What’s Behind Egyptian Emergency State Amendment?

Egypt’s ministry of health reported that since its outbreak in the country, COVID-19 has killed 287 people in the country, as 3890 were tested positive for the infectious disease.

Meanwhile, some critics of the president said that the goals of the new parliamentary bill transcend the borders of the fight against the pandemic.

The new law details

In its Tuesday morning session, the parliament approved the draft law for the amendment of the state of emergency and left finalization of the law to Wednesday meeting.

The amendments of the state of emergency, which earlier were presented to the parliament to grant the government broader powers to combat the pandemic in the country, will increase the mandates for the president.

The amendments, in case of final approval, will be embedded in Law 162 of the emergency state that was approved in 1958. The reforms can allow the president to restrict or even ban the meetings, gatherings, celebrations, protests, and even private meetings.

The law allows the president or his legal representative to close down ministries, schools, universities, and forgive partially or completely the bills of public and household services.

According to the draft law, the Egyptian armed and security forces should implement the president’s orders in these cases and so they will reserve the right to judicially arrest people in case of discovery of crimes and offenses.

The powers also insist that the Egyptians arriving home from abroad should be committed to the guidelines and terms of quarantine issued by the related authorities. It also puts a ban on the exportation of some specific goods.

Another part of the reforms bans the dealings of some goods as it prices some of the goods and services.

The proponents of the law in the parliament argue that it will considerably help fight the pandemic. Beside accelerating quelling the virus, it will be in the best interest of the poor people and those in need of further medical care, the assert.

The state of emergency was established about four decades ago and is applicable when the public order and security at home or in the region are on the line, or when the stability and security of the government are endangered.

The government’s goals behind the bill

In an effort to reduce the economic costs of the fight against the coronavirus, the government in Cairo seeks to increase its powers for better control of the situation. The armed forces and before them the lawmakers contributed sums to the Tahya Misr Fund, a sovereign development fund, in an effort to help the administration tackle the disease.

The already-indebted government borrowed from international creditors to launch huge economic and infrastructural projects and it was counting on the incomes of the projects when making them operational to repay the debt. Now in the conditions of the pandemic, it will sustain huge financial damages.

As a result, it will mobilize all its potentials to cut the costs of battling the COVID-19 disease. As the initial step, it saw it necessary to amend the emergency state law to increase its leverage for reducing the costs.

On the other hand, the Muslim Brotherhood has recently maneuvered using the pandemic crisis and asked all Egyptians to join the “one nation” campaign. Muslim Brotherhood is a banned political movement in the country and seeks to restore the power as it in 2013 lost its representative President Mohamad Morsi who a year after his election was ousted by el-Sisi’s military coup. The officials are worried that the movement is exploiting the critical conditions to deal a blow to the government.

Recently, the movement addressed the president of the Chamber of Commerce and the CEO of the Federation of Egyptian Industries, both government officials, as part of recommendations concerning the coronavirus fight. This interaction with government officials is the first since the 2013 events and the ousting of Morsi.

These activities draw sensitivity and suspicion of the country’s security apparatus to the Muslim Brotherhood-sponsored campaign whose media work mainly originates from Turkey as the movement’s state sponsor. In response to the campaign, the government adds to its powers in a bid to prepare for possible insecurity and protests.

The significance of the government’s measures is that as the holy month of Ramadan arrives, the security apparatus is worried about Brotherhood-led anti-government rallies despite the stay-at-home orders to tackle the coronavirus.

This can be seriously considered as part of explaining why the government is pushing for amendments to the state of emergency law.

What does the opposition say?

The opposition to President el-Sisi argues that the 2013 coup was a return to the pre-2011 revolution period in which the country was ruled for three decades by the dictator Hosni Mubarak. They argue that el-Sisi is fast turning into another Mubarak and acts even more autocratically. They hold that the government is taking advantage of the disease conditions to increase its powers, mainly to allow el-Sisi to have a long-term rule.

They believe that this is a sequel to the last year’s constitutional reforms and has a single aim: Granting el-Sisi lifetime rule.

Despite these arguments by the opposition, the emergency state amendments appear to be mainly meant to smoothen the pandemic-caused economic damages and introduce further restrictions in Ramadan to prevent broadening of the heath crisis than to prolong the presidency of el-Sisi.