Sovereign National Conference, (SNC), the Solution for Egypt Now

The majority of households worldwide have at least one vacuum. It exists inside their vacuum bottle or
flask designed to keep usually hot water hot, though it can also be used to keep cold liquids cold. This
kind of man-made vacuum is beneficent.

There is however no true vacuum in the natural world and a vacuum of power is a dangerous thing in
national politics. There must be allowed no vacuum of power in Egypt if President Hosni Mubarak of
Egypt were to leave now. The imponderable question will be what will happen to fill that vacuum if he
leaves precipitately? The likely answer is chaos for which many will see the confrontation in Tahrir
Square when pro-Mubarak forces confronted the demonstrators calling for Mubarak to go now as a
partial dress rehearsal orchestrated by Mubarak and his ruling National Democratic Party.

According to their scenario, Mubarak will create mayhem if he is forced to leave so that Egypt becomes
ungovernable, thus ‘proving’ that his continuing stay in power until elections are held is a sine qua non
of peaceful and orderly transition. Others see all the attempts at stalling, stonewalling, rear guard
action—including halting or reducing the functioning of the Internet and mobile phones, preventing
trains coming from outside Cairo to reduce the numbers of the million march to Tahrir Square, using the
police to attack civilians with tear gas and rubber bullets and even some live ammunition, allegedly
getting police personnel to loot and burn in a number of places and also mobilising the pro-Mubarak
forces that attacked the anti-Mubarak forces on the .Square—as mere ploys by an 82-year-old president
in office for 30 years to proliferate himself in power. Still other perhaps cynical voices will assert that
Mubarak is looking for as much time as possible to transfer valuable assets abroad.

Mubarak’s attempts at delaying his now obvious obligation to exit by no later than the next elections--
the demonstrating forces want him to leave now--show him to be a very astute man whose close
advisers have guided him first to tell the Egyptian people that he who has given them so much is
heeding their wishes and does not intend to run again (something he's said before only to affirm he is
running later to discomfit opposition forces), then sacking his cabinet up to the latest pledge that
neither he nor his son, Gamal, whom he was grooming for dynastic succession will run for president in
September 2011. While he has accepted that he will go, he must do so sooner, much sooner rather than
later, because the movement for change now is virtually unstoppable. But in order to have orderly
transition, the best and quickest way forward that no one in Egypt is talking openly about is to institute
forthwith a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) or National Consultative Conference, the two being
virtually interchangeable.

The Francophone Congolese had just about the first Conference Nationale Souveraine CNS) in 1991 and
again in 1992, but English-speaking South Africa has had probably more Sovereign National Conferences
than any other nation on greater and lesser topics. Perhaps the most far-reaching of these conferences
was the National Consultative Conference held in Freetown in August 1995 at which I was a delegate
from the Diaspora in North America. It was called by James Jonah, former UN Undersecretary General,
in his role as the Interim National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman in 1995 with the approval of
the ruling National Provisional Ruling Council junta headed by military head of state Valentine Strasser.

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Strasser had decided not to run (it would have necessitated a revision of the Constitution since at about
age 30 he was too young to run as the minimum age was 40). A second NCS was held in February after
Strasser had been deposed by his number 2 Julius Bio allegedly because he wanted to change his mind
about running and many of the top brass were opposed. Dubbed Bintumani I for its conference site, the
first conference determined, against the voices, including mine, of the very slim minority that voted for
peace before elections. Bintumani II in February 1996 decided on the terms and conduct of the elections
(including proportional representation for Parliament that is not part of the 1991 multi-party
Constitution to be rescinded in 2007) that brought in the regime of Ahmed Tejan Kabbah in 1996 the
final outcome of which was a mixed bag as Foday Sankoh, the initiator of the rebel army, the
Revolutionary United Front (RUF) had to be brought on board with the equivalent of a Vice Presidency
when a less than satisfactory peace, in my view and that of many others, was brokered.

