The Map of Egypt's Political Parties for 2011 Elections

The 2011 election of the People's Assembly is certainly the most prominent event since Hosni Mubarak stepped down as president of Egypt on 11February 2011. It was clear  that the second crossroad following the ex-president's topple would be elections. Moreover, it was well-known that the conduct of voters, political parties and forces and the Military Council would define the features of the Arab Republic of Egypt in the years to come.

The electoral competitiveness raises key questions on the fundamental issues relative to which different parties have different views. Of such questions are: Are there certain axis based on which the political map of parties in Egypt can be drawn? Can this map provide expectations on the image of Egypt in 2012 and beyond?

I will try to answer these questions through an analysis of the thirteen platforms of the main political parties running for this year's elections.

A. The map of political parties based on the analysis of platforms

This section is concerned with the analysis of the platforms of the thirteen main parties running for the current People's Assembly elections in Egypt[1]. These parties are: wFreedom and Justice Party (Hizb al-Horriya wal-Adala), The Free Egyptians Party (Hizb Al-Masriyeen Al-Ahrar), The New Wafd (Delegation) Party (Hizb al-Wafd), al-Nour (light) Salafi Islamist Party (Hizb al-Nour), Egyptian Social Democratic Party (Hizb al-Masri al-Democrati al-Igtima'i), Justice Party (Hizb al-Adala), Centrist Party (al-Wasat), Arab Democratic Nasserist Party (Hizb al-Arabi al-Democrati al-Nasseri), Popular Socialist Alliance Party (Hizb al-Tahaluf al-Sha'bi al-Ishtiraki), Building and Development Party (presented by the Islamic group) (Hizb al-Binaa wal Tanmeya), Democratic Front Party (Hizb al-Jabha Al-Democratia), Dignity Party (Hizb al-Karama) and the National Progressive Unionist Party (Tagammu). The main conclusion from the analysis is that the map of political parties can be divided into four fundamental blocs; each comprising three to four parties as follows:

The difference among parties is evident at a higher level of analysis based on two parameters:

1. Left/right wing axis-based on economic issues and the re-distribution of resources.
   
   
2. Religious/liberal axis-based on the issues of social values.

The parties of right/left wing axis are distinguished according to their views on the country's role in the economy, and its role in providing public services, e.g. medical care, education and public transportation. According to the platforms, those parties which can be identified as right wing are: the Free Egyptians Party, Justice Party, Democratic Front Party and Freedom and Justice Party. The common orientation of such parties is their quest for a wider role of the private sector in the economy and allowing it to be the main player and engine of economic activity. Left-wing parties, include the Arab Democratic Nasserist Party, Popular Socialist Alliance Party, Dignity Party and al-Nour (Salafi) Party. These parties call for the State to be the most active player in the economy. They believe the unemployment issue can be resolved by increasing job opportunities within the administrative apparatus of the State. Additionally, they believe that the State should preserve its possession of strategic industries, and call for an instant termination of all privatization programmes applied on state-owned firms.

The right-wing parties support a significant role for the private sector whereby it works alongside the government, in the area of public services; building roads, operating water and electricity networks, and building schools, universities and private hospitals. These parties believe that limiting the provision of public services to the government sector would impede the improvement of such services due to the lack of competition and the inability of the State's resources to meet the increasing demand on such services. Left-wing parties tend to support the State's monopoly on the provision of public services. They believe that the provision of public services by the private sector would ultimately increase monopolistic practices of businessmen. They believe that this would result in a double-strata system where citizens with higher incomes would benefit more as a result of their ability to afford high-quality services offered as per market price.

