 يتبعون لبعض موقع جداً لتكون في إجتماعي ومعامل جداً ومعامل جداً لما نحن نعيش حيث تحديد إجتماعي، تبوز تحديد، بقاعدة أجهزة ومعامل إجتماعيات تصويرت ومعامل لذلك هناك شعر من مجموعة تصوير وكما تحدثنا عن الموضوع والشعر والشعر والتحديد أريد أن أخبركم أن هناك still is that sense of optimism as a result of the fact that things are so dynamic and so exciting. And I think it's a great time to be living in Cairo. I was introduced to you partly as a member of a political party. It's an opposition party. It's the Egyptian Social Democratic Party. And I'm very honored to be part of that party and active member there of and I represented it in the parliament. But because this is about the challenges that Egypt is facing in general, I will try as much as possible to submit to you an overview of the environment and to limit my own bias, if you like, as much as possible, although you will probably find it popping out from time to time. So there are six challenges. There is the political constitution deadlock in which we live. And it is easy to just look from a distance, especially from here and to say that that problem, that challenge is because political parties are not talking to each other and there is no dialogue. And that is true. This is an expression of the crisis that we are in. Maybe an expression of that crisis too, that we have to travel all the way to Williamsburg to be able to sit down and have a decent conversation with people from other parties. But that is really just a manifestation of something much deeper than an inability to sit around the table. And it's a little bit unfair sometimes to think that if we would just sit around the table for half an hour, then everything would get resolved because it's not like that. There are deeper issues at hand and they are the issues that prevent a healthy dialogue from taking place. One of those issues is the whole notion of ballot box, democracy, majority rule, what it means to win elections. And I take this very seriously. I don't think that at the election of neither parliament nor President Morsi, there was any serious concern about the legitimacy of the results. Maybe things came out later on. But on the whole, there was an acceptance in Egypt that whatever the ballot box produces, we are willing and happy to respect it and play by that rule. The issue really is what does winning in the elections give to the majority that wins. And this is the bigger issue. In other words, we all do respect the ballot box results. But the point is what does the ballot box really provide and is the ballot box the only step in democracy or is it a bigger environment? And that is really where the debate and where we are in a way stuck for the time being. Parties of the opposition, as I said, the ones which have accepted the ballot box results unequivocally from the start, have no problem with that till today, but have a problem with what kinds of powers, what it means to be in power, what it means to. And what it means to have a whole process of democracy that begins and includes other things, pre-election and post-election and not just that snapshot of people queuing up in front of the election booth. The other issue is the constitution. The constitution has become part of the political deadlock in which we live. And I'm not going to spend my time, nor waste your time discussing articles here and there of the constitution because that is a legal debate in a way and it's a very important debate, but it's not one that is appropriate for today. And what matters to me is this. Is that you need to appreciate that a big part of the issue of the constitutional debate was about process and not just outcome. This is, I think, one of the key differences that occurred during that whole saga between the ruling party and the opposition parties. Several times we were told by the president and by senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood. And some of the discussions that I attended myself, don't worry, it's okay with until you see the final product. And that idea of the product is one where there was a lot and continues to be a lot of contention. It is not just about the product, as I said, it is also about the process. And a lot of resistance to the constitution, aside from the resistance to specific articles and specific provisions and the absence of specific guarantees. A lot of that resistance was geared towards the lack of process at least the way we thought. So that, again, is something that I would like to put in context. That process here matters and it will continue to be an issue in future laws where it is difficult for a democratic society to just accept that the outcome might be good or bad. The result, as I said, is that here we are having to cross the Atlantic and be in Williamsburg to have a decent discussion, like the one I just had over dinner now. Not that I'm unhappy to be in Williamsburg, very pleased to be here, but this conversation needs to take place in Cairo, frankly. However, to again to conclude that point on the political crisis, to think that it is just about the need for a dialogue between political parties is not accurate at all. There is something bigger going on and that in a way is the crisis of all political parties. Outside of the recurrent theme of whether we as political parties should be sitting together or not, the fact is that a wide part of the Egyptian audience has abandoned interest in political parties in general and maybe in formal politics, to a large extent. There is much less enthusiasm today about parties, about politics, about elections, about, you know, contesting elections about all of this. And that I think is a very worrying sign for all of us. The youth that really were in the first line of the revolution have found themselves pretty much outside of the political process in its entirety. A lot of people who had hope about the democratic process growing and continuing have lost faith in that. And this, as I said, is something that we all need to address collectively as parties and not just be completely concerned with the fact that we should be sitting in a room or not, because ultimately at some point we will be sitting in one room but nobody is going to care what we really do or say. A couple of months ago, there was just at the beginning of some of the worst Port Said clashes. There was a meeting in the office of the Sheikh of Al-Azhar and several of the political representatives of the parties went and attended and signed actually an Azhar document and it had no impact at all on the clashes the next day. That's the type of atmosphere that I'm worried we are moving into. Challenge number two is the economy. And that has only recently began to take a lot of sufficient attention. As a matter of fact, the economy was pretty much neglected almost until a few months ago. Certainly until October-November there wasn't enough interest or mention or keenness on following up what is happening with the