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On October 8th Belgium hit the milestone of 530 days without a government leaving the previous record holder’s (Iraq) 290 days far behind. Egypt, only at 237 days, is also without a legitimate government. The two countries’ experiences are somewhat different. Belgians find the whole thing relatively amusing since their day to day lives remain relatively unaffected, bins are collected and public workers’ wages are paid. In Egypt, the lack of quick and deep changes has brought a disenfranchised youth back to the streets along with the continually oppressed Coptic Christian community. The case of these two countries shows that what is really needed in a political system is not a strong government but a strong and respected political system.
To understand the reasons for Belgium’s political deadlock requires a little bit of understanding of Belgium itself. Belgium was founded when the Southern, Catholic Netherlands successfully rebelled against their protestant rulers from the North. This new country was formed from two Catholic regions that joined together: the French speaking Walloonia and Dutch speaking Flanders. This new country, formed on religious lines, soon adopted a policy of laïcité (secularism) and so effectively removed the only thing that the two parts of the country had in common from day to day life. As time has passed a general feeling has evolved that the (Flemish) north of the country does all the work whereas the (Walloonian) south lives an idyllic life of laziness. These underlying cultural problems led to the results of the 2010 elections which split the result between the French speaking and Flemish speaking parties. The most dominant party was the New Flemish Alliance with 27 seats (out of 150) with 17.4% of the vote. This party, led by Bert De Wever, has one of its main goals as the gradual secession of Flanders from Belgium (Manifesto of the New Flemish Alliance: Point 3). With more than seven parties having above ten seats in government and two of the largest parties (the NVA and the CDV) refusing to become part of coalitions unless there is a discussion of secession it is not surprising that there’s been such a long period without government.
There have been a variety of attempts by Belgians to force the formation of a government with one senator urging the “spouses of party leaders to deny them sex until a deal was reached”[1] and one actor asking all male politicians not to shave until they have reached an agreement (at 530 days that would put the standard student” no shave November” to shame). The caretaker government, meanwhile, have: passed an austerity budget, gone to war in Libya, banned the burqa and overseen a “higher than the euro-area average”[2] period of economic growth. This is all made possible because there is faith in the system of government that exists, the Belgians have elected their representatives and if it takes them 1,000 days to form a government or if they decide to hold another election or even a referendum on secession the Belgian people will accept their decisions as legal and correct.
Egypt on the other hand is seeing increasing agitation and violence as it slowly arrives at the elections to be held at the end of November and even then there is plenty of uncertainty as to whether the results of that election will be accepted by the population. In 1952 the Egyptian army seized power promising a “swift return to civilian rule”[3], six decades of autocratic rule later the army is in charge once again. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) is made up of 24 senior officers who will be in some form of executive control until late 2012 after an election to the lower house, a drafting of the constitution, a re-election and referendum and finally a presidential race. Current and prospective politicians as well as all seven of the presidential hopefuls have all asked for this timeline to be shortened and suggested that a president be elected first so that the executive becomes civilian as soon as possible. I would argue that SCAF’s timeline for political progress is fairly reasonable given the widespread variety of fronts and interest groups swarming over the new Egyptian politics and that having them argue democratically over the content of a constitution would be much better than having a single president influence elections and constitution writing. However SCAF do need to make two important changes to their current style of government otherwise a second revolution could take place pitting the civilians against the army which can only lead to disaster.
Firstly SCAF needs to change the way that it is carrying out law and order. Civilians should be tried in civil courts instead of in military courts and the emergency laws should be removed since they seem to create the emergencies that they are designed to stop. Security officials who were responsible for abuses during the last regime should stand trial for their crimes not just the civil officials. Some effort should be made to reform the civil police force and remove the military police from the streets. Censorship in the press, which is beginning to creep back, should be removed and laws protecting freedom of speech should be established. The Coptic Christian community should be offered the same protection of the law as every other community.
Secondly SCAF really needs to reform Egypt’s economy. One of the main causes of the Egyptian revolution was the abundance of educated but unemployed youth and so by stimulating industry and providing jobs SCAF could bring the most restless demographic onside. To do this SCAF needs to sort out its finances. It has already “rejected an offer from the IMF of some $3bn in low-interest finance”[4] even though it is haemorrhaging money at a rate of $1bn a month in foreign exchange reserves. SCAF has to overhaul or remove Mubarak’s subsidy regime which costs around “20% of the state budget”[5] to maintain. The best hope for Egypt’s economy is foreign direct investment projects but, with an uncertain political future, foreign companies are unlikely to invest. Egypt needs to proceed slowly in forming a government, writing a constitution and electing a president but sadly it needs good government to manage the transition.
When comparing Belgium and Egypt one is not comparing two countries without governments but comparing temporary governments and institutions. Belgium has such good governance that it can go for as long as it likes without a government (even if this means that Belgium will split into two countries). Egypt needs better government now otherwise it will never have the government it wants and needs.
[1] http://www.economist.com/node/18988904
[2] Ibid
[3] http://www.economist.com/node/21531469
[4] ibid
[5] ibid
