Egypt is coming under increasing pressure from the US and Israel to impose strict security measures on the Rafah-Gaza border to prevent a repeat of the chaotic scenes witnessed in the first days following the Isra eli withdrawal from Gaza. Then, thousands of Palestinians flooded through the borders, though most were forced to turn back. In the US to participate in the UN General Assembly meetings and to meet high-ranking officials, including US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit answered several questions on whether Egypt was up to the task in Gaza, defending Egypt's ability "to live up to the challenge of securing the borders between Egypt and Gaza in a way that would prevent the smuggling of arms or militants who may wish to harm Isra eli interests."
Sources close to the Abul-Gheit talks said the foreign minister stressed that Egypt is capable of handling the situation along the border but at the same time the international community needed to realize that the havoc of the first few days following the withdrawal occurred due to Israel's reluctance to coordinate its withdrawal with the Palestinian security and the frustration of the Palestinians living in Gaza who had been suppressed by the Isra eli occupation for close to four decades.
Egyptian ambassadors in Israel and Washington and Egypt's permanent representative to the UN have been giving the same answers to similar questions brought up by officials, congressmen, Knesset members and security generals.
Gaza was occupied by Israel following the 1967 War. Before the war it had been ruled by Egypt. Today, in accordance with a security arrangement reached by Cairo and Tel Aviv, Egypt is once again responsible for maintaining security in and around Gaza.
Egyptian officials told Al-Ahram Weekly that on paper Egypt's responsibility is confined to the borders between Rafah and Gaza but in talks that Egyptian and Isra eli security officials have been holding during the past few months it was made abundantly clear that Egypt has a role in maintaining security, in coordination with the Palestinian Authority, within the Strip itself.
To achieve this end Egypt delegated a high-level security team to Gaza to prepare for the withdrawal. A key mission of the team has been to train Palestinian security to react to scenarios of unexpected violence and to prevent possible anti-Isra eli attacks during or after the withdrawal.
The Egyptian security team in Gaza is currently coordinating with Palestinian security and intelligence staff. It has also been conducting intensive talks with representatives of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to secure their commitment to the rules of a truce Cairo helped them sign in February.
The talks have faced serious problems, Palestinian sources say. Hamas and IslamicJihad are making it no secret that they are uncomfortable with the situation in Gaza because Palestinians in Gaza have only limited access to Egypt or the West Bank. They are also unhappy with the proposed Isra eli plans to create a security zone north of Gaza. Moreover, they are concerned with what they say is an accommodating Egyptian reaction to alleged, and what they call, exaggerated Isra eli security concerns.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Palestinian Authority figures are certainly not happy with the excessive signs of Arab and Islamic warmth demonstrated towards Isra eli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during his participation in the UN summit last week. Especially alarming to them is a reported Isra eli-Jordanian plan to transfer some 100,000 Palestinian refugees from Jordan to Gaza. For their part, Egyptian officials say that the situation in Gaza is difficult but hope that all Palestinian political factions will be cooperative.
Egyptian and Palestinian officials are currently working on establishing a ministerial level multi-purpose joint committee that would attend to immediate security arrangements on the borders. It would attend to questions related to the expressed Palestinian request to reconsider the borderlines between Rafah and Gaza since some PA members have suggested that the borders have been moved in Egypt's favor.
The committee would need to coordinate with Israel's plans on operating the Rafah border that Israel wishes to close for the next six months and to replace with two other border points allowing the transport of individuals and commodities. Moreover, the joint Palestinian-Isra eli committee would need to issue rules for the crossing of Palestinian and Egyptian individuals across the borders. Economic assistance to the Palestinians in Gaza is also a top priority for the committee.
Egypt's involvement in the new situation in Gaza does not end there. It is becoming genuinely concerned by the aggressive tone used by Isra eli commentators with close relations to the Isra eli government. Some commentators have gone as far as to suggest that Israel might have to prepare for a potential military confrontation with Egypt should Cairo, as they argue, use its new position in and near Gaza to establish new military facts on the ground.
Al-Ahram Weekly
, Egypt, 22-28 September 2005
Summary of report by Gamal Essam El-Din
The ruling National Democratic Party's (NDP) preparations for parliamentary elections - scheduled to begin on 8 November - will be ratcheted up a notch when it holds its third annual conference, scheduled for 29 September. According to NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif the party's Secretariat-General and six-member Steering Committee will meet next week to finalize the conference agenda. Expectations are that the conference will restrict itself to its strategy for the forthcoming elections and a discussion of the pledges made during the recent presidential campaign by its candidate, Hosni Mubarak.
