take place in Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Egypt, some journalists have already implied that dynastic succession is a product of Arab political culture.vii The claim might soon be made explicit in academic guise and could easily be deployed as another variant of the ëMiddle East exceptionalism thesis.í The relationship between father-to-son succession and ëArab political culture,í however, is spurious for a number reasons. First, it is simply empirically false. Father-to-son successions have more often occurred in non-Arab contexts: in North Korea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nicaragua and Haiti. Rather than being the product of an essential ëArab political culture,í the phenomenon is more likely specific to a particular type of authoritarianism ñ centralization of power in the person of the leader, a small ruling elite, the lack of institutionalized power centers outside the leader, a cult-of-personality, and long serving rulers who have been able to eliminate potential rivals. For the United States, the subject of political succession raises a number of important foreign policy questions. Does the United States, for example, have a policy regarding dynastic succession in what are ostensibly republics? How does political succession in the Middle East affect American interests and how do U.S. policies and pronouncements, impact processes of succession? Some have argued, for example, that early and wide international support for Bashar ñ including by the U.S. and the United Nations ñ ëeven before he was electedí ñ reflected the United Statesí preference for stability over democratic procedure.viii The Egyptian case will be even more interesting as Egypt is an important strategic ally and the second largest recipient of U.S. economic assistance in the world. Would Washingtonís support for a father-to-son succession in Cairo contradict the U.S.ís ostensible policy of democracy promotion? Finally, regardless of who becomes Egyptís next President, it is difficult to escape the discouraging conclusion that the overwhelming majority of Egyptians ñ ordinary citizens ñ are unlikely to have any say in the matter. In Egypt, this kind of politics sadly remains exclusively an elite game. 4 i See ëGamal Mubarak on What the Future holds for the countryís youthóand for himself,í www.amcham.org.eg/HTML/Activities/Events/GMubarak.htm . When asked about presidential succession, Gamal Mubarak responded, ëThe constitution is clear. There is no ambiguity or doubt in the case of an unforeseen eventuality.í ii Robert Springborg and John Sfakianakis, ëThe Militaryís Role in Presidential Succession,í in Armee et nation en Egypte: pouvoir politique, pouvoir militaire, edited by May Chartouni-Dubarry (Fevrier 2001) Institut Francais des relations internationales, p.57. See also footnote 2 in their article. iii Ibid., p. 58í iv Curtis R. Ryan, ëDynastic Monarchy, Dynastic Republic? Political Systems and Succession in Jordan and Syria,í paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, Orlando, Florida, Nov. 16-19, 2000, p. 15. v Ibid., p. 16. vi See Ahmed Abdalla, ë Military-Political Interactions in Egypt: an Historical Perspective,í in Armee et nation en Egypte: pouvoir politique, pouvoir militaire Armee et, edited by May Chartouni-Dubarry (Fevrier 2001) Institut Francais des relations internationales, p. 49-50. vii See Brian Whitaker, ëHereditary Republics in Arab States,í The Guardian, Tuesday, August 28, 2001. viii See Yotam Feldner, Middle East Media & Research Institute, ëEgyptís Succession Part II,í July 25, 2000. (www.memri.org/ia?IA3200.html)] 5