Democracy in Egypt of late has focused on the ballot box, the need to rewrite the constitution, and place power in the hands of a democratically-elected government. Elections are the foundation of participation, and the sooner elections for the presidency and parliament are held, the better off Egypt will be. However, elections are not limited to the national level. While the current situation in Egypt warrants a primary focus on the national government, local elections may prove as equally important in the long-run. Municipal elections are the best chance for Egyptians to elect government officials who can listen to and work on behalf of citizens in every city, town, and village throughout the country. Local councils with the ability to field ideas from their constituency and set their own agenda can better serve the common interest.

Without this foundation of participation at the local level, a deeper, broader, cooperative participation will be impossible to achieve. Instead, participation will manifest itself as it has in recent years, with large-scale protests calling for a change in the national government. Protest is essential to democratic expression, but it is not enough to run a country.
 

What is the Right to Public Participation?

The right to public participation is the right of every citizen to contribute to public life. It is the right for each individual, group, or community that is potentially impacted by any decision to be involved with making that decision, be it a governmental decision or a private decision that has social implications.¹ The right to public participation is first, the right to vote, run for elections, and participate in referendums, but beyond that, it is the right of individuals to express their ideas and opinions in a public forum freely, and for those ideas and opinions to be heard, respected, discussed and debated by the community. It is the right for citizens’ concerns to be recognized and serve as a foundation for the government’s agenda.

There are different levels of public participation. Passive non-participation happens when citizens are conditioned to accept a predetermined course of action. Consultation is a form of participation in which decision makers inform the public of their rights and responsibilities and solicit their feedback though they do not necessarily use their input. More proactive forms of participation such as partnership, delegated power and citizen control, give citizens more leverage to influence policy and control public services.² Most democratic countries have public involvement at the consultation and partnership levels. Historically, Egyptians have been limited to passive nonparticipation, being conditioned to accept a predetermined course of action.
 

What is the Impact of the Right to Public Participation on our Everyday Life?

Enabling Environment for Local Participation
There are several barriers to effective public participation in Egypt on the local level for individual citizens interested in addressing an issue with the state. For example, concerned citizens interested in communicating with the local administration about problems in their area lack a mechanism that allows any effective outcome; a citizen can spend days going from one office to the next to no avail, and of course if this citizen is from a low-income area they often experience added hostility and disrespect from officials.

There are also institutional barriers that hinder the overall participation process such as budgetary constraints on local administration and the lack of access to information. Local administration budgets accounted for only 12% of the national budget in 2011/2012, and as such, if local administrations want to adopt public suggestions and improve services, their limited resources prevent them from doing so.³ Development plans for local administration zones are sometimes secretly kept, not only from the public, but also from other government entities (read TADAMUN’s brief on the Right to Information). How is the public to proactively participate if they are not aware of what is being planned?

Developing the Potential of Egypt’s Citizens
The majority of city residents live in informal settlements with limited public services, limited privileges of citizenship, and no representation in the government. Those interested in participating in the decisions that affect their neighborhood, such as where a new road is built or which areas of the neighborhood might be well suited for a new school or healthcare clinic, find few formal ways to do this. Participation in public life affords people opportunities to build relationships and solidarity with their fellow citizens, it can help prepare young people for future roles in the government, and it gives citizens political and administrative experience whether or not they seek higher political office. And most importantly, if taken seriously by the government, citizen participation helps instill values of public service, civic life, and the public good.

Building Trust
After several turbulent years and various episodes of political conflict, some violent and divisive, building trust between citizens and the government in Egypt will be difficult, but it is necessary for the democratic growth of the country. Participation in public life is one way to help build this trust. With some exceptions, experience throughout the world has shown that as citizens engage with one another and with the government, fear subsides and trust can be built.⁴ Participation, open dialogue, and deliberation about the needs of society can show common ground among citizens and community members toward achieving common goals.

However, participation is not a panacea for Egypt’s political challenges. Participation requires a civic commitment to respect other people’s opinions and ideas and to empathize with different perspectives, whether articulated by fellow citizens, government officials, or representatives. It requires a recognition that the common interest will not always align with personal interests and that local community interests may not align with the national agenda.
 

