 is creating a constitutional design that ensures a degree of political accountability but maintains the institutional independence of the armed forces. This can be achieved through a collaborative decision-making process in which a national security council that includes both officers and policy and is instrumental in matters related to national defense broadly defined.
In terms of the role of Islam in politics there is also room for compromise. Most Egyptians, while they want their religion to be part of the political process and the constitutional framework, are not supportive of an Iranian-style theocratic state. Article 2 could be maintained with an added provision that guarantees the rights of non-Muslim Egyptians to be treated equally. A number of different proposals have floated around over the past few months, and, with some fine tuning, a compromise that satisfies most Egyptians could be reached.
As for the nature of the political system it seems that there is a convergence among the main political players about a variant of a French style semi-presidential system. The structural details about the composition, powers, and terms can all be negotiated to reach a common ground. While I am not arguing that this critical matter is going to be easy, it could be done with a bit of imagination and benefiting from the experiences of similar constitutional redesigning in the recent past.
Egypt's constitutional design is not only vital for its political future and development but also for the broader Arab world. If the largest Arab country is able to attain democracy and political stability, this will provide greater incentive for other young men and women yearning for liberty in the other basins of tyranny in the region. Negotiating Egypt's democratic future is not going to be easy or swift and setbacks will happen. Nevertheless, with accommodation and political maturity, many of the discrepancies discussed here can be solved and Egypt can embrace a political future drastically different from its long past.
1. SCAF Chairman Field Marshal Tantawi's announcement on November 20th that the generals will surrender power to an elected president by June 30th, 2012 would mean that the drafting process of the new constitution would have to be drastically shortened. The Peoples' Assembly will convene in the second half of January and the Shura Council will hold its first secession on March 23, 2012. This basically gives the two houses of parliament roughly a sixty-day window to select a constitute assembly and write a constitution before the presidential election in June.
2. "Draft Declaration of the Fundamental Principles for the New Egyptian State," retrieved from http : //www xonstitutionnet.org/files/20 11.1 l_-_constitutional_principles_document_english. pdf.
3. New York Times, August 12, 2011.
4. Ahram, December 12, 2011.
5. This explains the insistence of the SCAF to ensure control over the government-owned media and their intimidation of independent media. The generals first appointed a fellow officer to run the state TV and Radio Conglomerate and when this was met with strong opposition, the generals restored the infamous Ministry of Information and appointed a trusted civilian to head it. When public opinion forced the SCAF to replace the minister of information, the generals selected a fellow high-ranking officer to replace him. The SCAF also closed down the offices of Al-Jazeera Mubasher Misr, part of the Al-Jazeera network that provides 24/7 coverage of Egypt, and the military police harassed a number of anti-SCAF TV channels. The pressure and censorship led Egypt famous talk-show host Yosri Fouda to stop his show for a couple of weeks.
6. "The role of the army in Egypt's new politics, "Aljazeera, September 30, 2011.
8. Raphael Israeli, "The Pervasiveness of Islam in Contemporary Arab Political Discourse: The Cases of Sadat and Arafat, "Ofer Feldman and Christ'l De Landtsheer (eds.) Politically Speaking: A Worldwide Examination of Language Used in the Political Sphere (Westport: Praeger, 1998), p. 22
9. Noha El-Mikawy