Party Institutionalization in Egypt: the example of the Free Egyptians Party

Language: 
English
Sent On: 
Mon, 2014-08-11
Year: 
2014
Newsletter Number: 
34

 

 

 

AWR, Cairo, August 11, 2014

 

Since the 1952 revolution, Egypt has mostly had a single party system that carried out the policies of the President. That has changed since the revolution of January 25, 2011, which has led to the formation of over 90 different political parties.

 

Most political parties in Egypt are organizationally weak. Major exceptions were the old NDP and the Freedom and Justice Party of the Muslim Brotherhood. The NDP had its basis in clientalism, while the Freedom and Justice Party benefitted from decades of grassroots work of the Muslim Brotherhood.

 

It is extremely interesting to see in the liberal Free Egyptians Party, a new party emerges with a well-developed organizational structure, something that many political parties in Egypt are lacking.

 

Research intern Omar Ali interviewed Assem Memon, Deputy Managing Director of the Free Egyptians Party (FEP).

 

 

Assem Memon

 

Assem Memon describes the different membership tiers. One becomes a voting member only after obtaining basic training and awareness on the ideology of the party.

 

Assem Memon explained the organization structure of the party and it’s four public policy pillars: right for the necessity of life, prosperity, self-fulfillment, and a bright future. “… and we engaged the membership in developing that model, and then in reorganizing our technical (policy making) committees to create another layer of committees that are focused on developing integrated public policy”

 

Assem Memon describes his party as liberal center right, capitalist. The economic policies he recommends are “small government, bigger role for the private sector.” Also needed is “increasing efficiency of the government operations itself, reducing the role of the government in the day-to-day lives of Egyptians overall. Some of these cannot be priorities on the immediate short term, but these are the ultimate goals.”

 

For the full text of the interview please read here.

 

 

Cornelis Hulsman

Editor-in-chief Arab-West Report