Mapuche activist Maria Hueichaqeo stands in front of the ruca (traditional Mapuche circular house) built on the Antu Mapu campus, which serves as the headquarters for the work of the Tain Adkimn Mapuche Indigenous Association, aimed at raising awareness in Chilean society of the situation of indigenous peoples and of how the Chilean state has mistreated them up to now. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Jan 24 2023 (IPS)

Mapuche indigenous leaders were hit hard by what they see as a collective defeat: the rejection in a September referendum of a plurinational, intercultural constitution proposed to Chile by an unprecedented constituent assembly with gender parity and indigenous representatives.

“We felt devastated, some leaders cried. This defeat never crossed our minds because we thought this was going to change,” Nelly Hueichan, president of the Mapuche Trepeiñ Community, a women’s collective in the Lo Hermida municipality on the southside of Santiago, told IPS.

“For our people there has never been an easy solution…This is not the first time that we have been defeated,” added the 64-year-old activist.

“It was a tremendous challenge and an opportunity to change this society that has discriminated against us so much,” she said. “Now we have to stand up and resume the fight. We continue to organize and get ourselves ready.”

Hueichan came to Santiago when she was 17, from San Juan de la Costa, in the province of Osorno, 930 kilometers to the south. Her first job was as a domestic worker.

More than 13 million of Chile’s 19.5 million people voted in the Sept. 4 referendum, when 61.86 percent of voters (7,882,238) cast their ballot against the draft constitution and only 38.14 percent (4,859,039) voted to approve it.

Thus, voters rejected the proposal approved by more than two-thirds of the 154 elected members of the constituent assembly that sought to turn Chile into a plurinational and intercultural state.

According to the last census, 1.8 million Chileans belong to an indigenous group. The Mapuches make up the largest native community (80 percent of the total). They come from the south of the country, but half have moved away from there, mainly to Santiago. The next biggest communities are the Aymaras (7.1 percent) and the Diaguitas (4 percent), followed by the Atacameño, Quechua, Rapa Nui, Colla, Chango, Kawésqar and Yagán peoples.

The rejected constitution contained “the dreams of those who were not and have not been in power; it proposed a new path for Chileans that the citizens did not want to take,” said Mapuche linguist and professor Elisa Loncón, who presided over the first period of the constituent assembly.

Salvador Millaleo, a Mapuche professor at the University of Chile Law School, told IPS that “without a doubt indigenous peoples were harmed and damaged the most, because the proposal that was rejected had the most comprehensive framework of rights that has ever been put forth.”

The campaign for the “no” vote ahead of the referendum argued that excessive rights would be given to indigenous people, giving them a privileged position over other Chileans. The fearmongering played on long-standing racism embedded in Chilean society.

The Trepeiñ Community, presided over by Nelly Hueichan, brings together 35 Mapuche members who live in the municipality of Lo Hermida, mainly women with a similar background of labor and social discrimination. Their activities and meetings are carried out in a ruca (traditional Mapuche dwelling) that they also lend to other local residents to hold activities for social benefit. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Racism and repression

This racism was nourished by the repressive policies imposed on indigenous people by successive governments, especially the 1973-1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

Back then, the conflict over ownership of land claimed by indigenous groups but now in private hands, especially of forestry companies, was declared non-existent. In addition, Mapuche activists were tried and sentenced as terrorists, when they carried out actions demanding the return of their ancestral lands.

Indigenous leaders are demanding reparations for the violation of the human rights of the Mapuche people during crackdowns by the authorities and argue that priority must be given to the issue of usurped lands.

The poor handling of the Mapuche question means that the southern regions where most of them live are the poorest in Chile, plagued by precarious jobs and high unemployment, as well as serious deficiencies in education, infrastructure and healthcare.

“A fairly generalized climate has been generated among the political elites that are opposed to or do not prioritize the rights of indigenous peoples,” said Millaleo.

This environment contrasts with the one prevailing during the 2019 protests under the government of rightwing president Sebastián Piñera (2018-2022), when Mapuche flags were raised in the massive demonstrations.

“Back then we were all very happy, but the leaders had little awareness that they had to consolidate this support, adopt strategies, seek broader backing in the indigenous world and among non-governmental organizations, and keep people in the territories informed,” said Millaleo.

The triumph of the “no” vote was the other side of the coin from the majority election of independent constituents in May 2021, which culminated in the installation two months later of a constituent assembly presided over by Loncón.

The Ceremonial Center of Indigenous Peoples, located on José Arrieta avenue in the municipality of Peñalolén, was inaugurated in May 2022. Sitting on 4.2 hectares of land it represents expressions and promotes traditions and customs of the Mapuche, Aymara and Rapa Nui cultures present in the municipality. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

False threat

María Hueichaqueo chairs one of the 130 Mapuche organizations in Santiago: the Tain Adkimn Mapuche Indigenous Association in the working-class municipality of La Pintana, where the population is 16 percent indigenous.

At the same time, rightwing politicians convinced many voters that indigenous people would take over the Chilean territory if the new constitution was approved.

“Nowhere in the world have indigenous peoples seized land that was ancestrally ours,” said Hueichaqueo. “In some cases mechanisms, treaties or agreements have been created to solve conflicts over land.”

Hueichaqueo, 57, moved to Santiago from Chol Chol, a municipality in the Araucanía region, 700 kilometers south of the capital.

“I was born in a ruca (traditional Mapuche house) and at the age of seven months I came here with my mother. My father is a cacique (chief) and lives in the Lonko José Poulef Community in Chol Chol,” she told IPS at the Antu Mapu (Land of the Sun) campus, the largest University of Chile campus, where the Faculty of Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine is located.

According to Hueichaqueo, “what is happening is that the powers that be do not want to lose power. They feel that if the indigenous peoples have rights, their power will decline.”

The activist acknowledged that “we were unable to make a deeper analysis of the situation we were experiencing, in order to better understand what kind of representatives we needed in the constituent assembly.”

Indigenous errors

“Unfortunately not all of our indigenous brothers and sisters handled themselves well in the assembly,” she said. “Some took very extreme positions not in line with the real situation in the country. We are aware of the land claims and the violations of human rights. But that has to do with the State and we were talking about a new constitution, about everyone living together in the same territories.”

According to Hueichaqueo, the indigenous constituents distanced themselves from the organizations. To illustrate, she pointed out that some were elected with a large number of votes but then, in their own territories, a majority voted against the draft constitution.

Millaleo said that another mistake made by the indigenous representatives was “not daring to ask the radicalized groups that did not support the constituent assembly process to put down their weapons, and to clearly differentiate themselves from these groups.”

Hueichaqueo said that now the Mapuche people “are in a state of reflection. But we’re not sitting with our arms crossed, because indigenous peoples have a history of more than 500 years of mobilization and demands, and they are not going to stop us because of a constituent assembly that failed.”

“If it is not us, it will be our children, and if it is not our children it will be our grandchildren, but our demands will continue to be voiced as long as the Chilean State does not listen to the peoples and does not recognize the rights that it needs to recognize,” she said.

María Hueichaqueo stands surrounded by figures that represent men and women on the Antu Mapu university campus (“land of the sun” in Mapuche), in Santiago. They welcome students who attend an elective course to learn Mapudungun (Mapuche or Araucanian language) and to study indigenous inclusion in the history of Chile. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

New attempt to rewrite the constitution

Hueichaqueo said she was “pessimistic regarding how much progress can be made in any new constitution that could be drafted because neither the State nor the government nor the political class are delivering democratic, participatory and governance guarantees” in this new process.

The Chilean Congress approved a new process with a committee of 24 experts elected by an equal number of votes from the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, which will draft a new constitution. It will start working on Mar. 6, the same day that another technical-administrative commission of 14 experts also appointed by Congress will be installed.

