Egypt to begin National Dialogue on political and economic reform

“There will be no red lines in the discussions” at Egypt's National Dialogue, which begins in Cairo on Wednesday, general co-ordinator Diaa Rashwan said.

The event, announced by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi more than a year ago, is designed to provide a platform where political factions settle differences and chart a course towards presidential elections.

Journalists have been invited to attend the inaugural session, although it will not involve detailed discussions of the issues at hand, dialogue technical secretary Mohamed Fawzy said.

The conference will be held as Egypt contends with some of the its worst economic problems in years, including high inflation and national debt.

“The first session is just an introductory session but after that the dialogue will convene three days a week, one day for each of its main committees which comprises a political committee, in addition to the economic and social committees,” Mr Fawzy said during a televised phone-in on Monday.

A meeting of the dialogue’s participants, headed by Mr Fawzy and Mr Rashwan, took place this week to finalise the discussions.

A statement issued by Mr Rashwan after the meeting said it was “fruitful”.

The structure of elections is one of the most pressing issues for the dialogue’s political committee, said Effat Sadat, head of the Sadat Democratic Party, a pro-government party formed in 2014, during a televised discussion on Monday.

The dialogue’s board of trustees, made up of 19 representatives, in March submitted an official recommendation to Mr El Sisi that elections and referendums be placed under the supervision of the judiciary.

In a Facebook statement shortly after, Mr El Sisi promised to consider the recommendation.

The economic situation, widely believed to be one of the reasons the dialogue has been repeatedly postponed since its was announced in April last year, will also be one of the main issues on the first meeting’s agenda, Mr Rashwan said during the April 28 episode of his Masr Gedida (A New Egypt) talk show.

Inflation crisis

The crisis has affected most Egyptians, forcing millions to struggle daily to make ends meet with soaring food prices.

The Egyptian pound has lost half its value over the past year and a dollar crunch has halted many of the country’s industries which rely on imports.

In a shift in policy following his announcement of the dialogue, Mr El Sisi has eased some of the restrictions for which his administration has been repeatedly chided by foreign and domestic critics.

He has released hundreds of political prisoners, unbanned some news outlets and allowed exiled critics to return home.

The president has long held that the more austere measures which he put in place when he assumed power in 2014, including restrictions on media and the imprisonment of thousands of dissidents were a necessity as the country has been contending with a terrorist insurgency in North Sinai following a year of rule by the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

The organisation was banned in 2013 and is considered a terrorist group by the government.

A statement this week from dialogue participant Ahmed Maher, one of the founders of the April 6 movement, a youth campaign group, said that “the most important steps are to continue our efforts to categorically end the issue of political prisoners, to stop the persecution of citizens by security for expressing their opinions and to liberate media outlets”.

Mr Maher’s statements were echoed by Mr Sadat, who was cautiously optimistic when he said that “restrictions on political freedoms will be eased as long as the different parties can reach a consensus at the end”.

In the event that a committee cannot reach a unified decision on one issue, there will be no voting among the members to determine which proposal is sent to the executive.

Instead, both sides of the issue will be presented to the president, who will choose which one, if either, will be adopted into policy, Mr Rashwan said.

The structure of the dialogue has also been criticised for its top-down approach as it has been agreed that each of the dialogue’s three committees will come up with a list of recommendations, which would be submitted personally to the president.

The president then has the final say on which one becomes legislation.

In a Monday report published by the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, Marina Ottaway, a Middle East political analyst, raised doubts about the dialogue’s ability to bring about meaningful change to Egypt’s most pressing issue, the economy.

She said that the dialogue's leadership would have been more effective if it had more autonomy to put policy into effect.

However, despite reservations, many participants view the dialogue as the most effective channel available to achieve their objectives and have welcomed the olive branch that has been extended by the country’s leadership.

“We believe that there is no alternative to the dialogue when it comes to settling our political differences, and we would like to underscore the importance of completing these first steps as a meaningful start to the necessary political reform,” Mr Maher said.