economy. And that alone is a problem. But the bigger issue is that there continues to be in the Egyptian dialogue a confusion between cause and effect. You often hear people on TV in the press even the top notch politicians confusing cause and effect talking about the decline of the Egyptian pound or the decline of the Egyptian stock exchange index as the problem whereas obviously these are not the problems. These are the symptoms. These are the manifestations of a problem. We don't talk enough about the cause. We talk too much about the effect and not enough about the cause. And the cause can be nothing but a slowing economy obviously collapsing foreign direct investment effectively declining tourism to a very worrying extent in terms of numbers and in terms of income and obviously income here matters much more than the numbers and growing spending on some items that is getting out of control. This is creating big effects. It is creating rising prices rising unemployment slowing demand declining reserves at the central bank. But again my point is that we need to spend more time thinking and understanding what are the causes and not just what is the manifestation of those causes. Now there is not just the cause. There are what I call the root cause on the other hand which is the political standoff the security situation the legal uncertainty the confused macro vision they're all out there but you know some serious discussion needs to take place about what is the cause what is the effect and how to tackle all of these things. Some of that discussion came out in the open as a result of the IMF visits and missions to Cairo in the last few months. There is disagreement over the IMF loan obviously but it's a disagreement that is mostly due not to the details of a proposed program but rather to the lack of sufficient transparency in the whole process. And I think that by and large Egyptian public today is ready to discuss and tackle and engage with a higher level of transparency and honesty about the effect of such a program. However, ultimately the solution or the getting out of the economic deadlock in which we are can only be a political solution. There is very little that I can imagine that any government can do today using the same tools and methods that have traditionally been used to get us out of the current impasse. Why do we need a political solution because the type of solution that is needed for the economic issue is just much bigger than moving a few millions here and there in the budget or increasing a little tax here or reducing some benefits there. It's a problem big enough to warrant big solutions to warrant really radical changes a rethinking of the whole way that the economy in which it is run. And that frankly cannot be undertaken by a government that just has a majority and is willing to go alone. This cannot be done without some broader consensus in society which unfortunately does not exist today. In other words, we need breakthroughs not just simple solutions that might have been suitable a few months ago. The third challenge is that of security, law, order, safety. And here we are facing a very complex challenge because the institutions of law and order are not functioning to put it simply. There is a background of repression by police which simply has to be understood and appreciated before we begin to think of any solution to that. The fact that the turning point in the January Revolution was the moment that the lines of the police broke down is very significant and continues to be an important part of the imagery of the January Revolution. But no country can run without a police force. No economy can run without a police force. No society can run without a police force. However, the problem is that nothing in the last two years has actually been done to reform and change the ways and the methods and the philosophy and the approach of the police force in our society. In other words, we are still in a situation where you either take what you had before or you get nothing at all and you are not protected at home or in your property. And that is a choice that nobody is willing to accept today. There is no way that the Egyptian people today will accept in order to get some security a return to the ways and means of the old police force. And therefore, if there is no serious effort to reform and restructure the whole way in which the police force is managed, we will continue to be faced with that impossible choice which, as I said, nobody is going to accept. That ties a little bit the issue of law and order with judges and judiciary because that again is part of the dilemma of law and order and justice. And here I just want to make a small comment on Dr. Ahmed's presentation in the morning which was quite comprehensive. But all I want to say is that as a lawyer I think about this perhaps a little bit differently. The way I look at it is that we have to distinguish between judges and judiciary. They're not the same thing. Exactly in the same way that businessmen are not the capitalist class and that workers individually are not the proletariat. The sum is very different from the parts. And here it's not just sum and parts. Judges are individuals, they're human beings. The judiciary is an institution and is a value. And I think that it is extremely important two years after the revolution that we all take it very seriously to defend the concept of judiciary, the concept of law, the concept of justice even though some of us may have issues with some judges, with some members of the judiciary these are issues that can be resolved but somehow to jump from being anti some judges towards being anti the whole notion of an independent judiciary I find a very dangerous one and could have been acceptable in the early weeks of the revolution where there was a sense that you have to break down things in order to rebuild. But having lived for two and a half years under a legal system which by the way that is the legal system that brought the current president to his place that is the legal system that brought his government into that place that is the legal system that has allowed certain things to happen. So to take a selective approach towards law and justice is just an impossible situation either we have new laws what they call transitional justice approach either we have a transitional justice approach towards introducing new laws and new systems or we have to defend the idea of judiciary which is very different from defending judges. The fourth challenge in my opinion is the challenge of government and here I don't mean government with a big G, IE I don't mean the prime minister and the cabinet and so on I mean the bigger government starting from the prime minister down to the smallest member to the youngest member of the bureaucracy and I think that government in Egypt is really going through a very big crisis government is practically at a standstill there is almost a