On May 7, 50 members of a joint Constitutional Council will be elected by Chile’s voters, with a gender balance and a minimum number of indigenous representatives. It will have five months to set forth a new constitution drawn up based on the preliminary draft created by the experts.

On Dec. 17, the new draft constitution will be submitted to a referendum.

But according to Loncón, this strategy is aimed at continuing to exclude indigenous people.

“Today they intend to write the new constitution with a discredited political elite, which will never speak the language of the peoples because they are not the peoples, and we can suspect that they only seek to maintain their positions of power and their benefits,” she said.

The poet’s view

For 50-year-old poet Elicura Chihuailaf, the first Mapuche to win the National Literature Prize, in 2020, it is difficult to understand the defeat “after it seemed that the majority of the population of Chile began to recognize it also has native heritage.”

Speaking to IPS from Cunco, 736 kilometers south of Santiago, he said that he sees ignorance among Chileans about the world view of native peoples.

“Everything that happened had to do to a great extent with the media, because of that superficial and alienated group that owns the media,” he asserted.

In his opinion, “history has been handled in a manner biased by the vested interests of a small group that I have called the superficial or alienated Chile, which has written its own version of history.”

“It ignores what was and continues to be the occupation of a territory, of a country, which was called and continues to be called ‘wal mapu’, the meeting of all the lands”, in the Mapuche language, Chihuailaf said.

“When you talk about development, it is said that the native peoples do not want it, but our peoples say we want development, but with nature and not against it,” he argued.

The award-winning poet said “the first step to recover the dignity of this country is for the popular classes to recognize their identity, and acknowledge that it comes from native peoples and that all cultures are important.”

“That the most beautiful blackness, the most beautiful yellowness, the most beautiful whiteness and the most beautiful brownness are neither more nor less than others,” he said.

President Daniel Ortega (standing a right) at the Sixth National Sandinista Congress, held June 4, which unanimously proclaimed him the Sandinista Party candidate for president of Nicaragua for the seventh time in a row. On the high rise building, Nicaraguan revolutionary hero Augusto César Sandino (1895-1934) is depicted in silhouette. Credit: La Voz del Sandinismo

By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA, Jun 23 2016 (IPS)

The seventh consecutive nomination of Daniel Ortega as the governing party’s candidate to the presidency in Nicaragua, and the withdrawal from the race of a large part of the opposition, alleging lack of guarantees for genuine elections, has brought about the country’s worst political crisis since the end of the civil war in 1990.

President Ortega, a 72-year-old former guerrilla fighter, has been the elected head of this Central American since 2007, and is seeking reelection in the general elections scheduled for November 6. If he wins his term of office will be extended to 2021, by which time he will have served a record breaking 19 years, longer even than that of former dictator Anastasio Somoza García whoruled the country for over 16 years.

He is standing again this year in spite of already having served two consecutive terms as president, thanks to a ruling by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)-controlled Supreme Court (CSJ).

The CSJ determined in 2011 that an article in the constitution banning indefinite reelection was a violation of Ortega’s right to be a candidate. Thus the highest court in the land struck down the constitutional ban against immediate reelection of serving presidents who have served out their term of office.The future situation “will depend on the opposition’s power to create instability in the electoral system, after announcing its official withdrawal from the contest.” - Humberto Meza

Ortega’s electoral hopes were further boosted on June 15, when the opposition National Coalition for Democracy (CND) was elbowed out of the race: their most promising leader, Luis Callejas, was dropped as a presidential candidate.

Earlier the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) cancelled the legal status of the leadership of the Independent Liberation Party (PLI), the largest member of the Coalition, and handed over PLI representation instead to a political faction supportive of the FSLN.

In the view of the opposition and other domestic movements, these measures have undermined the country’s democratic institutions and cast a shadow of doubt over the validity of the elections themselves.

Social scientist Nicolás López Maltez, a member of Nicaragua’s Academy of Geography and History, said that the way Ortega has pursued his presidential aspirations is unparalleled in Central America in the past 150 years.

“He has been a candidate in seven consecutive elections since 1984. He lost in 1990, 1996 and 2001; then he won the elections in 2006, 2011 and is now an official candidate for 2016,” López Maltez told IPS.

Ortega first came to power in 1979 when FSLN guerrillas ousted the last member of the Somoza dynasty of dictators who ruled the country with an iron fist for 43 years.

He was the coordinator of the Junta of National Reconstruction, the provisional government (1979-1984) installed by the Sandinista rebels following their victory against Anastasio Somoza Junior. Ortega stood for president for the first time in 1984 in the first elections called by the Sandinistas and was elected for the five-year term 1985-1990.

He lost the 1990 elections which marked the climax of a civil war in which armed opposition to the Sandinista revolution received political and military pressure from the United States.

According to López Maltez and other analysts, Ortega has taken control of all government branches, and is therefore practically assured of victory at the ballot boxes in November.

If this happens, then by 2018 Ortega will become the longest serving president of Nicaragua, outlasting the terms in office of liberal former general José Santos Zelaya (1893-1909) and Anastasio Somoza García (1937-1947 and 1950-1956) who each served for 16 years and a few months.

The Somoza dynasty wielded absolute power in Nicaragua from 1937 to 1979. Three members of two generations of this family – or their puppet allies – perpetuated their oppressive and corrupt dictatorship for 43 years.

Pollsters agree that President Ortega enjoys wide social support and the confidence of by groups such as private business and the police and military corps.

In May, M&R Consultores published survey results indicating that 77.6 percent of respondents backed Ortega, and 63.7 percent of voters said they would cast their ballots for his socialist FSLN party.

“Over the last 15 years several Latin American presidents have overturned the myth, previously regarded as incontrovertible by political scientists, that the region’s presidents enjoy high approval levels when they enter office, but high disapproval levels when they leave,” the head of the M&R consultancy, Raúl Obregon, told IPS.

In his view, there are several reasons why Ortega is one of the exceptions to the rule.

In the first place, he said, Ortega’s prospects are enhanced by the fading of popular fears that the FSLN would cause another war if they were returned to power, a fear much played upon by the opposition in the 1990, 1996 and 2001 election campaigns.

Secondly, he said, Ortega has followed sound macroeconomic policies and this is recognised by both domestic and international organisations.

The rolling out of social projects for poverty reduction has benefited the most vulnerable members of society.

Rightwing parties governed the country between 1990 and 2007, but they have now been torn apart owing to internal conflicts, and they have lost influence among the electorate.

“They are out of touch with the problems and needs of the people. They talk politics while the population wants to hear proposals to solve their main problems, namely unemployment and lack of access to basic necessities,” Obregón emphasised.

Thirty-eight percent of Nicaragua’s 6.2 million people live in poverty, according to international organisations. The 2012 electoral register identifies 4.5 million registered voters.

Despite the picture painted by the polls, opposition politicians accuse Ortega of manipulating the laws and institutions in his favour to ensure the outcome of the election and secure his continued grasp on power.

Opposition sectors claim the results of municipal elections in 2008 and of the 2011 general elections were fraudulent. Observers from the U.S. Carter Center and from the European Union observers/ said they lacked transparency.

This year a number of civil society organisations and other institutions, including the private sector and the Roman Catholic Church, have asked Ortega for greater political openness and for international observers to monitor the elections to guarantee fair play.

But in May Ortega decided not to invite international or local electoral observers, whom he referred to as “shameless scoundrels.”

After that came the move against the PLI leadership, followed in June by the engineering of the disqualification of the candidate nominated by the CND coalition, an umbrella group for the main opposition forces.

CND leaders said they were abandoning the contest in order to avoid being involved in an “electoral farce.”

These events rang alarm bells at international organisations as well as for the secretary general of the Organisation of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, a native of Uruguay.

Humberto Meza, who holds a doctorate in social sciences, said that Ortega’s stratagems to perpetuate himself in power “will drastically affect the legitimacy of the elections,” no matter how high his popularity rating.

