CAIRO, 25 March 2007 — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak yesterday dismissed US criticism of tomorrow’s referendum on constitutional changes as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in the country for talks on Middle East peace.
“We take the path toward reform with conviction and without looking back,” Mubarak told a gathering in the southern city of Assiut.
“I will not accept pressures or orders or conditions,” the president said. “I will not be swayed into gambling with the future of this nation and I will be relentless in defending the future of its people.”
Rice said Friday that the lack of democratic change in Egypt was disappointing and voiced her concern over the referendum.
Rice said the United States had hoped that Egypt would be in the lead “as the Middle East moves toward greater openness and greater pluralism and greater democratization.”
“It’s disappointing that this has not happened,” she added.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit earlier yesterday urged Washington not to interfere in domestic political issues.
“The United States and Egypt have friendly and strategic relations but Egypt cannot allow its friends’ intervention in its internal affairs,” Abul Gheit told reporters after a meeting between UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Mubarak.
The amendments will enshrine in the constitution a ban on parties based on religion and will give the authorities wide powers of arrest, surveillance and trial in special courts.
Analysts say the main target is the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement which emerged as the country’s largest opposition force in 2005 elections.
In a speech, Mubarak said the ban on religious parties was meant to prevent strife between Egyptian Muslims and the Christian minority, which accounts for about 10 percent of the population. “I was aware of the constant attempts to cause divisions between the Muslims of the country and its Copts (Christians), wary of the sectarian and secessionist strife which countries dear to us have seen,” he added, apparently referring to Iraq.
“I have learned...the dangers of mixing religion with politics and politics with religion. The constitutional amendments... should prevent any trading in religion and attempts to strike at the unity of this country,” he added.
The Muslim Brotherhood has tried to reassure the country’s Copts that it would not make any changes in their status. It notes that Islam is already the religion of the state.
Mubarak said another aim of the constitutional changes was to stop political violence without recourse to the emergency law which has been in force since he took power in 1981. “The security and stability of Egypt and the safety of its citizens are a red line which I have not allowed and will not allow anyone to cross,” he said.
Opposition groups have said they will boycott the government’s hastily scheduled referendum and have vowed to stage street demonstrations, despite an Interior Ministry warning that demonstrators would be dealt with harshly.
“Demonstrations aiming at tarnishing democratic life on this day will not be allowed,” an unidentified ministry official said in comments published in the state-run newspaper Al-Ahram.
Rice’s comment was a rare criticism of Egypt at a time when Washington is trying to rally Cairo’s support on the Israeli-Arab peace process and the crises in Iraq and Lebanon. In 2005, Washington had said democratic reform in Egypt was a top priority, but then largely eased its pressure on Mubarak for change over the next two years.
A US campaign for democracy in the Arab world peaked in 2005 but analysts say the momentum diminished when the Bush administration realized it had serious problems in Iraq.
