Home / By Dr Badrawi / After 25 Jan Revolution / Dialogue about the definition of the Republic

Dialogue about the definition of the Republic

I am trying, through dialogue and research, to support the state in its respectful approach to creating a new republic, a slogan that I understood as an invitation to participation and a real desire to move to a new stage for a new, great Egypt, God willing.
This prompted me to write a book entitled “Broad Hopes for a New Republic.” I hope it will be completed and be eligible for publication at the end of April 2022.
I had hoped that this book would come out, not only in my name, but in the names of many interested experts as well as me, but I was not given the time and only gave them an oral opinion so that I could draw from it and take their knowledge, and a number of them responded in writing, and I am thankful and grateful to everyone and everyone who contributed It contributes to shaping the ideas behind this book. My clear political vision, which I believe corresponds to the desire of society, and which I call to rally around in the new republic, believes in freedom in its general and comprehensive framework, in the civil state, in political pluralism and respect for the other opinion in word and deed. I believe in freedom of belief, and in citizenship that protects every Egyptian, regardless of his beliefs, religion, political or social views. I believe that there are different means to achieve the same goals, and that the people, through the means of democracy with single integrity, choose who they see fit to achieve these goals.
I believe in the individual initiative, motivate it, and call for its development and support, because the individual is the basis of the family and society, and I believe in the freedom and importance of the transfer of power within a constitutional framework that builds and does not destroy, that brings together and does not separate, and that political institutions translate their claim into work and production. I believe that I belong first to Egypt, and from it to our wider surroundings and to all of humanity, we open up to it, integrate with it, confident in ourselves, adding to human civilization in the present and the future as we have added throughout history.
My friend, the political expert, Dr. Muhammad Kamal, a professor at the Faculty of Political Science, pointed out that before talking about the new republic, it is necessary to define the republic first. In this context, I interviewed a number of young researchers.
The young political researcher, one of the dreamers of tomorrow, said:
A republic is a system of government in which the ruler (usually called the president of the republic) is chosen directly by the people, as is the case in the United States, Turkey and Egypt, or by the parliament elected by the people, as is the case in Iraq, or the ruler is a representative of the majority party In Parliament, as in the United Kingdom, as a form of monarchy that is not republican but democratic.
The details of the organization of republican government can vary greatly as it is studied in the branches of political science, where the term republic is used in general to refer to the state in which the political power of the state depends on the consent of the governed people to those who rule it.
Another young man said: What does the presidency of the state mean?
I said: In most modern republics, the head of state is called “the president.” The head of state is appointed as a result of elections, which may be direct or indirect, sometimes when the parliament elected by the people chooses the head of state.
In such a system, in which the head of the state is chosen directly or indirectly, the term of the president’s rule is usually from 4 to 6 years, and in some countries the constitution determines the number of terms in which the same person is allowed to be elected president according to the experiences of this people and the accumulation of their experiences.
If the president of the republic is the head of government, this system is called the presidential system, such as the United States of America. In semi-presidential systems, the head of state is not the same as the head of government, in which case the head of government is called the prime minister.
The type of government may sometimes depend on whether the president has only specific tasks or whether he is the de facto ruler of the country. In some systems, the president takes an advisory role only in the formation of the government after the elections, making his role formal and ceremonial, with the prime minister responsible for political administration and the central government, or the power to be divided between the two.
Depending on the rules followed for appointing the president and the leader of the government, some of these countries can form a political situation in which the head of state and the prime minister have opposing political affiliations, as sometimes happens in France, where the head of state has become a political affiliation opposite to that of the members of the cabinet, the representatives For a parliamentary majority, this situation is called cohabitation in English, meaning coexistence or coexistence. In other countries, such as Germany and India, the president must necessarily be non-partisan.
In some countries, such as Switzerland, the head of state is not a single individual, but a council or committee of several people occupying that office.
And the leadership of republics can be in the hands of the head of state, who has many attributes of an absolute ruler, as if he were the king, as is happening in Russia now, and it is not only that some republics appoint a president for his life, and such a president is given greater power than usual without accountability Indeed, it appeared that the presidency of the republic could be transformed into a hereditary form, as happened in Syria and North Korea, after adapting the constitution to allow this.
Similarly, if we take the loose definition of a republic, it is a state or country led by people who base their political power on the principle, strength, or will of the inhabitants of that state or country. There are countries that are usually classified as monarchies, and they can have many characteristics of republics.
The political power of the king may be non-existent, he may be limited to a purely ceremonial function, or the role of the people may be extended to such an extent that they can change their king.
Thus, the mental assumption that monarchy does not overlap and intersect with republican forms should not be taken literally, but rather depends largely on the circumstances and method of implementation.
In many countries, rulers try to establish their legitimacy by calling themselves presidents, and calling the system of government in their country “republican” instead of using the royal terms that they really represent. In countries with a representative democratic system, in general, there is not much difference between the fact that the head of