The Supreme Court “is condemning a vast number of voters to non participation in the electoral process,” he told IPS.

The aftermath, in Meza’s view, “will depend on the opposition’s power to create instability in the electoral system, after announcing its official withdrawal from the contest.”

“Nicaragua is polarised. Many people are critical of but remain silence for fear of official reprisals,” he said.

Democratic institutions are fragile now to an extent not seen since 1990, Meza said.

However, “democracy has plenty of other options for self-nurture apart from the voting mechanism,” he said. “Apparently a large sector of the opposition is placing its hopes in these alternatives.”

Meza said the concern expressed by the OAS secretary general and any pressure exerted by the international community, led by the United States, were unlikely to have “much impact” on Nicaragua’s  domestic crisis.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez. Translated by Valerie Dee

Rose Fungulana, a 53-year-old farmer, fears that if DRC President Joseph Kabila is allowed to serve a third term of office, there will be a rebellion that will increase the risk of sexual assault against women. Courtesy: Badylon Kawanda Bakiman

By Badylon Kawanda Bakiman
KIKWIT, DR Congo, Jul 2 2014 (IPS)

Proposals to review the Democratic Republic of Congo’s constitution to permit President Joseph Kabila to seek a third term of office, if accepted, will only plunge the Congolese further into poverty and insecurity, experts warn.

“More than 60 percent of Congolese live on less than one dollar a day. Our compatriots are struggling to access our natural resources. DRC risks [looting] of stores as it was in 1991 in Mobutu [Sese Seko’s reign],” Raymond Kitako, a civil society leader in DRC, told IPS. Mobutu ruled the country for 31 years in a reign that was synonymous with corruption. In 1991 people looted stores and shops as the economy plunged.

Mobutu was overthrown in 1997 by current President Joseph Kabila’s father, Laurent Kabila, who was assassinated in 2001. Joseph Kabila replaced his father as head of state and was later elected president in 2006 and 2011.

“If this decision is applied, it places the country at risk for a serious political crisis,” Kitako added.

Article 70 of the constitution specifies that the presidential mandate of five years is only renewable once. And article 220 of the constitution specifically states there should be no review of the constitution when it comes to the presidential mandate. However, the ruling coalition Presidential Majority was said to be discussing the possibility of reviewing the limits placed on the term of office.

“If the presidential [term] is reviewed, the DRC will register a step backwards of 60 years. We don’t like it,” said Vital Kamerhe, Joseph Kabila’s main political opponent and chairman of the opposition Union for Congolese Nation, during a meeting with journalists.

Raymond Kitako, a civil society leader in DRC, said if DRC President Joseph Kabila is allowed to serve a third term of office, it would result in a serious political crisis. Courtesy: Badylon Kawanda Bakiman

For Kamerhe, “Burundi’s example where members of parliament refused to review the constitution [after being asked to do so] by President Pierre Nkurunziza must be a lesson to the presidential majority in DRC.”

Ernest Malonda, a member of the opposition Union for Democracy and Social Progress, told IPS that if the president was allowed to seek a third term of office, “DRC will lose its national unity. Congolese will not circulate freely. Bandits called ‘Kuluna’ will become very numerous and the people will suffer.”

“Where have you seen a country at war receive economic investors?” asked Germaine Tangolo, an economist.

Many here remember the rebellion of 1997 where more than six million Congolese died when Laurent Kabila overthrew Mobutu. And they don’t want to relive it.

“The war will start and as a consequence so will sexual violence and gender-based violence as people look for natural resources,” feared Rose Fungulana, a 53-year-old farmer.

She said that in the 1997 war, her 23-year-old sister was raped by Mobutu’s soldiers in eastern DRC.

A 2013 report published by Ministry of Gender, however, shows sexual violence remains very high in the country, as “29,354 cases of sexual violence and gender-based violence were registered in seven provinces of DRC from 2011 to 2013.”

Fungulana worries that women will be even more at risk should there be a rebellion against the president serving a third term of office.

Jean Claude Katenda, president of the African Association for Human Rights in DRC, told IPS that the “people will contest the results and people will die [protesting against it]. It’s dangerous for the democracy. Corruption will circulate.”

However, Luzanga  Shamandevu, spokesman of presidential majority, denied this would happen and said that they would accept the outcome if the constitution was reviewed.

However, some are willing to take their chances with a changed constitution.

“I don’t understand why political opposition and Presidential Majority are divided! Let us see what the country will become if the Congolese constitution is reviewed,” Simon Kapalay, a teacher at Kikwit, in the southwest of DRC, told IPS.

Protests over discrimination against Dalits in Nepal are delivering little. Credit: Mallika Aryal/IPS.

By Mallika Aryal
KATHMANDU, Feb 3 2014 (IPS)

Maya Sarki, a resident of Belbari in eastern Nepal, was returning home one summer evening last year when she was attacked. She was forced down on the ground and her attacker attempted to rape her.

She screamed. Locals came to her rescue and the attempt was thwarted. Sarki recognised the voice of her attacker as that of a neighbour and filed a police complaint.

The next day Sarki was met by a mob, led by her alleged attacker, at the village market. She was called derogatory names, her clothes were torn, and soot was smeared on her face. She was garlanded with shoes, beaten, and paraded around town. After the incident, Sarki fled the village.

In Dailekh in western Nepal, Sushila Nepali, 28, was raped by a local schoolteacher for years. She was forced to abort twice, but got pregnant again and gave birth to two children. Disowned by her family, Nepali has been living on the streets and begging for shelter and food.“Dalit women are at the bottom of the caste and gender hierarchy in Nepal."

Sarki and Nepali are from different parts of the Himalayan nation, but what is common between them is their caste group – both belong to the socially marginalised Dalit community. Sarki’s attacker and Nepali’s rapist were both high caste Hindus.

There are an estimated 22 Dalit communities in Nepal. Researchers and Dalit organisations say they make up 20 percent of the country’s 27 million population. Dalits are considered to be at the bottom of Nepal’s 100 caste and ethnic groups.

They bear a much bigger burden of poverty, with 42 percent Dalits under the poverty line as opposed to 23 percent non-Dalits.

After a long political impasse, Nepal went back to polls in November. After two long months of negotiations, new assembly members are now finally sitting down and writing a new constitution. But experts say even in the new assembly, the Dalit community is the most under-represented, with only seven percent, or 38, of the 575 Constituent Assembly members being Dalit.

Rajesh Chandra Marasini, programme manager at the Jagaran Media Centre, an alliance of Dalit journalists formed to fight caste-based discrimination, worries that Dalit related issues would, once again, not get priority in the new constitution.

“I am concerned that the new Dalit assembly members would take the party line and become a mere physical presence,” he told IPS. “I fear that Dalit advocacy would become an afterthought.”

Nepal’s Civil Code 1854 had legalised the caste system and declared the Dalit community as ‘untouchable’. In a Hindu hierarchical structure, such a label dictates where Dalits can live, where they can study and where they can socialise.

In 1963, caste-based discrimination was abolished in Nepal and the National Dalit Commission was formed. In 2011, the Caste Based Discrimination and Untouchability Act was passed.

Yet, Dalits continue to be marginalised.

“Violence against the Dalit community is ignored or often goes unreported and unnoticed in Nepal,” said Padam Sundas, chair of Samata Foundation Nepal, a research and advocacy organisation that works for the rights of the marginalised community in Nepal.

Dalits are still barred from community activities such as worshipping in same temples as higher caste Nepalis. The higher castes don’t eat the food touched by members of the Dalit community or even use the same community tap that Dalits use for water. And women are the worst affected.

“Dalit women are at the bottom of the caste and gender hierarchy in Nepal,” said Bhakta Bishwokarma, president of the Nepal National Dalit Social Welfare Organisation (NNDSWO), which works to eliminate caste-based discrimination in Nepal.

