Source: Al Ahram Weekly

Arab regimes have shown an extraordinary ability to renovate and develop their instruments of authoritarian rule. Despite moments of public activism and the relative rise in demand for democracy in many Arab countries in recent years, ruling elites have not lost their grip on public affairs and have proven in the final analysis that they alone control the direction and substance of policy. Motivated by the desire to quell political activism and fragment the pro-democratic movement, ruling elites resorted to two additional strategies on top of their customary reliance on security agencies to regulate society and repress opposition. The first entailed forging organic alliances with prominent economic and financial forces in order to ensure their continued support and prevent them from sympathising or identifying with the opposition. In so doing, the effect was to forestall a development similar to that which occurred elsewhere in the world in early phases of democratic transition, which is the emergence of independent bourgeoisies for whom rule of law, the peaceful rotation of power and political participation became major priorities. The second strategy was to fabricate facades of political plurality that were devoid of substance and efficacy. The purpose, here, was two contain the residual socio-political dynamism that remained after repression and, simultaneously, to project a more favourable image to Western allies pressing, at least in words, for democratisation and respect for human rights in the Arab world.

It is in the context of the second strategy that ruling elites, in republican systems in particular, have demonstrated a remarkable keenness for amending constitutions. After all, the business of manufacturing democratic facades requires precision engineering of a legislative and legal environment in which, for example, there can be presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections in which a portion of the opposition can take part, but without a real opportunity for vying for power, or in which the positions contested in the elections have been effectively voided of substantial power and jurisdiction while actual power continues to reside somewhere outside the bounds of competition. Between 2005 and 2008, three Arab republics amended their constitutions. In order of the parliamentary or popular ratifications of the amendments, these are Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria. Although Yemen joined the list in 2007 when President Abdallah Saleh's Popular Congress Party submitted a bill to parliament to amend some constitutional provisions, the bill is still under debate in the Yemeni legislative assembly.

The constitutional amendments in Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria, and in the Yemeni bill, all share an important feature. They alter the conditions for nomination for the highest position in government -- the presidency -- but in a way that weakens opposition candidates' ability to compete or that grants current incumbents unlimited terms of office. In Egypt, constitutional Article 76 was amended in 2005 and 2007 to allow, for the first time since the creation of the republic in 1952, multi- candidate presidential elections. However, by the time the amendment emerged from the legislative process it had been voided of the lion's share of its substance by provisions that placed severe restrictions on the nomination of independents, for fear that the officially outlawed Muslim Brotherhood -- the sole opposition movement capable of rivalling the ruling elite -- would seek the presidency through the electoral process. In addition, the ruling elite continued to resist throughout this period the adamant popular demand to amend those constitutional provisions regulating the length of the presidential term (six years) and the number of terms an incumbent can serve (there are no limits).

The amendment of chapters 39 and 40 of the Tunisian constitution, which was ratified in April 2008 by the Tunisian parliament dominated by the ruling Democratic Constitutional Rally, offers a similar example of the fabrication of a façade of plurality guaranteed not to threaten the actual seat of power. Although the amendment also provides for multi-candidate presidential elections in which opposition party chiefs can compete, it simultaneously has given President Zein Al-Abidine Ben Ali the right to nominate himself for a fifth five-year term in the next presidential elections to be held this year. So far, all indications are that he will win.

The Algerian regime boarded the constitutional amendment train in the autumn of 2008 when the Algerian parliament altered Article 74 to lift the two term restriction on the presidential incumbent, thereby allowing Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika to run for a third term in elections scheduled for this spring. In Yemen, although the bill submitted by the ruling party aims to strike a new balance between the powers of the legislative and executive authorities and to introduce some decentralisation of government, it also proposes to change the provision governing the presidential term. On the surface, the term is to be reduced from seven to five years (having been raised from five to seven in the constitutional amendment in 1999). However, at least according to the opposition's reading of the bill, it will enable the sitting president to run for an additional two terms after he completes his current term in 2013 (or before then, if the ruling party decides to hold presidential and parliamentary elections after the constitutional amendment is ratified).

In addition to eliminating maximum terms of office (or the attempt to skirt around such provisions as in the case of Yemen) and inhibiting the ability of opposition candidates to compete in presidential elections, the constitutional amendments in the above-mentioned countries have another feature in common. They all seek to concentrate power in the executive branch and the presidency in particular, and to perpetuate or systematise restrictions or infringements on the powers of the legislature and judiciary. The constitutional amendment introduced in Egypt in 2007 contains provisions that bolster the powers of the president and the prime minister. The amendment introduced in Tunisia in 2008 grants the incumbent legal and political immunity for life while that ratified in Algeria the same year abolished the premiership and reduced the powers of the first minister, leaving the president in firmer control. Yemen is expected to follow suit, for the proposed amendment of constitutional Article 5 expands the authorities of the institutions of the presidency.

To round out the picture of the legalistic ruses to which the ruling regimes in republican systems will resort in order to perpetuate their authoritarian grip behind a democratic façade, we come to a third feature characterised by the Egyptian and then the Yemeni experiences. The constitutional amendments introduced in Egypt in 2007 contain provisions obstructing civil liberties and individual rights, abolishing judicial supervision of elections, and prohibiting appeals to religious authority in politics. The purpose, of course, is to restrict the ability of opposition forces in general, and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular, to participate and compete effectively in electoral politics. In Yemen, part of the proposed amendments target the electoral system, drawing electoral zones and creating a supervisory electoral board and introducing other such features that will curtail the chances of the opposition in the polls.

The upshots of the foregoing tactics are constitutions that, to the public's mind, have been illegitimately mutated into texts for the ruling elite to tamper with whenever and however they wish.