party system in Egypt from failure to failure

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Name; Mina Raouf Fathy
ID; 150075
Date; 8/12/2015
Title; Party system in Egypt
Module code; 15POLS01P
Module leader; DR/Mahmoud Khalifa

Module name; Introduction to political science
Contents
Introduction 2
Conceptual and theoretical framework 3
Before revolution 4
After revolution 6
Conclusion 8
Bibliography 10















Introduction
The case of political parties in terms of strength or weakness indication of the state of political system and the degree of development in any country. Parties are playing an important role in promoting democratic practice through activate the political life and format the public opinion and political leaders.In addition, achieve political stability. The emergence of political parties in Egypt was in the early twentieth century when nationalist movements united in the face of the British occupation. However, the real birth of parties came after the revolution of 1919, which produced a revolutionary leadership, crystallized organizationally later, through the emergence of the Wafd Party, led by Saad Zaghloul Pasha (Mohamed, 2006). Throughout history, Egypt's Political parties have failed to develop into active and powerful institutions operating within the political system. They perceived various positive and negative changes but the general result was negative for participation in the political process for many reasons whether related to regime or to problem in party itself. The purpose of this paper is to explore the obstacles to parties system in Egypt before and after 25 of January revolution to do its function. This paper tries to understand "why parties have failed to achieve its function and play a role in the society whether before or after revolution?" This paper argues that the reasons behind failure of parties system in Egypt before revolution was the authoritative policies of the regime while after the revolution, failure was due to the inefficiency of the parties themselves. This research paper is so significant in order to understand why parties have failed? In addition, the relation between type of regime and competition between parties. In different political environment and different ages, most of the political parties are used as a tool by the regime either for internal purposes such as to pacification public opinion or for external purposes to improve Egypt's image in front of the world. By constitution, Egypt has a multi-party system but the history shows that Egypt suffers from the dominant party system. For example, The National Party before the revolution. Dominant parties lead to the lack of ability between other parties to compete, which create a gap in the society. The main responsible for existence dominant parties is the regime. Therefore, there is a strong relationship between the rolling regime of the country and the degree of competition between the parties. Sometimes the failure was due to the inefficiency of the parties themselves like what happened after 25 of January revolution. This paper will analyze and utilize a qualitative and quantitative methodology through analyzing documents, articles and statistic. The following section was designed to discover the definition and functions of party systems. The second section will analyze the reasons behind failure of the parties to operating within the political system before 25th revolution. Third section will focus on the impact of revolution on political parties. Then ends with conclusion and recommendations.
Conceptual and theoretical framework
The definition of a political party is a group of people organized to practice politics, seeking to political power through election and follow the same ideology (Roskin, 2014). Political parties are considered the backbone for any political system because it represent many functions such as political socialization; parties teach their members how to play the political game and practice politics .in addition, training them on public speaking. Parties also work as a bridge between people and governments, helping citizens to get their needs and services. Without functioning parties, governments will ignore the needs of its individuals. Today political parties help in Integration of the Political System in the country; by taking the initiative of reclaiming peace and cooperation, also narrowing the gap, between the starting parties and the current regime. The chief function of political parties is to encourage the citizens to vote whether for their candidates or Specific a presidential system. So, parties are the main contributors in activation and productivity of the electoral process. The last function of parties is the organization of governments; the wining party is the responsible of making policies and the appointing of officials. Party systems take various forms. For example, the one-party system, one party control every level of government such as Egypt under Nasser regime. Dominant-party system: there are many parties but one party control in everything such as Egypt under Mubarak regime. Finally, Multiparty system, country has several competing parties each one of these parties receive seats in proportion to their share of the vote, Egypt failed to has effective multiparty system whether before or after 25 January revolution.
Before revolution
Party system in Egypt before revolution was considered as a multiparty system but in reality, it was a dominant party system. Despite the fact that there were 24 political party, only one party dominated the political environment which was The National Democratic party .( SIS,2011) Parties under Mubark regime were only used for the completion of the democratic scene in front of the world. In other words the 24 political parties were used as a cover to deceive the world with a false situation; that Egypt contains a democratic political system. The internal study of Egypt's parties except for The National Party show that they are neither active nor effective, which makes it hard to consider them as political parties. The weakness and failures of the Egyptian political parties were a result of several factors. The first and foremost was the regime;which restricted the work of parties and prevented many of new parties from obtaining a license to work in the system by putting difficult conditions for the establishment of political parties. Firstly, Parties Affairs Committee which Responsible for the approval or rejection any new parties. The committee consist of nine members who are Chairman of the Shura Council as president and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister for parliaments and three of the members of the judiciary and three public figures (SIS, 2011). The big tricky that Parties Affairs Committee composed of cadres of the ruling system which mean, the party that you will rival it is judge in the establishment of the party, Which lose it the credibility and impartiality in decision-making. Parties Affairs Committee has rejected many of the parties under the pretext they are incompatible with the principles of the Constitution but that was only to justify to the public. But, these parties rejected for two reasons: out of fear of competition for the ruling party or disagreements with those based on the party. For example, the Committee refused parties such as Socialist Party of Egypt, The new centrist party and Karama