“Dalit women’s suffering is triple-fold – society discriminates against them because they are women, then they are discriminated against because they belong to the Dalit community, and within their own community they suffer all over again for being women,” Bishwokarma told IPS.

Women’s rights activists say Dalit women are the most vulnerable.

“If you study the cases of women who are accused of being ‘witches’, they are usually Dalit women. They are the ones to be trafficked easily, they are the ones who work in terrible conditions,” said Durga Sob of the Feminist Dalit Organisation (FEDO) that works closely with the government on Dalit gender issues.

Activists say when Dalit victims of violence want to file a police complaint, they are discouraged.

“They are told that getting the law enforcement authorities involved would disturb social harmony, and victims are encouraged to informally reconcile,” said Bishwokarma. “No one is held accountable for any discriminatory acts against Dalits.”

News of the attack on Sarki received wide media coverage, and the attack and was severely condemned. A few days after the story broke activists gathered in front of the offices of Nepal’s policymakers and organised a protest. It saw a handful of women’s rights activists and allies standing with banners, demanding that the government act.

“The activists stood there for a few days, handed a memorandum to the government and the issue died down,” said Bindu Thapa Pariyar of the Association for Dalit Women’s Advancement of Nepal (ADWAN).

Researchers say there are major reasons why Dalit issues don’t get noticed.

“We have all kinds of acts and laws in place, but they are never implemented and even when we have tried to implement them, victims don’t get justice,” said Sob of FEDO.

She recommends that the legislation be made simple and local law enforcement authorities be trained, so they understand the rights of Dalit people.

Some activists say the Dalit movement has lost its momentum.

“We cannot think of Dalit activism with a ‘donor supported project implementation’ approach,” said Pariyar of ADWAN. “When the project money runs out, we move on but that doesn’t necessarily mean we have achieved what we set out to do.”

In Sarki’s case, for instance, there were issues of her rehabilitation, psychological trauma counselling, the safety of her family and her safe return home.

“Rights activists need to think long-term, a protest only nudges policymakers, real work happens with the victims in the field,” said Pariyar.

She calls for a stronger leadership in Dalit advocacy.

“The Dalit lawmakers may be under pressure from their parties, but we need watchdogs outside the assembly so that we can keep pushing them to make the right decision,” said Pariyar.

“If we don’t push now, when a new constitution for the nation is being written, we will never do it,” she said.

Egyptians have overwhelmingly voted in favour of a new constitution drafted by the army-backed interim government, according to early results.

The tally, released on Thursday, also shows that turnout in this week’s referendum was at least modestly higher than for a 2012 constitutional ballot held during the rule of deposed president Mohamed Morsi.

An unofficial tally from 25 of Egypt’s 27 governorates showed that 97 percent of voters said yes to the constitution, with less than one percent voting no. The remaining ballots were spoiled or otherwise invalid.

There are no results yet from Cairo, the country’s most populous governorate, or from North Sinai.

But turnout was about 38 percent, with 17.4 million people voting, putting it ahead of 2012, when 17 million people – roughly 33 percent of registered voters – participated.

Galal Mustafa Saeed, the governor of Cairo, said he expected turnout in the city to top 40 percent, though that figure could not be verified.

Official media hailed the outcome as an “unprecedented majority”.

“Egyptians inaugurate a new history for the region,” proclaimed the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper.

Army spokesman Colonel Ahmed Ali said the result “confirms that Egyptians are the first free population in recorded history,” according to the official MENA news agency.

The two-day vote was the first ballot since the army overthrew Morsi on Jul. 3, with the new constitution replacing a 2012 one drafted during his short-lived presidency.

Although there were no reports of violence on Wednesday, at least 11 people were killed in clashes across the country on Tuesday, and a bomb damaged a courthouse in Cairo’s Imbaba neighbourhood two hours before polls opened.

The new constitution, like its predecessor, allows the military to prosecute civilians for attacks on army personnel or institutions.

By the numbers

Voter turnout increased the most in South Sinai, where 91 percent of registered voters turned out, up from just 27 percent in the last referendum. The region’s tourism-based economy has been battered by three years of instability.

Turnout was also up in the Nile Delta, a region that has historically not been friendly to Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.

In Minoufia and Daqahliya governorates, turnout grew by 19 percent; in Sharqiya, Morsi’s birthplace, it was up 15 percent.

The largest drop was in Matrouh governorate in northwestern Egypt, along the border with Libya. Just 20 percent of residents came out to vote, down from 34 percent during the 2012 referendum.

The area has a large Salafi population, suggesting that many of their voters stayed home, even though the Nour Party, the largest Salafi grouping, has been a vocal supporter of the new constitution.

Turnout was also down in a few governorates with large Brotherhood populations, including Minya and Beni Suef.

Official results from the two-day referendum are expected by Saturday.

Government sources said interim President Adly Mansour will then issue a decree “within days” to schedule presidential and parliamentary elections, both planned for the first half of this year.

* Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

Violent demonstrations have followed branding of the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation. Credit: Hisham Allam/IPS.

By Hisham Allam
CAIRO, Jan 14 2014 (IPS)

As Egyptians head for a referendum Tuesday and Wednesday this week, the fate of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was swept into government in the last election, hangs in the balance.

The ruling military junta has been targeting the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) continuously since it seized power last year. Following a Dec. 23 suicide attack which targeted a police station in the city of Mansoura north of Cairo, in which 16 people were killed and dozens wounded, the Egyptian government formally designated the MB a terrorist organisation.

The government accused it of carrying out the suicide attack even though a Sinai-based militant group, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, claimed responsibility.“We should consider this an interim constitution because it was drafted by a non-elected committee."

“The local media are trying now to accuse the Muslim Brotherhood of being behind the terrorist attacks taking place in Egypt recently in order to disrupt the referendum, but I reject this claim unless the authorities provide real evidence to condemn them,” said Bassam al-Zarqa, vice-president of the Salafi al-Nour Party, a strongly Islamist party.

“The map of Islamist groups has not changed,” al-Zarqa, former assistant to ousted President Mohamed Morsi (2012-2013), told IPS. “Those who believe that violence is the only way to change are still involved in terrorist attacks, while other groups believe in democracy and peaceful change. The MB is in the second group, and decided decades ago to renounce violence.”

But, he added, “there is no doubt that the recent terrorist attacks undermine the popularity of the MB and make them lose a large segment of sympathisers.”

Al-Zarqa believes that the electoral process is the only solution to save Egypt from sliding into a police state. He said the key indicator will be the people’s acceptance or refusal of the next president, regardless of his background and whether or not he belongs to the military.

“I have reservations about the ways of selecting the committee that drafted the Constitution, as they dropped the will of 18 million citizens who had voted in favour of the previous Constitution. The ball is now in the court of the Egyptian people to approve or reject this Constitution.”

Amr Moussa, chairman of the 50-member committee responsible for drafting the new constitution for Egypt, has said “this constitution widens the scope of freedoms in a very impressive way, reinforces the principles of gender equality, and grants women greater rights.” He expects the constitution to pass with a 70 percent “yes” vote.

Shortly before designation of the MB as a terrorist organisation, Moussa said, “Now I invite them to participate in the referendum and prove that they are part of this nation and that they want to get out of this chaotic situation.”

Moussa, who came fifth in Egypt’s first post-revolution presidential election in June 2012, said he would not contest the next election, and expressed his support for Egypt’s military chief, Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, if he runs.

“The groups which reject the new constitution are extremists and refuse to recognise the June 30 revolution as a popular revolt, and consequently its influence on the political life,” Gabber Nassar, professor of constitutional law at Cairo University, told IPS.

Nassar, who was a member of the Committee of 50, told IPS “the endeavours of the MB and its allies to mobilise against the new constitution will fail, especially since the Egyptians link them with the terrorist attacks that threaten the security of the state.”

Nassar believes that the MB, which is formally boycotting the referendum, will “secretly enjoin their followers to participate and vote against the constitution, because they are used to work in the dark.” He added: “I expect that the final result of the referendum will be overwhelmingly yes.”

