Egypt’s Deep-Sixed 1954 Constitution a Reminder of What Might Have Been

By Andrew Hammond

Egyptian historian Salah Issa recently found the document that was to turn Egypt into a liberal constitutional democracy lying in pile of dust in a dank forgotten room of the Arab League buildings in Cairo. “I had read many mentions of the 1954 constitution in books, but I couldn’t find the text and no one had seen it,” Issa, author of the recently published book Constitution in the Rubbish Bin, told Reuters. “I eventually found it in a cardboard box in a storeroom with old books and things that had been thrown away.”

As Egypt marked the 50th anniversary of the revolution in July, debate has intensified about a unique historical moment which changed the face of the largest country in the Middle East. While some see the “Free Officers” revolution as liberation from a corrupt political era under the monarchy and British colonial rule, others see it as a lost chance for democracy.

During celebrations to mark the anniversary, state TV rolled out old newsreel of Gamal Abdel Nasser firing up the masses. “The complete renaissance which Egypt is entering now and the secure society we live in would not have been possible without the previous efforts,” President Hosni Mubarak, like his predecessors a former military officer, said in a speech praising the revolution at a military academy parade. Amid huge fireworks, boats floated up and down the Nile with massive posters of all four post-revolution presidents.

The government had to strain to drum up the carnival atmosphere, however, with cynicism and lack of faith in the system currently at a high because of economic woes made worse after the Sept. 11 attacks and an ossified political system crying out for change. Ironically, Cairo now is dismantling the Nasserist state that guaranteed jobs for life and shunned private-sector enterprise. With a population of about 70 million, Egypt is grappling to rein in the state, which grew exponentially after the revolution. Bureaucratic red tape deters investors and privatization plans have stalled.

Issa’s book tells the little-known story of the democracy that wasn’t to be. At the behest of the army officers who seized control of the country in 1952, the constitution was drafted between 1953-54. By the time a team of lawyers, statesmen, army officers and intellectuals completed it in 1954, the monarchy had been abolished and a return to civilian rule had been ruled out by Nasser, the ascendant in a junta power struggle. Issa believes the copy he found during his research was deposited at the League by a prominent judge on the team who wanted to preserve it for posterity. “One member of the drafting committee once said that the July revolution had effectively thrown the constitution in the rubbish bin,” the historian said. “But it turned out it was actually true.”

“The important thing is not whether we are a monarchy or republic, it’s whether we are democratic or not.”

A reading of the 1954 draft explains why the July revolution threw it in the bin. The text, published in Issa’s book, called for four-year parliamentary and five-year presidential terms, checks and balances on the executive, media access for freely formed political parties, and the right to strike, as well as an end to arbitrary arrests and trials of civilians in military courts. According to the draft constitution, the president would be allowed only two consecutive terms.

By contrast, today’s parliament usually rubber-stamps government policy during five-year terms. The president is elected unopposed and can stand for an unlimited number of six-year terms. The state has exclusive ownership of audio-visual media, and political parties are restricted. Emergency laws allow wide powers of detention and military trial for civilians.

When the liberal constitution was tossed aside, an autocratic era began which, Issa and many other pro-democracy activists say, was a disaster that plagues Egypt and the Arab world to this day. “After the July revolution,” Issa said, “all the Arab countries that gained independence became either despotic monarchies or presidential republics.” The republics had inflated the president’s powers, Issa added, making him the absolute ruler. The 1967 war with Israel, which led to today’s conflict over the fate of Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights, was one consequence of what Issa described as the unaccountable rule of individuals that followed. “We have realized only now that the important thing is not whether we are a monarchy or republic,” said Issa, who is editor of the weekly paper al-Qahira, “it’s whether we are democratic or not.”

The one-party system also led to the rise of religious extremism, Issa said, as outlawed Islamic groups filled the void created by the restrictions placed on open political life. “The struggle now in the Arab world is between despotic authoritarian regimes and the religious trend,” he noted. “There is no real civilian force with political vitality.”

In the aftermath of the revolution, Nasser banned the Muslim Brotherhood, which was formed in Egypt in 1928. Some historians say that Nasser’s persecution of the Brotherhood, today Egypt’s largest opposition group, was a major factor in the growth of Islamic extremist groups in the Arab world.

Issa, a leftist jailed by Nasser and his successor, Anwar Sadat, is now trying to breathe new life into the defunct constitution of 1954 and use it as the basis for political and constitutional reform across the region. “An idea that appeared weird 10 years ago is now up for discussion,” he said, “especially since the text of the constitution itself is attractive.”

Calls to Democratize

Since the United States began its post-Sept. 11 war on terror, analysts in the Arab world have called on the region’s governments to democratize themselves before Washington does it for them. “Constitutional and political reform is imperative in our countries, reform carried out by our own hands because we believe in it, and not in response to American pressures or foreign threat,” senior Egyptian commentator Salaheddin Hafez wrote in the Gulf daily al-Khaleej in July.

But, said Issa, the reform lobby still sees little sign of real movement. “We implore the president [Mubarak] to ready the ground for reform. But it’s not clear that there’s any intention to move in this direction,” he said, despite steps toward freer elections in 2000 parliamentary polls. Mubarak has no deputy, and Egypt’s 68 million citizens have little idea of whom his successor could be. Speculation has centered on Mubarak’s son Gamal and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.

The government has often said that economic progress must precede political change, and has talked up fears about Islamist groups. But, argues Issa, these are all just so many excuses. “The shelf life of this system has passed,” he said, “and it doesn’t fit with the global system now present in the world.”

Andrew Hammond is a free-lance journalist based in Cairo.