Kamal El-Shazli, NDP Assistant Secretary-General, said on Sunday the party was determined to review the electoral college system ahead of parliamentary elections. This system was adopted following what was b elieved to be a poor performance by the NDP in the 2000 parliamentary elections. "The review," said El-Shazli, "comes three years after the system was first applied. Intended to make the selection of NDP candidates for parliamentary elections more democratic, it has proved far from ideal."
The NDP's poor performance in the 2000 elections was blamed on the manipulation of candidate lists by the party's old guard. In response, an American-style electoral college system was introduced, largely, it is thought, at the instigation of Gamal Mubarak, who was ascending rapidly through party ranks. But that system has itself been vulnerable to abuse, this time by businessmen. Its shortcomings became apparent in the 2004 Shura Council mid-term elections when a number of wealthy businessmen bought votes within the Electoral College, which currently comprises party secretaries throughout the provinces. The aim of the review, said El-Shazli, will be to broaden the base of the college, though the final decision on candidates will depend on their being ratified by the party's Secretariat- General and President Mubarak.
Ahmed Abu Zeid, leading NDP MP and chairman of the Parliament's Arab Affairs Committee, insists that interest in reforming the Electoral College system is a result of the growing realization within the party that the parliamentary elections will be hard fought. But Rifest El-Said, chairman of the leftist Tagammu Party, b elieves it will take more than a broadening of the Electoral College to prevent businessmen from making a clean sweep in the parliamentary elections. "These businessmen," he told Al-AhramWeekly, "spent millions of pounds on President Mubarak's presidential campaign and they expect something in return." The Electoral College, he added, is little more than a joke, and there is every chance that the next Parliament will become a gathering of business tycoons and opportunist politicians.
"Given President Mubarak's determination to strengthen Parliament, the political ferment that has followed the amendment of Article 76 and intense international interest in Egypt's political life, the NDP anticipates that parliamentary elections will be more competitive than ever." And this being probably the case, says Abu Zeid, the party wants to field only candidates of the highest caliber.
The issue of international monitoring is likely to figure prominently in the run up to the poll. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said earlier this month that monitors - both Egyptian and foreign - with full access to polling stations would lend transparency and credibility to November's parliamentary elections. Yesterday, US sources in Cairo said that two senior US officials, Karen Hughes and Dina Powell, will be visiting Cairo next week to discuss democratic reforms.
Disappointed by the results of the presidential elections the major opposition parties say they will press for international monitoring of the parliamentary vote.
The Al-Wafd presidential candidate Noaman Gomaa said last week that his party would now welcome the presence of international monitors. "Initially," he said, "Al-Wafd opposed such monitoring but “following the presidential elections and the incompetence shown by the government- appointed Presidential Election Committee" the party has changed its mind.
However, Osama El-Baz, President Mubarak's political adviser, reiterated the long-standing governmental position that international monitoring of elections, whether presidential or parliamentary, is completely unacceptable.
Candidates belonging to established political parties are likely to be joined on the ballot lists by independents affiliated to the growing protest movement. Kifaya announced last week that it intended to field candidates throughout Egypt. The movement also plans to stage a demonstration on 27 th September to coincide with President Mubarak's swearing-in ceremony for a fifth six-year term.
The outlawed Moslem Brotherhood, which had previously said it was approaching parliamentary elections with the utmost seriousness, revealed that it plans to field 150 candidates. And last week the three main opposition parties - Al-Wafd, Tagammu and Nasserist - announced that they were hammering out an alliance in an attempt to break the NDP hold on the Parliament.
NDP sources say that the party's Policies Secretariat, headed by Gamal Mubarak, will be in charge of preparing the NDP election program, which will flesh out the pledges already made during the successful presidential campaign. The NDP conference will open with a speech by El-Sherif outlining the party's achievements over the last 12 months. Gamal Mubarak will then take the podium to review the party's political agenda and its preparations for parliamentary elections. The conference will close with a keynote speech by President Mubarak. A number of politicians and journalists from the US, UK and France have been invited to attend.