There is little to compare between the two constitutions – the one drafted in the days of Morsi and the one drafted by the Committee of 50, Nassar said. The first, he said, was devoted to the dominance of one faction in power, while the second is focusing on liberties and the rights of the marginalised and religious minorities and the underprivileged who were ignored by all previous constitutions.

“We should consider this an interim constitution because it was drafted by a non-elected committee,” Adel Ramadan, legal advisor at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), told IPS.

Ramadan believes that the vote on Jan. 14 and 15 will not be only on the constitution, but on the road map and the legitimacy of the current system – and a rejection of the MB.

A new constitution is poised to cement the Egyptian military's powers. Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS.

By Cam McGrath
CAIRO, Jan 9 2014 (IPS)

A draft constitution set to go before a public referendum next week gives the military more privileges, enshrining its place as Egypt’s most powerful institution and placing it above the state.

The new text, set to replace the constitution drawn up in 2012 under Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, has stoked fears that Egypt’s military leadership is pushing to consolidate its power and protect its political and economic interests.

“The powers conferred to the army (in the draft constitution) lay the foundation for a military dictatorship,” warns Tharwat Badawi, professor of constitutional law at Cairo University.“The powers conferred to the army lay the foundation for a military dictatorship."

The new charter was drawn up by a 50-member committee appointed by the military-installed government that has ruled since the army ousted Morsi in July 2013.

The document is seen as an improvement over the constitution passed under Morsi’s Islamist majority, which was widely criticised for its emphasis on Islamic law and curbs on personal freedoms. But legal experts have expressed concern over articles that diminish the role of representative government.

“If passed, the elected president and parliament would have no real authority over the military, which would in effect become a state unto itself,” Badawi told IPS.

Under the new constitution, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) holds final authority over the selection of the country’s defence minister. Badawi says the article will strip the elected president of the right to choose a defence minister, putting the military above any effective civilian oversight.

“By this way the military will not be accountable to the head of state, or the people,” says Badawi. “And this is very dangerous.”

Critics say Egypt’s military has repeatedly trampled rights and thwarted democratic change since the popular uprising that toppled the authoritarian regime of former president Hosni Mubarak three years ago. The new charter could serve to further insulate the armed forces from challenges by revolutionary activists and elected officials.

Rights watchdogs were disappointed to discover that an article upholds the widely condemned practice of trying civilians in military courts. At least 12,000 civilians were arrested and tried without due process in military courts in the months following the 2011 uprising.

Ahmed Maher, leader of the April 6 Youth Movement, denounced the article on military trials, calling its inclusion “treason” on the part of the 50-person drafting committee.

“Those who support military trials [of civilians] and forgot what happened in 2011 have sold their conscience and followed personal interests,” he wrote on his Facebook account.

Maher was sentenced last month to three years’ hard labour for organising an unauthorised protest against the committee’s attempt to enshrine military trials of civilians in the constitution. He was among the first to be incarcerated under a new law passed by the military-installed interim government that requires protesters to seek permission to hold public demonstrations.

As a concession to rights campaigners, the draft constitution is more limiting than previous charters on the types of cases for which civilians could find themselves before a military court. But it still allows the military judiciary to preside over disputes between civilians and army personnel in ‘military zones’.

“In Egypt, the military is so deeply entrenched that just about anywhere can be considered a military zone,” says Badawi.

The new charter fails to ensure any level of transparency for the military’s economic activities. According to the text, the budget of the armed forces will not be subject to parliamentary supervision, placing its allocations and expenditures at the sole discretion of the military leadership.

The same clauses shield the Egyptian military’s vast economic empire, estimated to account for between 10 and 40 percent of the economy. Military-owned companies engaged in everything from construction to macaroni production enjoy the benefits of free land, full tax exemption, conscript labour, and no obligation to report their balance sheets.

“Given the degree to which the military has penetrated the state, the state is more or less at its service,” says Robert Springborg, an expert on Egyptian military affairs. “The (armed forces) has access to state resources without any oversight or accountability.”

This appears unlikely to change. Egypt’s army has grown in popularity since removing President Morsi and cracking down on his supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood. Analysts say it would be extremely difficult for anyone to challenge the powers granted to the armed forces in the new constitution.

Mohamed Mousa, a prominent member of the Al Dostour (Constitution) Party, says it is unfortunate, but the upcoming referendum is seen more as a vote of support on the July 2013 coup than on the constitution itself.

Egyptians who denounce military rule are still likely to vote in favour of the draft constitution, viewing a nod to pass the new charter as a strike against Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.

“We have concerns about the draft constitution, especially on some of the articles addressing military trials of civilians and the powers of the army,” says Mousa. “However, we are trying to deal with it as a package, and find it acceptable overall.”

As supporters of the military and followers of ousted elected president Mohamed Morsi clashed in Egypt on Oct. 6, members of the country’s 50-member committee are clashing over the drafting of a consensual constitution. Courtesy: Amro Diab

By Hisham Allam
CAIRO, Oct 7 2013 (IPS)

Bloody clashes erupted in Cairo on Sunday Oct. 6 between supporters of the military and followers of ousted elected president Mohamed Morsi as the latter protested against the July military coup that deposed their leader. But as clashes occurred on the streets, a clash of ideologies has been occurring on the country’s 50-member committee as it amends Egypt’s constitution.

Sunday’s death toll reached 50 and at least 286 people were injured, according to Dr. Ahmed Ansari, chairman of the ambulance. The Interior Ministry reported arresting 423 protesters supporting the ousted president. This is the highest death toll here since Aug. 14, when the military and police smashed two pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo, and hundreds were killed. “The current crisis is political, not constitutional, and the solution would have to be political as well.” -- Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights

Egypt stands at a critical stage in drafting a consensual constitution that could satisfy the needs of both civil and Islamic groups along with being approved by the military forces.

Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, told IPS that because of the unresolved political crisis and the deep polarisation of society, “any political and social environment is significantly unsuitable for the making of a constitution through a democratic, inclusive and representative process.”

He pointed out that ironically, “we’re seeing more similarities than differences between the Brotherhood-led constitutional drafting process and the current one.”

On Jul. 8, five days after the overthrow of Morsi, interim President Adly Mansour issued a decree to form the 50-member committee and tasked it with writing a final draft of Egypt’s amended constitution.

The constitution was first drafted by a committee under Morsi’s government, which mainly consisted of Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic movements.

But louder voices from within the 50-member committee, which excludes the Muslim Bother’s party, have started demanding the drafting of a new constitution.

The only Salafi party on the committee, Al-Nour, is likely to defend the Islamic-flavoured articles in the suspended constitution, especially clauses that protect the Islamic identity of the state.

“What the Islamist-majority constituent assembly sought to do last year was to preserve all existing privileges of the military, while giving some concessions to conservative Islamists and undermining the supreme constitutional court, which had shown hostility to Brotherhood rule,” Bahgat said.

In the current constitution, army representatives have pushed for the approval of an article where the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces will be the body responsible for appointing the Defence Minister, provided that this does not affect the powers of the president.

Bahgat said the current process was as exclusionary as last year’s one, “and even more lacking [in] democratic credentials because the current committee was appointed by a president who was in turn appointed by the defence minister.”

“We’re seeing the same dynamic this time where everyone expects the military to get everything they want, while the judiciary will get preferential treatment and most Islamist provisions [will] be undone.”

Bahgat said that the new constitution will not last longer than the 2012 one as Egypt could not have a permanent constitution through a process that excludes the 20 percent of the population who support the ousted president.

“The current crisis is political, not constitutional, and the solution would have to be political as well,” he added.

Ahmed Badie, a spokesperson for the Al-Watan Salafist Party, which was founded in 2013, told IPS “the upcoming constitution will be hostile to Islam and Muslims, because the dominating ideology of the participants is to take revenge [against] Islam.”