In the center of this axis are the Wafd, Wasat and Social Egyptian Democratic Party. The position of Wasat and Social Egyptian Democratic Party is not surprising. However it is strange for a Party like Wafd to adopt such a position, taking into account its traditional classification as a moderate, right-wing party. The views and beliefs of Wafd towards certain issues do not correspond with the conventional right-wing view. Wafd supports the termination of privatization programmes and calls for strict State regulation on direct foreign investments. Wafd believes in keeping the private sector away from investing in infrastructure projects. It urges a maximum wage limit for government employees. Yet, at the same time, Wafd believes that the private sector should be the main controller of economic activity. These beliefs, stands and viewpoints are somewhat contradictory; which is why the party cannot be described as a moderate right-wing party, and cannot have the same classification as the Free Egyptians Party.

The taxonomy of parties based on the right/left orientation pinpoints that parties with Islamic background do not meet on the same axis and do not agree on the same issues. The Freedom and Justice Party belong to the same category of liberal parties along with the Free Egyptian Party and Justice Party concerning their tendency towards a free economy. The Islamist Al-Nour Party tends to belong to the moderate left wing with its quest for a kind of social responsibility of the State concerning public services; a model that does not totally cancel a role for the private sector.

The parties' approach to the center of the axis varies. For example; the Popular Socialist Alliance Party is on the far left of the leftist parties (the National Progressive Unionist Party, the Arab Democratic Nasserite Party and the Dignity Party). The Popular Socialist Alliance goes as far as demanding the reclamation of all lands sold to private investors during the regime of Mubarak. It calls for the withdrawal from the agreement on the liberalization of international trade due to its 'unfair conditions'. On the contrary, the Free Egyptians Party is the farthest on the right side. It is the only moderate right-wing party that believes the current income tax should be fixed at 20 percent regardless of the income bracket. The other parties demand cumulative taxes based on income brackets.

The second axis of classifying Egyptian political parties is the religious (Islamist)/liberal dimension. This taxonomy has to do with value issues that do not relate directly to the redistribution of incomes; for example, the reform of the State and public freedoms. The current People's Assembly elections have a great significance as one of the most prominent missions of the upcoming Parliament is in producing a new constitution for the country. The constitution is defined as a document which states the laws and social value systems of a state rather than a statement of financial and economic values. Accordingly, political parties are divided relative to their views and beliefs on various issues, such as the role of women in political life, the relationship of  religion and the State, whether the State should play a role in defending social values, or should the State leave such issues to individual interactions.

This axis classifies political parties into two main categories; those parties with an Islamic background and the civil right-wing/left-wing parties. The parties with an Islamic background do not approve of the growing role of women in politics. They are utterly against public freedoms, like the right to protest and publish. However, parties with Islamic background support the concept of State intervention in protecting certain social values. They vie for transforming the national banking system and the entire economy with an Islamic basis according to the principles of Islamic finance.

Liberal parties support individual freedoms. They call for granting equal political rights to both women and men; equal rights and a political role for both Muslims and Copts, including the position of the Head of State. Liberal parties call for eliminating censorship on publishing and artistic and cultural freedom.

B. The map of political parties in real terms.

The previous analysis is built entirely on the political platforms put forward by each party. However, the current reality is quite different when the wide range of discussions held at the recent campaigns is taken into account; we can say that the two axes have been reduced to one-- the religious/liberal. For no discussions were held on general policies. This may reflect the fact that public policies were not among the factors driving voting behavior. The major classification that was noticeable, in the weeks prior to the first stage, was religious/liberal. So being religious or liberal became the most effective factor influencing voting tendency and voters' orientations.

This produced a significant result; in that a clear state of polarization amongst the components of Party life at the current stage. This polarization constitutes a huge obstacle to the progress of Egypt after democratic transition, as civilized societies cannot be built on identity division-- religious or ethnic. These divisions are incapable of disappearing, yet, societies are built by the parties' adoption of different visions for solving the key problems of citizens.

