CAIRO: Academic and political scientist Amr Hamzawy today rejected the proposed complete political isolation of members of Egypt's formerly ruling National Democratic Party. Hamzawy is the under-secretary of the Egypt Freedom Party. His comments came at a symposium held by Youm7 in Cairo today. Hamzawy said many of the dissolved NDP's former members had patriotic positions better than the positions of many opposition figures both before and after the January 25 Revolution that toppled Egypt's ruling regime. Hamzawy criticized the revolution's coalitions and trends, saying that the political elitism failed to establish a real bond with the citizens or a unified list to run for the upcoming parliamentary elections. He also said that the revolution's youth were mistaken when they used the media to connect with the people, but that their greatest sin was "monopolizing the revolution" and using arrogant speech which lost the people's sympathy. Hamzawy has taught at universities in both Cairo and Berlin and is considered an expert of Middle East and Arab issues. At the beginning of the symposium, Youm7 Editor-in-Chief Khaled Salah welcomed Hamzawy and said, "Hamzawy does not need any identification as many of you chanted with him in Tahrir Square, and for me he is one of the elements that derive its importance from their mind." At the symposium, Hamzawy was asked, how do you read the recent political scene, as we are at the edge of an electoral battle, facing suspended laws and uncompleted party lists, and remnants [of the former regime] still have the ability to compete? Hamzawy: I should start my words as a political analyst not as an active politician in the Egyptian scene. Egypt is not different from any other state; Egyptian made this revolution to realize democracy and a new regime. Electoral experiments after revolutions are mostly not completely fair or perfect as the former regime has not completely vanished. We have a clear example in what happened in the Eastern European countries, which sought to eliminate communist regimes, yet the 60 percent of the Eastern European countries' parliaments included members with a communist agenda. The former regime's figures have always had a better ability to compete as they possess the electoral experience, and the revolutionary powers lack the mechanism to realize their existence on the political street. We do not have the luxury of the time and cannot provide a longer time for the electoral process, because ‘later' is the democratic test. We are going through new legislative experiment. I do not think that it will express the revolution's soul, so the people's expectations should not be raised. Question: How do you see the drafting of uncompleted laws for the elections? Hamzawy: I must confess that the political powers failed to run the pre-elections scene, as they failed to establish a unified list for the electoral battle to guarantee the existence of a unified cluster inside the parliament. There are accusations against the revolution's youth of using arrogant speech in the media. What do you think of these allegations? Not all of the revolution's youth use arrogant speech. Some of them did this is what led them to lose the people's sympathy. Why is the Egypt Freedom Party still not active on the Egyptian political stage? The party project is not facing any obstacles, we are just moving slowly. We did not buy the authorizations and votes like the rest of the parties, so we have only 4,000 authorizations. We also did not raise the ceiling of the donations to reach millions like other parties. We put 200,000 EGP (U.S. $33,800) as the maximum amount of money for donations.