“They will manipulate the identity of the state, which would lead to an unlawful constitution,” he said.

Badie believes that Egyptians who voted for the 2012 constitution will reject what he called an “anti-Islam, secular constitution” and that Islamists and the military coup opponents will rally together against this. He added, “[in] the end, legitimacy will remain.”

“What is built on falsehood is false.”

He explained that less than five percent of the clauses in the 2012 constitution that required amendment “but the current committee, which was formed in the dark, wants to blow up our constitution just because it was drafted by the Islamists.”

“How can we compare such a constitution under a military coup to the former one under a democratic regime? This is shameful,” Badie said.

Leftist representative on the 50 member-committee, Hussein Abdel-Razek, told IPS that many things needed to be disposed of from the Brotherhood constitution, which allows for an authoritarian state and gives priority to the interests of the ruling party over the interests of democracy.

“The difference between the two constitutions is clear, they [the Brotherhood] were establishing a religious [constitution], meanwhile we are drafting a constitution for a civil, democratic state based on citizenship and the balance of powers,” Abdel-Razek explained.

Once the constitution has been re-written, Mansour will put the amended version to a national referendum within 30 days of receiving the final draft, which is expected in a month from now. It will be effective upon public approval.

However, this time the process is more open to the public, more transparent and seems to include more rigorous debate. While the 2012 constitution was being drafted most of the agreements were made in closed rooms where the general debate was much less genuine.

Dr Saad al-Din al-Hilali, a jurisprudence professor at al-Azhar al-Sharif, one of the oldest universities in Cairo which was founded in 970, stressed that the constitution of the Muslim Brotherhood contained many clauses that enabled them to remain continuously in power for decades, and assure the supremacy of its members over the rest of the Egyptian people.

He told IPS “the constitution, which is prepared now will find great acceptance, despite the mobilisation of Islamic movements and the Muslim Brotherhood to make citizens reject it in the public referendum.”

“The maturity of Egyptians and the huge rejection of the Brotherhood, which appeared on Jun. 30, will prevent the implementation of their plan, thus the constitution will be approved popularly and legally,” he added.

He said that the constitution committee was not going to reject the Brotherhood constitution completely because it contained some basic clauses that were included in all the previous constitutions, including health and education rights. But, he added, while the Brotherhood constitution completely ignored issues of public freedoms and the principle of citizenship, it would be addressed in the current one.

By IPS Correspondents
Sep 11 2013 (IPS)

The dictatorship headed by General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) from start to end systematically dismantled every vestige of “the Chilean path to socialism” that the government of Salvador Allende (1970-1973) had attempted to follow. But it also established political structures that Chilean democracy has not yet managed to eradicate. See the process in the timeline below:

Data: Marianela Jarroud based on documental sources. Design: Ignacio Castañares

Mourners gather at the funeral of opposition leader Mohamed Brahmi in Tunis. Credit: Louise Sherwood/IPS.

By Louise Sherwood
TUNIS, Jul 31 2013 (IPS)

As political divisions threaten to destabilise the national transition process in Tunisia, Prime Minister Ali Laarayedh has set deadlines for finalising the new constitution and holding elections. Not everyone is convinced these will be met.

In a televised speech Monday appealing for a calm resolution of the political crisis, Laaryedh stated: “Dissolution of the National Constituent Assembly (NCA) and the government will not help the situation…There are opportunists who are trying to take advantage of this situation. Dialogue shouldn’t be in the streets or through violence but at the table discussing strategies and plans.”

His speech was a show of strength following a wave of protests that have hit the country since the assassination of opposition leader Mohamed Brahmi on Thursday last week, the second such assassination in five months. Early shocked reactions led to protests against the government, with many chanting ‘dégage!’ (get out!), a slogan that was used during the revolution.It was expected that the constitution would be finalised within a year followed by elections but almost two years on it is still not finished.

The opposition is already unhappy with the government’s progress with the transitional process. It was expected that the constitution would be finalised within a year followed by elections but almost two years on it is still not finished. The government insists it is taking time to get it right, but critics argue it is clinging to power.

Laarayedh now says the constitution will be finalised by the end of August and that election laws will be written by Oct. 23, the date the government came to power in 2011. He announced that elections will be held on Dec. 17, the anniversary of the day three years ago when street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight, igniting the revolution in Tunisia and triggering the Arab Spring.

However Amine Ghali, programme director at the Kawakibi Democracy Centre, an international civil society organisation based in Tunis, told IPS: “There is no possibility of meeting these deadlines. For the election laws and elections we need six to eight months. Perhaps the constitution could be finished by the end of August but only if there is a genuine discussion to improve the current draft, taking into account the many shortfalls it contains.”

Anti-government protestors are also angry that not enough is being done to stop extremist Islamic groups or to secure national borders. The country was plunged into mourning once more Monday when nine Tunisian soldiers were killed and their bodies mutilated in a terrorist attack close to the Algerian border.

Following Brahmi’s funeral on Saturday both pro- and anti- government protestors demonstrated in the square in front of the NCA in Tunis. This led to clashes, and police fired tear gas into the crowds. Protests have been taking place across the country.

Reem Selmi came with her husband and 12-year-old daughter to support the government in an earlier protest on Sunday. “People want the government to solve all the problems straightaway but it’s not possible just like that,” she said. She believes the government, which is dominated by the moderate Islamic party Ennahda, is on the right path.

“This government lets everybody live the life that they want. Under [former dictator] Ben Ali we were not free to practise our religion but now we can. We are Muslims and we love Islam. Islam does not mean terrorism.”

Yet there is a danger that political divisions are being strengthened down religious lines.

“I used to want Ben Ali out because he wouldn’t allow Muslims to grow long beards or women to wear the niqab, but now I think I know why he did this,” Maher Gatri on the anti-government side of the square told IPS.

“Today you can look at a person and just by his clothes or appearance you can tell which party they support. We are all Tunisians and Muslims but now we are separating into two sides. This is very sad. When I am near the government supporters I feel afraid. I am a Muslim but now I am in fear of my own religion.”

The government is also facing a crisis amongst members of the NCA charged with writing the constitution. Several have withdrawn from their positions over the last few days.

“Fifty-nine [out of 217] members have withdrawn but we want them to come back,” Osama al Saghir, NCA member from the Ennahda party tells IPS. “If we find a solution we will complete the constitution on time. If they choose not to come back they will have to resign and be replaced.”

There are claims that the government itself, a coalition of three parties, the Congress for the Republic (CPR), Ettakatol, and the dominant party Ennahda, may be fragmenting.

Bannour Mohamed, spokesperson for Ettakatol, reportedly told local radio station Jawhara FM, “If Ennahda and the CPR refuse the dissolution of the government, Ettakatol will withdraw from the troika.”

Al Saghir says this is not the case. “We continue to work together with Mustapha Ben Jaafar, Ettakatol’s secretary general and president of the NCA.”

Television images of the violence in Egypt serve as a stark warning to Tunisians of where the path a violent overthrow may lead.

In a paper entitled ‘Tunisia unlikely to go Egypt’s way’ Francis Ghilès, senior research fellow at the Barcelona Centre for Foreign Affairs (CIDOB) sets out three key differences between the Egyptian and Tunisian crises which offer hope for Tunisia: Tunisia’s army does not have a strong political role, its economic and unemployment problems are not as bad, and it has a strong and vocal civil society, he argues. Many Tunisians hope he is right.

Tahrir Square in Cairo is now witnessing protests against Egypt’s new constitution. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Jan 27 2013 (IPS)

Hundreds of thousands hit the streets countrywide on and after the second anniversary of Egypt’s Tahrir Square uprising Jan. 25 to protest the policies of President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood from which he hails. A chief demand was the abrogation – or modification at least – of Egypt’s newly-approved constitution.