Party (Democratic Arab Center, 2013). Many of rejected parties established by judicial rulings, which confirms that this party has refused for a reason not related to the Constitution as the committee claimed. Secondly, the regime set difficult conditions for the establishment of political parties, which make it so difficult to create new party. According to Arab Democratic Center in Egypt (2005), the regime set laws such as Not to establish political parties based on sectarian or religious or geographic or any forms of discrimination, whether on grounds of sex, color, origin, religion. Also, do not set convergence objectives of the party to form any kind of military or paramilitary formations. In addition, Party not to establish as a branch or a foreign political organization and to clear the party's principles, objectives, methods to achieve, and sources of funding. These laws carrying more than one interpretation, which allowed to regime to reject many parties under pretext of not match with the laws. In addition, these laws do not match with the ruling party. Therefore, the reasons for the weakness of the role of political parties before the January 25 revolution summarized in the lack of democracy in the state. Which leads to dominance of a single party, which is National Party through The support of the state media, and the many headquarters in all country and huge funding from the leader of the state.
After revolution
Twenty-fifth of January Revolution occurred under slogan appropriate Life, freedom and social justice in order to get rid of the tyranny and corruption. In addition, open the door to a democratic transition stage, which move Egypt from Non-democratic and authoritarian regime to a pluralistic democratic system Non-democratic authoritarian regime to a pluralistic democratic system, based on participation, democracy and competition. The real reader for revolution were people not specific party or organization, unlike the situation in the revolutions of 1919 and 1952. After the revolution of January 25, the map of party political in Egypt changed because of the new changes and increase the freedom that guaranteed by the Constitution of the revolution which open the door to establish new political parties. The number of political parties have counted after the revolution to about 60 parties received an official license, in addition to the nearly 100 party in the waiting list (Taha, 2012). Despite the large number of parties whether it Liberal, left wing and religious and freedom to work, but those parties failed to achieve its functions. Therefore, the most important question is what led to the failure of parties, despite the freedom from regime. The answer this time it parties themselves. Many reasons led to the failure such as Lack of experience, the similarity of the programs and rush to seize the gains of the revolution. Firstly, lack of experience. Most of the new parties suffer from a lack of experience in management and doing its functions. As a result, they could not reach to the people in spite of collected 5,000 signing wanted to get a license (Shuman, 2014). We can call these parties square parties because their founders whether from rebels or other people which revolution encouraged to join the party. All parties have used the same names from political terms such as "democracy, justice, freedom and development." Which indicates that the parties made the slogans of the January 25 revolution names without paying attention to content or programs, which confirm the lack of experience. Secondly, similarity of the programs. Most of the new parties were similar in their names (young, people, revolution, freedom, justice, and liberation). Moreover, this similarity also went to their own programs, and except in cases of obvious ideological differences in a few of the parties. The mostly adopt similar programs to achieve. Reading and analysis of programs, goals and slogans of the new parties after revolution make it so hard to distinguish between them. For example, liberal parties, more than ten parties confirm in their program on the reference liberal and believes in market economy and individual freedoms (SIS, 2012). This similar in programs led to gap between parties and people. Thirdly, rush to seize the gains of the revolution. There was no leader for revolution except people. Therefore, all parties hurry up to collect the gains of the revolution ant take the role of leader party whether it participate in revolution or not. All parties forget their function and reasons behind their existence so Instead of the pursuit of objectives of the revolution, most of parties seek to power and authority. People miss the trust in those parties and consider them as decor in political system. To sum up, despite the revolution and change of the regime, which provide the freedom and possibilities to establish new and powerful parties have an active role in society. However, these parties have failed to do its functions and pursuit of objectives of the revolution whether because of lack of experience, similarity of the programs and the pursuit of power.
Conclusion
Finally, no one can deny the role that parties play in establishing and improving the political system by achieving many functions whether for the regime or individuals. However, Egypt failed to have effective and real parties whether before and after 25 January revolution, for reasons related to the regime or parties themselves. Before revolution, the authoritative polices of the regime contribute in Paralyzing and reducing Work of the Parties by putting difficult conditions for the establishment of new political parties. Also, supports only one party, which is National Democratic Party through financial support and rejection of the existent rival parties. so ,the regime is the main responsible for the failure of the political parties before the revolution. The authoritative policies of Mubark regime led to the 25 of January revolution. The new changes and the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution after revolution led to establish more than one hundred parties. However, most of the parties have failed to be effective and play an important role in the society due to reasons related to parties themselves such as, The lack of experience of new parties prevent it to be effective. In addition, Programs similarity between the parties make it so hard to people to distinguish between them. Finally, the haste to seize the gains of the revolution. Therefore, Instead of the pursuit of objectives of the revolution, most of parties seek to power and authority. All of the previous reasons led to the failure of party system in Egypt. To have effective and real party this paper recommend many points to reform party system. Firstly, apply the Constitution and the law in the selection of new parties. Reject or approve any party should be based on the law not on agreements between party and regime such as what happened before revolution. Secondly, parties must provide good and effective programs in order to attract the citizen to participate in political decision. Thirdly, all parties must pursuit the objectives of the revolution and achieve appropriate Life, freedom and social justice.









Bibliography
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Roskin, M. G. (2014). political science an introduction .
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