By Salama A Salama One serious push for democratisation, backed with the necessary political will, and we could all have been spared the flurry of articles and seminars that promise us constitutional reforms, or at least their discussion. As far as reform is concerned the rhetoric has never been a match for the mordant reality. The smear campaign against the National Council for Human Rights is hardly encouraging. Some NCHR members, who at one point got excited about proposed constitutional reforms, have been dragged in the mud. The smear campaign bodes ill for constitutional amendments, to say the least. Apart from the cosmetic touches that the National Democratic Party is so fond of nothing of substance is likely to take place. And the slurs being directed at respectable public figures are meant as a warning shot to the opposition and other independently-minded souls. The message is clear. We should all keep our mouths shut and refrain from discussing sensitive matters, however important they may be to the nation. The insidious campaign against the NCHR was launched not only from outside the NCHR but from within. Critics pointed out that the NCHR is just a government institution with no legislative clout or any teeth to its recommendations. Apparently the international democratic tide that led to the NCHR being formed has now ebbed. The NCHR, then, is being subjected to sabotage from within, weakened from without, and as a result is silenced and cowed. Critics have accused some NCHR members of lacking loyalty and embracing the ideas of opposition and banned political groups. These accusations aim to undermine even the narrow margin of independence that the NCHR managed to achieve since its inception. No wonder the NCHR has failed to monitor labour union elections, crucial as they are. The elections are getting underway in unhealthy and undemocratic circumstances. Judicial supervision has been ruled out and administrative obstacles have been created so as to allow the security and administrative services to exclude whoever is not to the NDP's liking. Several candidates came all the way from distant governorates to Cairo to collect their application papers only to return empty handed. In the ensuing clashes and sit-ins the security services effectively decided who was going to be allowed to run in the elections. Some say labour union elections are so much less important than parliamentary elections that they need no outside monitoring. The minister of labour has voiced similar sentiments, claiming that the elections are held within one family in the same home. This is a patronising view that hardly conceals the innate desire to fix the outcome of this supposedly insignificant poll. It is because we lack a tradition of free elections that we need monitoring on all levels, parliamentarian and professional. Without such monitoring Egypt can never have a credible democracy. The obstacles placed in the way of the trade union elections aim to exclude the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). The regime has already arrested many MB members on the pretext that they belong to a banned group. How short- sighted and narrow-minded can one get? Political issues must be addressed through political means. The bans and the recent arrests make a mockery of justice as well as citizens' rights. Against such a background, what hope can we have of any considered constitutional and legislative amendments?