“The amendment of the new constitution is one of the primary demands of the people and parties taking part in anniversary rallies,” Magdi Sherif, head of the centrist Guardians of the Revolution Party told IPS from Cairo’s Tahrir Square. “President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood must heed the voice of the opposition.”

Egypt’s new national charter was approved last month in a contentious popular referendum – although not by the wide margin its mostly Islamist authors had hoped for. Despite its tepid reception by voters, only 64 percent of whom voted in favour, the new constitution formally went into effect immediately following the referendum.

According to Egypt’s secular opposition, the charter is deeply flawed. The six-month drafting process that preceded the referendum was dogged by controversy, culminating in the last-minute withdrawal of most non-Islamist members of the 100-member drafting committee.

Critics say the document fails to guarantee press freedom and free expression and concentrates too much power in the hands of the presidency. Nor, they say, does the charter adequately safeguard judicial independence or do away with Egypt’s longstanding practice of trying civilians in military courts.

“The new constitution employs very broadly-defined terms that could lead to restrictions on freedoms and the violation of basic rights,” Gaber Gad Nassar, constitutional law professor at Cairo University told IPS. “It also contains several articles that could theoretically allow the president to assume dictatorial powers.

“By broadening presidential authority, the charter allows the executive to dominate other branches of government,” Nassar added. He pointed to one article in particular granting the president the right to appoint members of Egypt’s High Constitutional Court (HCC).

Last summer, the HCC ruled Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliament ‘unconstitutional’ on a technicality. The ruling led to the dissolution of the assembly – three quarters of which had been held by Islamist parties, chief among them the Muslim Brotherhood.

According to the Brotherhood and Morsi supporters, the HCC remains stocked with judges appointed by – and therefore loyal to – the ousted Mubarak regime.

Nassar also blasted the new constitution for allowing journalists to be arrested for certain press-related offences, and for allowing civilians to be tried by military tribunals if they are charged with “violations against Egypt’s armed forces.”

In a reference to the Muslim Brotherhood, Nassar (who says he is unaffiliated with any political parties or groups) added: “Those currently governing the country are carrying out their own agenda. Their lack of vision is deepening the political divide and they refuse to heed the opposition’s objections to the new constitution.”

Yet Murad Ali, official spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), insists that the FJP is – despite accusations to the contrary – “entirely prepared to hear and respond to other political forces’ reservations about certain constitutional articles.”

According to Ali, opposition forces currently in talks with the presidency are demanding the amendment of 15 articles. “And while some of the requested changes are reasonable, others are not,” he said.

For example, he said, certain political forces were demanding the elimination of an article barring former leading members of Mubarak’s now-defunct National Democratic Party from political participation. “But this is unreasonable,” Ali asserted. “Neither the Egyptian people nor the FJP will allow former NDP bigwigs to re-enter politics.”

Ali went on to say that the opposition had exaggerated the “expanded powers” allegedly given the president in the new constitution. “A careful reading of the charter will reveal that presidential authority has actually been reduced from the previous 1971 constitution.”

He added, however, that all other contentious constitutional articles – such as those dealing with personal freedoms, judicial independence and presidential oversight – “remain open to debate with other political forces with a view to reaching a compromise.”

The anti-constitution camp has coalesced around the National Salvation Front (NSF) led by former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei and presidential candidates Amr Moussa and Hamdeen Sabbahi. In its opposition to Morsi, the Brotherhood and the new constitution, the NSF has produced strange bedfellows, uniting liberal, leftist and ‘revolutionary’ groups with supporters of the former regime.

On Monday (Jan. 21), the presidency invited opposition representatives to a ‘national dialogue’ to discuss their proposals for constitutional amendments. Although shunned by the NSF, the dialogue was attended by representatives of certain opposition parties, civil society and Egypt’s three main Christian churches (Coptic Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical).

Two days later, church representatives – along with those of some political parties – withdrew from the initiative, saying discussions had been “unproductive” and had “failed to yield the desired results.”

For Nassar, the walkout came as no surprise.

“Why should they stay? Conclusions reached by the so-called dialogue committee aren’t binding,” he said. The Shura Council, the upper house of Egypt’s parliament (currently endowed with legislative authority), he noted, “isn’t obliged to implement the committee’s recommendations.”

Nassar added: “Popular pressure and demonstrations are the only means of obtaining a balanced, democratic constitution that reflects the will of the people and the goals of the revolution.”

The FJP’s Ali criticised those who withdrew from the dialogue session, describing the move as “dictatorship by the minority.”

“Parties and groups that represent the 36 percent of the public that voted against the constitution cannot simply walk out when all their demands aren’t met,” he said. “Dialogue is intended to lead to compromise; it’s not a matter of one side making all-or-nothing demands of the other.

“The majority of Egyptian voters approved the national charter. And the choice of the majority must be accepted.”

Morsi, for his part, has repeatedly promised to reopen debate on proposed constitutional amendments in the first session of parliament’s lower house, following legislative elections expected some time in April. The offer, however, appears to have been forgotten in the violence and chaos witnessed on the revolution’s second anniversary. (END)

Egyptian protesters demonstrate against President Mursi and the new draft constitution outside the presidential palace in Cairo. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Dec 13 2012 (IPS)

This Saturday, Egyptians will head to the polls to vote on a controversial draft constitution. The referendum has divided this nation – still pulsing with the revolutionary fervour that toppled former dictator Hosni Mubarak in early 2011 – with most Islamist parties and groups supporting the proposed national charter, while liberal, leftist and ‘revolutionary’ groups, in addition to Egypt’s sizable pro-Mubarak demographic, are opposed to it.

“The crisis over Egypt’s post-revolution constitution has led to unprecedented degrees of polarisation, which has already (sparked) violence,” prominent political analyst Tawfiq Ghanem told IPS. “It’s very precarious. Both camps are able to mobilise vast numbers, which has allowed both sides to claim popular legitimacy.”

Tuesday saw competing mass rallies in Cairo: one in support of the draft constitution, and another, held outside the presidential palace, at which protesters demanded the referendum be postponed. Both demonstrations drew tens of thousands.

Opponents of the proposed constitution say the document doesn’t do enough to curb presidential powers and guarantee personal freedoms. They also complain that the 100-member constituent assembly that drafted the charter was dominated by Islamist-leaning members.

“Egypt’s earlier (1971) constitution was much better than the document that will be put to a vote this Saturday,” Gaber Gad Nassar, constitutional law professor and former constituent assembly member, told IPS. “The draft charter fails to reflect the demands of last year’s popular uprising, which ended 30 years of corruption and dictatorship” under the now-deposed president Hosni Mubarak.

Last month, Nassar – along with most other non-Islamist members – quit the assembly to object to what they saw as ‘Islamist domination’ of the charter-drafting body. Seemingly unfazed, remaining members – roughly two thirds of the assembly – approved the final draft constitution following a 20-hour marathon session.

“I left the assembly to protest draft articles concerning the president’s powers, as well as last-minute changes made to articles relating to civil liberties,” said Nassar. “I also objected to how the Islamist members who dominated the assembly had ignored proposals put forward by non-Islamist members.”

Magdi Hussein, a prominent Islamist-leaning political analyst, defends the draft, saying that non-Islamist members withdrew en masse, just before a final assembly vote on the document, in order to derail the drafting process.

“Besides, there can never be total consensus on any constitution anywhere in the world,” Hussein told IPS. “A certain degree of dissent is inevitable.”

“The only way out of the current crisis (that will also) realise the goals of last year’s revolution – namely, democratic transition – is to put the proposed constitution to a popular vote,” he added. “The opposition is welcome to vote ‘no’ if it wants to.”

If more than half of Egypt’s registered voters vote ‘yes,’ fresh parliamentary elections will be held within 60 days. If the draft is rejected, a new constituent assembly will be drawn up – members of which will be selected via direct elections – and tasked with drafting a brand new charter within six months.

