The Magic Stick for Solving Egyptian Crisis

The magic stick is the stick of the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak which appears in every crisis experienced by any of the public sectors or faction and after the crisis develops and reached deadlock, we see the interventions of the president with his magic stick which solves all problems.

In the crisis of journalists where they launched a violent attack which would’ve blown away their Journalists Syndicate’s chairman Makram Mohamed Ahmad despite the intervention of the president as was said by Makram himself “President Mubarak had instructed Dr. Yousef Ghali Minister of Finance, with the importance of the regular payment of training and technology allowances for journalists without hindrance or delay”.

Whereas in the crisis of Pharmacists, after the Secretary-General of Pharmacists Dr. Mohamed Abdel Maqsoud declared a general and an open strike of pharmacists due to the decisions of the Tax Department not to deal with pharmacies as small projects which resulted in closing more than 140 thousand pharmacy in Egypt and after the Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif assured to the pharmacists that they wont retract, the president intervenes waving his magic stick to solve the crisis of pharmacists and immediately a committee is formed to discuss the amendment of the Tax law of pharmacists and the crisis is solved.

As for the crisis of train drivers who started an open strike and security forces started arresting them one by one and the parliamentary called for the rights of those people who were crushed by the government’s sudden decision of halting their trailers and crashing it down, after the cisis reached a deadlock, the president shows up ordering the government to end the trailers workers strike and in seconds the strike ends and trailers work for longer than what workers had wished for. The problem gets solved as if nothing had happened.

Dr. Omara Hassan (Director of Centre of research and studies of the Middle East) has commented that the good state is the one based on strong foundations and runs the state, regardless of individuals and their personal wills, however the ruler’s intelligence could add to the development of institutions and working mechanisms of the state.

He added “however in Egypt, the powers of the president, according to law and Constitution, are powers of Gods, since the he is the one who directs, and his speeches which are written by others turn to be political projects the government strives for implementing it and his dreams become orders, he can overstep the law and intervene for reconciliation or punishments as what happened when the president ordered the transfer of civilians from Al-Gehad movement to Military tribunals for it to be discovered later that it is not the president’s authority of to do so, then the law is amended to allow the president to transfer civilians to Military tribunals and he can also release Ayman Nour whenever it serves his personal interests.

He added, “the regime in Egypt is a strange regime, like other authoritarian regimes. What happens now reminds us of Louis XVI when he said “I am the System”, the regime in Egypt now is taking the form of an inverted pyramid, which is based on the head and the head is the ruler”.

This situation indicates the failure of the initiations which runs the state, lets say that there is no institutions in Egypt and the government is a secretariat which carries out the orders of the president, and if one wanted to use the his constitutional rights he would go behind the sun like what happened with the former Prime Minister Dr. El Ganzouri when he was dismissed because he wanted to use his powers as a PM without going back to the presidency.

As what happened when Safwat El-Sherif announced that there are changes in the governing bodies of the newspapers after Eid, and this is within his powers because he is the head of the Supreme Council of the Press, then he went back of the decision saying that the president’s memory has known those faces and he wont change it in order not to disturb the memory of his highness”

He is also the one who appoints the head of the Supreme Court, head of the Constitutional Court and heads of universities because his choice determines the states orientations under the absolute, which means that all his choices are based on his personal interests, not the people’s and so all institutions of the state turn to be marionettes dolls moved by the president as he wishes.

Ammar concluded his speech saying that there is no solution for this crisis and there is no other way for reformation except by making radical changes in the Egyptian Constitution which would determine the presidential term, reduce his authorities and give wider authorities to the government and also to guarantee the integrity of elections for real representatives of people to be at the front, those who are capable of leading and planning and who have the will to serve people’s interests not their own interests.