On Wednesday, I interviewed Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nour, who was released from prison last month. During our discussion, Nour mentioned that an Egyptian court had recognized him as leader of the liberal democratic Ghad party. In turn, the court had reversed previous rulings that awarded the Ghad chairmanship to businessman Moussa Moustafa Moussa — a government-backed puppet who was propped up to split the party into irrelevance.
Egyptian pro-democracy activists are hailing the court’s decision, hopeful that it will allow Nour to resume his political career. “It shows that judges in Egypt are sometimes independent,” one prominent blogger told me.
Yet a few major obstacles still stand in Nour’s way. First, Moussa is trying to use the regime’s institutions to circumvent the court’s decision. In an interview on Wednesday, Moussa said he had appealed to the Shura Council‘s Committee on Party Issues, which is chaired by Hosni Mubarak’s own National Democratic Party and is responsible for approving political parties. The committee’s decision is due on March 31st, and there is every reason to believe that the committee will rule in Moussa’s favor. If this happens, it will put the regime directly in conflict with the courts — the kind of conflict the regime typically wins.
Second, even if the Committee on Party Issues improbably rules in his favor, Nour cannot legally run for president until the 2017 elections. Under Egyptian law, anyone convicted of a felony is prohibited from running for six years after being released from prison, and the official reason for Nour’s imprisonment was his dubious conviction for forging signatures (such as his father-in-law’s!) on his party registration forms. Nour has vowed to challenge this law, but his prospects for success appear exceedingly low.
Third, Nour is facing challenges from civil society organizations that have traditionally supported dissident movements. In this vein, the Lawyers’ Syndicate — which was active in supporting last year’s April 6th protests against the Mubarak regime — removed Nour from its list of members earlier this week without giving a reason. Indeed, it is unclear whether this action came as a consequence of regime pressure, though this seems likely. Either way, the Syndicate’s decision closes off one critical venue to Nour as he tries to revive support for the Ghad party ahead of the 2011 presidential elections.
For these reasons, I would caution against optimism regarding the recent court ruling that recognized Nour as leader of the Ghad party. Egypt’s recent history suggests that the Mubarak regime possesses many options against courts and politicians that challenge its authoritarianism. And, for the moment, there is no reason to believe that the regime is prepared to back down.