The Right of Public Participation in the Egyptian Constitution

Article 87 of the 2014 Egyptian Constitution reads that “the participation of citizens in public life is a national duty,” but it limits participation to “the right to vote, run in elections, and express their opinion in referendums.” Elections and referendums are cornerstones of the right of participation in public life, but participation should extend well beyond the ballot box. Article 54 in the 2012 Constitution, which remained untouched in Article 85 in the 2014 Constitution, guaranteed a citizen’s right to communicate with public authorities. However, it does not obligate the authorities to respond to these communications with the public in a timely manner and there are no consequences for ignoring them.

Article 8 of both the 2012 and the 2014 constitutions obligate the state to achieve social justice and solidarity to ensure the wellbeing of all citizens. If the right to public participation is limited to voting and expressing one’s opinion through referendum, one must ask, how will the state guarantee social justice and solidarity without listening to the public? How will they work to ensure the wellbeing of all citizens, if they do not understand their needs and wants? If citizen participation in public life is a national duty, then the government’s participation in public dialogue warrants further attention.
 

Global Examples

There are dozens of examples of the right to participation in public life in various constitutions, ranging from those that limit participation to the right to vote and participate in referendums as in Egypt, to those that call for direct public participation in government affairs, such as Bhutan 1996 constitution, Article 22.1:

Power and authority shall be decentralized and devolved to elected Local Governments to facilitate the direct participation of the people in the development and management of their own social, economic, and environmental well-being.

Several constitutions in Latin American guarantee expansive constitutional rights to participation. Article 26 of Bolivia’s 2009 constitution reads, “All citizens… have the right to freely participate in training, exercise and control of political power, directly or through their representatives, individually or collectively. Participation will be fair and equal conditions for men and women.” Article 100 of Ecuador’s (2006) Constitution details all of the ways in which participation can manifest by and obligates the state to provide institutional support to the participation process:

At all levels of government, entities of participation shall be set up, comprised of elected authorities, representatives of the dependent regime, and representatives of the society of the territorial sphere of each level of government, which shall be governed by democratic principles. Participation in these entities is aimed at:
1. Drafting national, local and sector plans and policies between governments and the citizenry.
2. Improving the quality of public investment and drafting development agendas.
3. Drawing up participatory budgets of governments.
4. Building up democracy with permanent mechanisms for transparency, accountability and social control.
5. Promoting citizen training and fostering communication processes.
To implement this participation, public hearings, oversight committees, assemblies, gross-roots lobbying, consultative councils, observatories and other entities that promote civic-mindedness shall be organized.

Section 87 of Thailand’s 2007 constitution is worth quoting at length to demonstrate the detail to which the right to participation can be included in a constitution.

The State shall pursue directive principles of State policies in relation to public participation, as follows:

1. to promote public participation in the determination of policies and plans for economic and social development at both national and local levels;
2. to promote and lend support to public participation in political decision-making, the planning of economic and social development and the provision of public services;
3. to promote and lend support to public participation in the scrutiny of the exercise of the State powers at all levels in the form of varying professional organizations or occupational groups or in other forms,
4. to promote political strength of the public, put forth the law establishing a civic fund for political development for assisting the operation of public activities of localities and lend support to the operation of civic groups forming networks in all forms in order for those groups to be able to express opinions and propose demands of localities in their areas;
5. to promote and provide to the public education on political development and the democratic regime of government with the King as Head of the State and promote honest and fair voting by the public at an election.

Several countries guarantee the rights of citizens to petition legislative bodies such as Kenya (2007, Article 196), Japan (1947, Article 16), Morocco (2011, Article 15), Nicaragua (1987, Article 52), and Portugal (1976, Article 52). Brazil’s 1989 Constitution allows for citizens to not only petition the government, but also submit legislation directly to lawmakers for consideration.
 

The Way Forward

Local governments serve as the primary interface between public figures and the population. However, Egypt’s local administrative structure is not conducive to supporting public participation. The democratic spaces that the revolution has forced open are contested and by no means here to stay. Despite the democratic outburst, there are powerful undercurrents that are resistant to change and may continue to drag Egypt back into an authoritarian system unless the people are actively participating to ensure their demands are met. There are many institutional barriers to implementing the right to public participation in Egypt. Foremost among these is the culture of secrecy that continues to dominate the government and the lack of the public’s access to information; second, is our highly centralized government. To support the right to public participation the new constitution should include the following:

The institutionalization of the right to public participation will be contentious and difficult. Champions of citizens’ engagement both within the government and in communities will face a steep learning curve and may be marginalized by powerful interests. But the need for public participation is great; it gives a voice to the marginalized and empowers all citizens to hold officials accountable for its actions.