Tuesday, November 29, 2011

A farce difficult to boycott Why Tahrir II is also a criticism to the elections



The entire electoral system is designed to cut out the revolutionary movement. All the changes implemented during the preparations regarded only the relationship between the army and its closest allies on one hand and the Islamic forces on the other. The principled criticism of the left that first the new rules of the game must be democratically defined before the match can begin is substantiated by the concrete shortcomings of the rules:

1) The parliament is void of any powers. It neither can build a government nor can it legislate against the will of the military. Its only purpose is to choose the constituent assembly.

2) One third of the seats are distributed by a single winner system. This means that in the urban environment most seats will go to the MB or here and there Salafi candidates while in the rural areas many ex-Mubarak notables will make it.

3) Two thirds of the seats are contested by lists with a maximum of ten positions but often also less. That means a threshold of at best 10% up to sometimes 25% to gain one seat. Thus smaller lists are cut out.

4) Party registration requires a lot of money which de facto is only possible with the support of big business or the army. For the different revolutionary forces, and not only for them, registration therefore was impossible. This created opportunist electoral blocks without principles.

5) A certain amount of seats are directly appointed by the military council.

6) Scarcely populated regions are better represented to the benefit of the ex-Mubarak notables.


For full Report here:

www.antiimperialista.org/node/7174

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