Is UNDP mingling with Egypt's politics to support El Baradei?

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Senior UNDP official points way ahead for Egypt out of transition

In an interview with Ahram Online, Geraldine Fraser details how a collective leadership is essential for Egypt at this point

Sharing experiences of transition and soliciting electoral management assistance are important for the management of the current phase between the January 25 uprising and the launch of a new democratic state in Egypt. Even more important at this point, is collective leadership to help move the country forward. That is the opinion of Geraldine Fraser, director of the Democratic Governance Group at the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

Speaking to Ahram Online ahead of the launch, earlier today, of a two-day conference in Cairo on the alternative pathways towards democracy, Fraser, who is also a leading ANC activist in South Africa, argued that the capacity of the political parties to work on the ground and the capacity of people to participate and engage would increase significantly under a collective leadership. By bringing the country together in this way, Egyptian society would be spared from falling victim to divisions at this moment of clear political volatility.

Summing up the potential for moving forward and succumbing to dangers, Fraser stated that "Egypt is in a very fluid situation."

And for Fraser, who served in the South African government for 14 years after years of activism to end apartheid, collective leadership has to be inclusive of all political groups, faiths, and both men and women.

"Inclusivity is essential for participation," Fraser insisted.

For Fraser, Egypt seems to have most of the ingredients necessary to move towards a democracy: there is the will of the people and the commitment of the international community to lend support "upon the request of the Egyptian government." But, she argued, "what appears to be absent is the leader, or rather the collective leadership."

The essential task for this collective leadership, as perceived by Fraser, is to help with the "transition of the current political movement from street politics to political parties."

In the South Africa example, Fraser noted, "we had a leadership collective; there was of course [Nelson] Mandela but there was also the National Executive Committee."

Under a collective leadership, adds Fraser, South Africans managed to bypass disagreements over the drafting of a constitution and worked on the basis of an interim constitution, pending the first election of the two houses of parliament to allow for a permanent constitution to be written.

Moreover, says Fraser, collective leadership is capable of promoting a true national dialogue that can build sufficient consensus towards agreeing on the compromises necessary to formulate a national agenda that reflects the voices of all groups.

Collective leadership, Fraser insisted, has the capacity to integrate the voices coming out of mosques, churches, women groups and community centres to reflect their views so that "everybody would have been represented around the table."

Egypt: Please, Not ElBaradei

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by Claudia Rosett

Freedom, justice, and prosperity for Egypt are devoutly to be wished. As is abundantly clear by now, the big question for the genuine democrats among the demonstrators, and a big question for the U.S., Israel, and other democracies, is how Egyptians might thread this needle without ending up with something even worse than Hosni Mubarak — the ossified dictator they’ve had for almost 30 years. On that score, as Iran’s regime and the Muslim Brotherhood applaud the protests, it is not at all reassuring to see former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei emerging as a potential leader of the opposition. Reuters carries one of the latest reports, dateline Cairo, on the Muslim Brotherhood backing ElBaradei as the man to negotiate with Egypt’s government on behalf of the demonstrators.

At a fast glance, ElBaradei might seem like an ideal candidate for the job. He’s Egyptian, cosmopolitan, with credentials that include years as the head of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, and the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. Since he retired from the IAEA in 2009, there have been reports that he might be interested in an Egyptian presidential run. The Mubarak government has just further burnished ElBaradei’s credentials by putting him under house arrest.

Beware. ElBaradei is no Aung San Suu Kyi. As head of the IAEA, ElBaradei often looked like a shill for Iran — repeatedly glossing over obvious signs of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, obfuscating the realities, and delaying action. In the Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick gives a good rundown of how, in the U.S. effort to corral Iran’s nuclear program, ElBaradei was not part of the answer, but part of the problem. Glick also describes ElBaradei’s cozy relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood — progenitor of al-Qaeda and Hamas — quoting him as giving a recent interview to Der Spiegel in which he claimed the Muslim Brotherhood has “not committed any acts of violence in five decades.”

In 2009, as I reported at the time here on Pajamas Media, ElBaradei most inappropriately used his platform as erstwhile “neutral” head of the IAEA to bully the BBC for dropping plans to broadcast a fund-raiser for terrorist-controlled Gaza. As for his 2005 Nobel prize, bestowed despite a tenure that spanned Pakistan’s breakout nuclear test, North Korea’s nuclear buildup to its 2006 first nuclear test, and Iran’s lively pursuit of the bomb, this was one of those Norwegian choices that had nothing to do with peace, and plenty to do with political machinations. Coming in 2005, at the height of the Oil-for-Food scandal, ElBaradei’s Nobel looked more like a sop to shore up a UN sinking in its own sleaze than an award that should inspire respect.

Egypt desperately needs honest, genuinely democratic leaders to emerge from the current inferno. ElBaradei may look smooth and convenient, with his UN past, his Nobel, and his longtime skills at self-promotion. But please, not El Baradei.