On Dec. 8, President Mohamed Mursi – who, along with the Muslim Brotherhood group from which he hails, supports the draft charter – called on the opposition to list the draft articles they found objectionable. He went on to promise that said articles would be raised for discussion in the next parliament’s opening session.

On the same day, Mursi – despite opposition demands that the referendum be delayed – issued a presidential decree stating that the poll would go ahead as scheduled. The decree replaced an earlier, highly controversial Nov. 21 decree that had made the president’s decisions impervious to judicial challenge.

It was this latter decree that triggered the latest crisis, bringing hundreds of thousands onto the streets nationwide to protest the president’s bold move against the judiciary.

Mursi’s critics portrayed the decree, which also protected the constituent assembly and Shura Council (the parliament’s upper house) from dissolution by court order, as ‘dictatorial’ and a ‘naked power-grab.’

The president’s supporters, however, saw the move as a means of reigning in a hostile judiciary that had served the Mubarak regime, especially Egypt’s High Constitutional Court (HCC).

Supporters of President Mursi rally outside Cairo Universtiy. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS

The HCC played a pivotal role in the dissolution this summer of Egypt’s freely-elected People’s Assembly (parliament’s lower house), roughly three quarters of which had been won by Islamist candidates. It was an HCC verdict deeming the elected assembly ‘unconstitutional’ (based on a legal technicality) that allowed Egypt’s then-ruling Supreme Military Council to order its dissolution.

“Mursi and his supporters view the judiciary, especially the HCC, as trying to undermine the president’s decisions at every turn and threatening democratically-elected bodies with dissolution,” said Ghanem, adding that the controversial ‘November 21’ decree “was intended to pre-empt anticipated HCC rulings against the constituent assembly and Shura Council”.

The anti-constitution camp, meanwhile, has coalesced around a recently-formed National Salvation Front (NSF), led by prominent reform campaigner Mohamed ElBaradei and former presidential candidates Amr Moussa and Hamdeen Sabbahi.

This camp has produced unexpected bedfellows, uniting liberal, leftist and ‘revolutionary’ groups with supporters of the ousted Mubarak regime.

“Ironically, the revolutionaries who got rid of Mubarak are now supported by members of his old party,” ElBaradei himself conceded in a Dec. 3 editorial in the Financial Times.

Mursi supporters, for their part, accuse the NSF of spearheading a “coup” against the elected president’s democratic legitimacy. They see Moussa and Sabbahi as failed presidential contenders who lost to Mursi in fair elections this summer and who now simply want to trip up Egypt’s democratic transition.

“Egypt’s liberal, secular elite has openly thrown in its lot with remnants of the Mubarak regime against Egypt’s democratically-elected president in hopes of derailing the formation of functioning state institutions,” said Hussein. He described the NSF as “counter-revolutionary.”

According to Hussein, the true aim of the opposition’s recent mobilisation against the constitutional poll – which has moved its main protest venue from Tahrir Square to the presidential palace – is nothing less than Mursi’s ouster.

“The political opposition doesn’t want reconciliation,” he said. “They are using the current constitutional crisis to attempt to unseat the elected president.”

The issue has already led to several incidents of violence. At least ten people were killed last week in clashes between supporters and opponents of the president, after the latter surrounded the presidential palace in Cairo.

At around the same time, unknown assailants attacked several of the Muslim Brotherhood’s provincial offices as well as Mursi’s private residence.

“Everyone has the right to peaceful protest to express their views,” said Hussein. “But threatening state institutions, including the presidential palace itself, is totally unacceptable and will simply lead to further chaos and bloodshed.”

He added: “Opposition to the policies of Egypt’s democratically-elected head of state should be settled at the ballot box, be they presidential and parliamentary polls or the upcoming constitutional referendum.”

(END)

Women demonstrating to demand equality with men. The big banner says "No to child marriage". Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS.

By Cam McGrath
CAIRO, Oct 25 2012 (IPS)

During the uprising that toppled Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak women stood shoulder to shoulder with men in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, pressing the revolution’s demands for freedom, justice and dignity. But those who hoped the revolution would make them equal partners in Egypt’s future claim they may be worse off now than under Mubarak’s authoritarian rule.

“After the revolution, most of Egyptian society – and especially the Islamists – began attacking women’s rights,” says Azza Kamel, a prominent women’s rights activist. “They started to claw back rights that women had fought for and gained before the revolution, and are trying to change divorce and custody laws, push FGM (female genital mutilation), and reduce the age of marriage from 18 to nine years old.”

Kamel says women have been almost entirely excluded from leadership and decision-making positions since Mubarak’s ouster. The Committee of Wise Men, an advisory panel formed during the uprising, included just one woman among its 30 members. There have been no women appointed as governors, no women allowed in the authoritative State Council, and weak female representation in all post-Mubarak governments.

“We expected more,” Kamel laments. “There can be no democracy without equality, yet women are being excluded at every step.”

Women were granted the right to vote in 1956, but have historically been underrepresented in Egyptian political life. The country’s first free and fair parliamentary elections resulted in further setbacks. Women won just eight of the 508 seats in the now dissolved lower house of parliament, down from over 60 in the 2010 parliamentary elections when a quota was in place.

Political parties established since Mubarak’s ouster in February 2011 welcomed women as members, but appeared unwilling to gamble on them as candidates when it came time for elections. Electoral laws required all parties to field at least one female parliamentary candidate, but even liberal parties placed the women far down their candidate lists, weakening their chance of success.

Kamel accuses political movements, particularly the conservative Muslim Brotherhood, of disingenuously supporting calls for enhancing women’s rights and political standing in order to secure female participation in public demonstrations and at the ballot box.

“All of the political parties are using women for political leverage,” Kamel told IPS. “This has always been the case in Egypt.”

Many women saw the writing on the wall when President Mohamed Morsi reneged on his grandstand promise to appoint a female vice-president. The former Muslim Brotherhood leader has so far surrounded himself with an almost exclusively male corps of advisors, while the only two women in his 35-member cabinet are holdovers from the previous government.

But more worrying, says Kamel, is that the Muslim male-dominated constituent assembly tasked with drafting a new constitution for Egypt is in a position to enshrine discriminatory limitations on women in the national charter. Not only are women almost entirely excluded from the constitution writing process, the assembly is stacked with Islamist figures who activists claim are attempting to impose their conservative religious values on all Egyptian society.

Many of the constituent assembly’s liberal and secular members resigned in objection to what one described as “a set will to produce a constitution that would be the cornerstone of a religious state, which will preserve the principles of the fallen regime and ignore the pillars of the Egyptian uprising of freedom, dignity and social justice.”

One particular point of contention is the wording of Article 68 in the draft constitution, which states that women are equal to men in political, economic, and social life provided that equality does not contradict the provisions of Sharia (Islamic law). Rights groups have opposed the article’s ambiguous religious framing.

Nehad Abu Komsan, director of the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights (ECWR), explains that Sharia has in many instances been used to reinforce negative social attitudes towards women and impose restrictions on their freedom. Linking women’s rights to undefined provisions of Islamic law “opens the door to radical interpretations that can be used against women.”

“Sharia can be interpreted in many different ways,” says Abu Komsan. “Saudi Arabia considers Sharia as a reference (in its constitution) and prohibits women from driving a car, while Pakistan considers it a reference and had a woman leading the country.”

Although Egypt’s Islamist-led government has not completely ignored women, its policy changes have focused on paving the way towards a more conservative, patriarchal society. A recent ministerial decree allowed female flight attendants of state-owned EgyptAir to wear hijab (Islamic veil) for the first time, while new rules have extended the option to female television presenters.

“This is good, as wearing the veil is a personal right,” says domestic worker Umm Gamal, who is veiled herself. “But what we really need is to see more effort toward protecting the right of women to full participation in society. We should be 50 percent (in all leadership positions), not just a quota or novelty.”