paralysis in most of the government circles as we speak. True there is a lack of technocratic skills among the Muslim Brotherhood I do not deny this at all I agree with that proposition but I differ a little bit in analyzing the implications of this I actually do tend to agree with Dr. Darragh that who would have expected the Muslim Brotherhood to come to power with a full set of economists and statisticians and experts in every field that is required to run a country that's fine, that's granted I have no issue with that and I think it's fair to give the Brotherhood the benefit of the doubt of not having been prepared with all the skills that are needed but where I think that the Brotherhood actually made a mistake was in not being able to attract and to gain the trust and the cooperation of what I call the gray bureaucracy and I say gray for a reason because I'm not talking about the top bureaucracy that may have been associated with the old regime and therefore unwanted post-revolution I'm talking about the neutral bureaucrats who are there the various million government employees who are there who I remember quite well that in the first few months of President Morsy's election there was this overall attitude and overall tendency of institutions willing to give it a try and to work with the elected president that has declined significantly in the last few months and I think this is where the Brotherhood is to be blamed not for not having the skills but for not being able to gain and maintain the trust of the gray bureaucracy the result is that we are in a very difficult situation ministries are occupied banks are occupied authorities are occupied but as I said there is a slow down there is a paralysis in the government circles and that is affecting our capacity to grow tremendously my fifth challenge and I'm not going to talk forever my fifth challenge is a challenge of expectations and I think that's a very serious one and one that has not been discussed sufficiently and honestly enough in Egypt post-revolution there has been a revolution of expectations post January 2011 but this is this could have been an opportunity to be more honest with the people to be more honest about what the real set of the economy is to be more honest about what needs to be done in order for us to progress and to grow later on in the future instead and that includes both the phase during the military rule as well as the phase during the President Morsy's rule there isn't that level of honesty at all there is an exaggerated sense of confidence and exaggerated sense of optimism about the economy in particular things like how much money is going to come into Egypt through foreign direct investment more recently once the Islamic bond Sukuk law was passed the Minister of Finance said that that law alone will bring 20 billion dollars into the country obviously laws don't bring money it is economic policy that does things about how much asset recovery can be taken from money that has been transferred outside of Egypt things about you know how much of the budget deficit can be reduced all of these things have not been taken with any level of seriousness or honesty so far and the result is that that again to me is a separate challenge from the economy itself it is managing the expectations that are needed for us to overcome some of these problems the sixth and last challenge is frankly a challenge of the opposition of which my party is a member and it's true and I do not contest Dr. Ahmed in some not all of the things that he said in the morning yes there is division there is unclearity sometimes there is too much emphasis perhaps on the negative approach to opposition you know we shouldn't become the parties that are against freedom and justice or that are against the brotherhood we should be parties that have a much more positive more proactive program to submit all of this is true but I want to make a small remark here is that this doesn't really matter that much and that frankly is I will go as far as to say this is advice to freedom and justice and to to the Muslim brotherhood it doesn't matter that much because we are confusing here two phenomena that are completely different there is there are political opposition parties in Egypt they have some effect perhaps but there is something much bigger going on there is a bigger movement of protest and I use the word protest here to distinguish it from opposition there is protest part of that protest is organized opposition but there is a bigger phenomenon called protest and it is I don't think that it is I think it is a big mistake by the current regime to behave as if the current political parties are the only representatives of a much bigger movement of protest that is in Egypt in other words even if the opposition was not organized even if it wasn't doing a great job even if it wasn't submitting a fantastic alternative it doesn't matter you have a problem somewhere else you have a problem that there is protest out there in the street with which you have to deal because it is just out there and it is not going to go away we have colossal problems and challenges but I think that on the whole as a country and especially as a government we are not really addressing them at all we are not addressing the economic problems in the manner that is required by the scale of the economic problems we are not addressing the political deadlock in a way that would actually resolve it we are not dealing with the bigger protests but simply choosing to focus on the smaller representation of political parties and the result is that we need as I said bigger solutions for the current problems now these six challenges that I've mentioned have some common features one is that as I told you there isn't just one challenge it's a multiplicity of challenges and it's important for anybody trying to find a way out of this is to realize several challenges and more importantly that they are interconnected so they cannot be tackled one at a time or one by one and one alone you cannot to give you an example you cannot tackle the economic problem in absence from tackling the political deadlock it's just not going to happen it is it is not going to produce as I said the big enough policies that are sufficient to turn around the tide they are and therefore they are parallel challenges but they have to be tackled at the same time and here again I note in the government a mechanical approach to these things that worries me very much to think that it's possible to focus on the political issue you know finish off constitution election presidential parliament and so on and then try to deal with the economic problems isn't the way to do it there are things that have to be done at the same time they also all of them are then a simple vote of confidence or a simple majority in the bad box and they are they are all time sensitive they are not problems and challenges that can be postponed for a long time