The problems of the Egyptian context are related to public policies, i.e. unemployment, poverty, health, education and housing. However, according to the analysis of the platforms of the thirteen political parties, some common aspects are found amongst those  that have Islamic background and the liberal parties too, concerning public policies (e.g. common aspects between the Freedom and Justice Party and Free Egyptians Party). This may help moderate the religious/liberal polarization that has been deeply rooted in Egyptian politics in the post revolution phase. The danger of such division is in the domination of this classification and the confining of any discussions on public issues to the sphere of religious-liberal dualism. Such dualism rejects compromises and consensual solutions; the only ones capable of resolving many problems of the Egyptians.

C. Dilemmas raised by party life

The political map of Egyptian party life before the first People's Assembly elections after the January 25 Revolution as explained-- raises several issues related to the dilemmas of each of the main political movements as follows:

The main dilemma of liberal movements in their endeavor to illustrate the differences between them and the political Islamist parties is that they are gradually drawn to adopt positions that seem anti-religion to normal citizens, especially Muslims. This is a dilemma that needs to be solved because the normal citizen, by nature, has a positive view of religion, and does not believe that religion poses any restriction on freedoms. Thus, a normal citizen will be skeptical about a political force that appears to be against this special status of religion in the lives of Egyptians. Even if this view of the liberal forces is incorrect (which is most probable), the dynamics of party life made it the case.

One method of dealing with this dilemma is by rearranging priorities regarding the issues that drive the electoral orientation of the citizen. Political parties in democracies do not win the trust of citizens by their position and behavior toward all issues. They win trust by making the issues in which they stand closer to citizens as the main issues that steer the voting tendency of citizens.

Nevertheless, liberal movements suffer an organizational issue too. Apparently, liberal parties have not succeed, at least to date, in competing with the strong, deep-rooted organizational structure of Islamist parties. Political parties are not based on platforms, leadership and supporters only. They must provide a system that links the leadership with their supporters within a framework of an agreed platform and proposed policies. Egyptian liberal parties lack this aspect to a greater extent. They are newly born and have no institutional bodies that enjoy a social presence in the community to help qualify these parties to mobilize supporters. The same applies to the parties with Islamic background that rely on national associations and bodies offering communal services, especially in the countryside, and in the lower income areas than amongst urban communities.

For the parties with Islamic background, the main dilemma is the means of mobilizing voters away from religious/liberal duplicity. It can be said, to a great extent, that the religious motive is one of the most important reasons for supporting these parties at least during the first phase of the elections. Thus, the main challenge for those parties is their ability to maintain the same number of votes in the future if this motive weakens or decreases. This problem resembles the same issue of the Democratic Coptic Parties in Europe two decades ago when the role of religion began to diminish and lose its part as a steering influence for voting. Hence, those parties suffered from losing a wide range of conventional supporters, especially churchgoers.

Another issue with religious parties is how to deal with the problems of governance. The situation after the current elections would, for the first time, provide an opportunity to political parties with Islamic background to share rule. This will present a real challenge; ruling a country like Egypt and taking into consideration the problems of the society on the economic, political and social levels is not an easy challenge.

The political discourse of these parties used to criticize the status quo and somehow limited the solutions of a number of issues to following certain religion-based policies. So now is the time to test the efficacy of this discourse. Some believe that this could be a rather good opportunity for those parties to show more prudence in their discourse, and to understand that the answer to several problems cannot be found in the conflict between the good and evil.

Finally, on the left wing, the most prominent issue is their lack of control over their broad base represented in trade unions. Egypt's left-wing has a limited presence in certain social circles expected to offer them conventional support. Those circles are trade unions. Besides, this movement suffers a severe lack of organization and its leaders have strong internal divisions or aging problems. They are also incapable of re-drafting their actual economic platform in a way that suits the vast changes the society has witnessed in the past two decades. Such changes made the private sector the main employer of about 70 percent of manpower.

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• [1] This analysis is accomplished with the help of the research in the framework of the Egypt's Vote Compass project draft. Vote Compass is an online tool which is designed to help the voter become acquainted with the programs of the main political parties competing in the current Egyptian People's Assembly elections. For more information, please visit our web site: www.bosala.org