|
Egypt Political Developments, 1971-78
On September 11, 1971, a new constitution was presented by
Sadat and approved by the electorate. The previous constitution
had been issued as "provisional" in 1964. The Constitution of
1971 provides additional guarantees against arbitrary arrest,
seizure of property, and other Nasser-era abuses. The
responsibility of the People's Assembly, which replaced the
National Assembly, was widened, but the president clearly
retained dominant authority. Sadat dissolved the old legislature
on September 8, 1971, and on September 19, he formed a new
cabinet.
The Constitution provides that the president may issue
binding decrees, which was essentially the way Sadat ruled the
country. After ridding himself of Ali Sabri and his allies, Sadat
conducted his presidency without the constraints that Nasser had
faced. Sadat's government came to be composed of his own
handpicked followers, not of colleagues whose opinions he had to
consider. Especially during the euphoria following the October
1973 War, Sadat was able to consolidate the power of the
presidency in a way that Nasser never had
(see The Presidency
, ch. 4).
Nevertheless, Sadat attempted to allow a certain degree of
political expression. Competitive, but not totally free,
elections were held for the People's Assembly on October 27,
1971. In 1975 Sadat permitted the establishment of three
groupings in the ASU to express the opinions of the left, the
right, and the center of the regime. By 1976 the three platforms
were permitted, within established guidelines, to act as separate
political entities, but each group needed to elect a minimum of
twelve deputies to the People's Assembly to be recognized. The
leftist group was originally known as the National Progressive
Unionist Organization (NPUO--later NPUP when it was allowed to
become a party) led by Khalid Muhi ad Din, a Free Officer and a
Marxist. The right-wing group was the Socialist Liberal
Organization (SLO--later the Liberal or Ahrar Party) led by
Mustafa Kamil Murad. The center group was known as the Egyptian
Arab Socialist Organization. The country's main political forces,
the Wafd, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Nasserites, and the
communists, were not allowed representation.
In the October 1976 election, not unexpectedly, the
progovernment center platform of the ASU won an overwhelming
majority, 280 seats; the SLP won 12 and the NPUP only 2.
Independent candidates won forty-eight seats. When he opened the
new assembly, Sadat announced that the platforms would become
political parties.
In July 1977, Sadat announced that he would establish his own
party, the National Democratic Party (NDP), signaling the end of
the Arab Socialist Union, which was merged with the NDP. Sadat
also wanted a more pliable left-wing opposition party, so the
Socialist Labor Party (Amal) was founded with Sadat's brother-in-
law as vice president.
Sadat also allowed comparative freedom of action to the
Muslim Brotherhood. Sadat felt he could use the Islamic
fundamentalists to counter the growing influence of the left. The
leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood were freed in 1974 along with
other political prisoners. They were not allowed to become a
legal organization, but they were allowed to operate openly and
to publish their magazine, Al Awd (The Return) as long as
they did not criticize the regime too sharply. This policy seemed
to work until the peace treaty with Israel, and then the
Brotherhood became a severe critic of the regime
(see The "Dominant Party" System
, ch. 4).
The movement away from a one-party system matched Egypt's
turn away from the Soviet Union and toward the United States.
Sadat hoped that his new political and economic policies would
attract large sums of private American investment. He also felt
that the United States was the only country that could pressure
Israel into a final peace settlement. To enhance relations with
the United States and to respond to the Soviet Union's refusal to
reschedule repayments of Egypt's debt, Sadat unilaterally
renounced the Soviet-Egyptian Treaty of Friendship and
Cooperation in March 15, 1976.
Data as of December 1990
|
