Questions concerning Egypt's policies are raised. Dina Ezzat sees how far the papers went Egypt's performance at home and abroad was taken to task -- albeit indirectly -- in the news pages and opinion columns of the Arab press this week. A good portion of the remarks were dedicated to the home front, mostly against the government, but also the opposition. Arab commentators seemed to be in the mood to blame Egypt for what they perceived to be its failure to meet calls for political reform and change. Egypt, they said, has been unable to pursue the necessary steps needed to introduce long overdue reforms. And while sidelining opposition calls for reform, Arab commentators alleged, the Egyptian regime has at the same time immersed itself almost entirely in the question of succession. The London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi and its controversial editor Abdel-Bari Atwan were active in putting Egypt's home and foreign performance in the hot seat. Atwan dedicated a column to criticising Egypt's attempts to garner a seat on the UN Security Council since, he said, the country was no longer suited for such a leading role. He then published several stories in his paper throughout the week that showed an attempt by the political opposition to pursue a power-sharing formula through political conferences, lawsuits and parliamentarian moves. On Monday, it was the editorial of Al-Quds Al- Arabi that lashed out at Cairo. "All red lines crossed in Egypt", was the headline of the editorial which blamed the Egyptian government for failing to respond to opposition appeals for political reform. "The past few days witnessed an unmistakable shift in the discourse of the Egyptian political opposition on the rule of the [current regime]. This discourse is now much bolder and it is touching on what used to be thorny or even taboo issues including that of succession, emergency laws and even the viability of the president to rule." It might have made sense to credit Egypt's ruling regime for exercising more openness and embracing greater liberties to allow the opposition to speak its mind even when, as Al-Quds Al-Arabi stated, the opposition hits at the president, his son and the rest of his family. But the newspaper chose to credit the opposition for this shift of tone. It even complimented the opposition for being "on the right track". It would be unfair to suggest that a particular paper or writer was being critical of Egypt's home- front performance. There was the Kefaya [Enough] Movement that is calling on the president to refrain from running for a fifth term in office in October 2005 and to equally refrain from giving additional support for his younger son Gamal to succeed him. The papers also had news of the government's refusal to allow the opposition to hold a public rally to call for a change in leadership. There were also some relevant quotable quotes. On Friday, the daily Kuwaiti Al-Qabas had two stories filed from its Cairo office on power-sharing in Egypt. The stories offered the views of controversial Egyptian sociologist Saadeddin Ibrahim, who is strictly pro-American, and one virulent anti- American Islamist political leader, Mohamed Habib. They were both critical of the electoral system in Egypt that allows the ruling party to re-nominate the president via the parliament. Both stories expressed frustration with the system and hoped for elections of the president in which there is more than one candidate. "I would run for president if the law allowed more than one person to run," Al-Qabas quoted Ibrahim as saying. Ibrahim, who at one time was extremely close to the ruling regime in Egypt before falling out of favour, was quoted by the Kuwaiti daily as criticising the current electoral system that allows the incumbent to run for an indefinite number of terms of office. On the same issue, Al-Qabas quoted Habib, the deputy head of the formally outlawed but popular Muslim Brotherhood, as saying his group wanted democratic and direct elections of the president to be enforced and that it was willing to accept the outcome of such elections, whatever they might bring, "even if it was Gamal Mubarak himself." Criticism also came from Egyptian commentators. "Incomplete phrases" was the headline of an article in the Saudi-funded Asharq Al-Awsat on Saturday by its EgyptianCairo bureau chief Abdel-Latif El-Manawi. El-Manawi might not have been as critical of Egypt as other commentators -- at least he gave Cairo some credit for attempting to embrace reform and change. But at the end of the day, El-Manawi wrote that such changes never reached their destination; thus the incomplete phrases. A good example, El-Manawi wrote, was the recent conference of the National Democratic Party. The conference, he said, started on a high note with ambitious projects for the future. However, this was where it ended. "Things went back exactly the way they were. The images and pictures that were all over the papers and TV channels also came to an end... and all hopes for change receded." El-Manawi stressed he was not questioning the intentions of the NDP, "at least not yet," adding that what he really was questioning was the ability of some to deliver the ambitious projects promised during the conference. Criticism of Egypt's administration of its home affairs was not limited to political aspects. The Arab press also ran stories on observing human rights standards in Egyptian jails and police departments. There were also several stories about the decaying service of the underground and railways. And there were stories on the frustration of political opposition groups towards the government's foreign policy. "Egyptian opposition parliamentarians called on their foreign minister to explain the motives behind Egypt hosting an international conference on Iraq in Sharm El-Sheikh next month," the daily Kuwaiti Al-Raai Al-Aam reported on Monday. To be sure, Arab papers were for the most part reserved in their criticism of Egypt's plans to host the conference, seeing that it offers neither a clear plan to end the presence of foreign troops in Iraq nor direct Arab support for elections in Iraq scheduled for January. The press was critical of Egypt's involvement in facilitating Israel's unilateral disengagement from Gaza and its inability to bring about a settlement to inter-Sudanese disputes despite the weight that Egypt is supposed to have when it comes to Sudanese affairs. Other headlines covered an array of subjects: "Egypt spends $20 million to import Ramadan lanterns from China", "Eldest daughter of Gamal Abdel-Nasser to release documents of the late president", "Egyptian authorities turn down request by the Israeli Embassy to set up a daily free Iftar for the poor in Egypt", "$100 million of US aid to Egypt earmarked to build new campus for the American University in Cairo", "Egyptian clergy argue over the centralisation of the call for the prayers," "Egyptian mufti issues a fatwa licensing life insurance policies for Muslims; Muslim clery protest", and "The aging and shrinking Jewish community in Egypt elects a new leader; the daughter of the deceased chair; she speaks several foreign languages that do not include Hebrew".
