Moustafa El-Gendy, a former independent member of Egypt’s parliament and part of the opposition Wafd Party, happened to be visiting Washington this week. He dropped by the New America Foundation this morning to talk about what is happening back home.
El-Gendy said he has been in touch from Washington with leaders of a pan-opposition coalition in Cairo that will seek to negotiate with the Army for the departure of President Hosni Mubarak, as the first step necessary to forge a new, democratic Egyptian constitution, one modelled on Turkey’s. El-Gendy believed that an Egypt ruled by the opposition would honor the country’s treaties, including its peace treaty with Israel. He added that, in his view, the Islamist movement that has been prominent in Egypt’s opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood, did not enjoy more than ten per cent support among the voting public and that, therefore, “Egypt will never be Iran.”
Amjad Atallah, co-director of New America’s Middle East Task Force, joined me for the interview. A partial transcript follows.
ATALLAH: Tell us what is happening today. You said that an opposition coalition has been formally created this morning?
EL-GENDY: Actually, they are meeting today. They were created three weeks ago when we created the parallel parliament—then they were united at that time…. We negotiate with the Army directly because the Army has the power…. We want to make a new constitution. We want to make new elections. We want, of course, Mubarak out before all that. And we will make [a] new election and we want Egypt to become like Turkey, a parliamentary democratic republic.
COLL: Who are the members of the coalition?
EL-GENDY: The members of the coalition [are] all the parties…. You have Kefaya, you have 6 April, you have Muslim Brotherhood, you have Tagammo [Progressive National Union Party] Masris, all the opposition…. We got reunited and today we are talking about one thing. The regime has to go. We need democracy and we need to take the path of democracy. While we want a very strong Army, we want to respect all our treaties, worldwide treaties…. Egypt is not Iran. Egypt will never be Iran.
COLL: Three weeks ago, when the coalition first came together, I presume it was motivated by the events in Tunisia?
EL-GENDY: No, it was before the events of Tunisia. We had a huge event which was the event of the election, the parliamentary election, where Mubarak got ninety, ninety-five per cent of the vote. And all the opposition had boycotted the election. That’s when we got together. And after that, of course, the Tunisia event did not unite us [as political leaders], but united the streets. The Tunisia event showed to the street who has the power, and then the Egyptians felt so small, because they were supposed to be the big country of the region, a country that gives the model. Anyway, they moved fast—now Egypt is giving the model….
COLL: How do you interpret the Army’s position here—and since the Army has been so politicized during Mubarak’s rule, how can you separate the Army as an institution from the secret police and the people who have used the Army as an instrument of Mubarak’s repression?
EL-GENDY: I think during Mubarak’s time, the police took all the good things and the Army did not…. The people in Egypt love the Army. Of course, we understand that we cannot go to the Army and say, “Okay, now you go away.’… No, we don’t want this. We want the Army to protect the constitution that we will write all together. The Army is Egyptians. We will write it all together, like Turkey, like Ataturk…. We are meeting with the real power today in Egypt and the real power is the Army. If [newly appointed Egyptian Vice-President Omar] Suleiman is going to talk in the name of the Army, O.K. If he is going to talk in the name of Mubarak, nobody is going to listen to him and nobody will talk to him.
ATALLAH: There’s a great concern in the United States, obviously, primarily for Israel…. So the big concern is, will the coalition maintain the peace treaty that it has with Israel, will it maintain the strategic cooperation that is has with Israel, and if the coalition includes the Muslim Brotherhood, will that change anything?
EL-GENDY: Not at all, because, as I said, they represent ten per cent. Let me say something very important here, very important. Don’t you ever think that there was peace between Egypt and Israel for the last thirty years. There was peace between the government of Egypt and the government of Israel, but not between the nation and the nation. Let us go into democracy and become democratic citizens, then we can talk with democratic citizens, the same language. Israel has democracy. We do not have democracy. How can we talk together, how can the people talk together? There was ceasefire for thirty years. You want real peace? Get democracy in Egypt.
COLL: Amjad asked a specific question about whether the coalition has a position about the treaty. Does it?
EL-GENDY: Of course we respect all treaties that Egypt had signed. We respect all treaties that Egypt has signed and to change any treaty after that, it has to go into the constitution and to the parliament to be voted. Let’s look around. How many persons in Egypt want war? Ten per cent? Twenty per cent? Thirty per cent? Forty per cent? Forty-five per cent? Not one hundred per cent and not fifty-five per cent. But we cannot see our brothers in Palestine killed everyday in front of our eyes and turn our back.
Read more from our coverage of the protests in Egypt and beyond.