Sierra Leone was in virtual political crisis again in 2007, but, fortunately, the crisis was averted before
the descent into chaos but not before my writing of an entire book entitled ‘Sierra Leone in Crisis’ that I
did not publish because of the strong stand of Chief Electoral Commissioner Dr Christiana Thorpe who
announced the election that avoided a vacuum of power and the grace of Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and his
handpicked presidential candidate who decided not to contest the results, as indeed had Dr John Karefa-
Smart in 1996 when he forwent contesting the announced presidential result in favour of his rival
Ahmad Tejan Kabba. It is from the ideas in that unpublished book that I offer a potential draft formula
for a Sovereign National Conference (it has a better ring) that should be in place within one week, that is
before Muslim Friday prayers on 11th February. It could be in place within 24 hours if there is
determination and cooperation from various groups. The SNC should have 50 members (as was the one
proposed for Nigeria in 2007) and should follow a distribution of delegates as follows:

Entity No. of Delegates

National Democratic Party 5
Muslim Brotherhood 2
All other political parties negotiate delegates 13
Army 7
Police 3
Subtotal Baseline Group 30
Women’s Groups negotiate delegates 4
Youth Groups negotiate delegates 4
Civil society negotiate delegates 6
Diaspora 6
Total 50

Since the formation of the entire SNC could take time, the baseline Group of 30 selects an Interim
President through consultations with individuals and groups within its domain and outside.

The Interim President who will not be a contestant in the next presidential election selects a cabinet to
be approved by the full Sovereign National Conference (SNC). Prior to that, decisions about the running
of the country are made by consensus or near consensus between the Interim President and the SNC. As

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soon as the baseline group selects the Interim President, President Hosni Mubarak resigns or is removed
from office. The Group of 50 SNC as a body can have a vote of confidence on the Interim President if
there is a 51 percent call for such a vote and then the full 50-member body can vote for a new Interim
President if the vote of confidence fails.

The major tasks of the Group of 50 SNC are to serve as a Parliament and to revise the existing
Constitution or draft a new Constitution within 60 days or within a time-frame it will stipulate. Whatever
the case may be, elections must be held by the date scheduled already in September 2011.

One big advantage of this proposal, which seeks to be modest and simple, is that it is made by someone
with no major stake in the matter, that is, I am not Egyptian or based in Egypt, or from the North Africa
subregion. I am simply someone who has witnessed the political imbroglio in Sierra Leone, seen the
devastation and destruction and shared the deprivations and the shame of a decade-long civil war
placing our country at the bottom of the United Nations Development Programme's Human
Development Index (HDI) for several years in a row until more than 8 years after then President Kabba
declared the war over in January 2002. Egypt deserves to avoid a similar calamity and catastrophe. It can
do so by avoiding a potential man-made vacuum of power if the forces advocating that Mubarak leave
now first make sure that they have someone that will fill the breach and avoid chaos when he does. By
the way, the vacuum bottle is a partial vacuum: there is no true vacuum in nature.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Jonathan A. Peters had lived in the Diaspora—Canada and the US—for almost 40 years before he
decided to retire and make as meaningful a contribution to his country of birth, Sierra Leone. His initial
trip lasted seven months during which he contested for Mayor of Freetown in the July 2008 Local
Government elections of Sierra Leone as an Independent and lost in ostensibly to clean up the city in
time for Sierra Leone’s Golden Jubilee of 27th April, 2011. He went back to the US in September of that
year but came back in mid December to try his hand again, this time at building a new town within the
Western Area outside Freetown. He left again in May 2010 and after six weeks decided to come back,
not (just) for good, but for better. Peters is a literary critic, a political analyst, poet and playwright and
hopeful city developer. His writings include a pending memoir, 7 Laws of Love and three plays that he
plans to produce during the year-long celebration of Sierra Leone’s fiftieth anniversary in 2011. His first
play, ‘Gentleman,’ that he calls an archetype is on Sengbe Pieh of Amistad fame; his second, ‘Pis Pis Pis’
in Krio on the artifact of ‘blood diamonds’ focuses on the January 1999 rebel incursion into Freetown;
his third entitled ‘Acres and Acres of Diamonds’ is an allegory on the theme that Sierra Leoneans with
acres and acres of diamonds are dirt poor so they need and will, if they have the right leadership, turn
things around and become well-to-do and wealthy.

The first attached picture shows Jonathan Peters speaking at the August 1995 National Consultative
Conference at Bintumani Hotel, Freetown on behalf of Peace Coalition for Sierra Leone (PECOSAL)in
favour of peace before elections, the second at his home office during the campaign for Mayor in 2008.

Jonathan A. Peters
50 Water Street •Freetown • Sierra Leone • peters.tidesinc@gmail.com

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 Symbol: Torch Light

SYMBOL: TORCH (Take Ownership, Reform City Hall)

LIGHT (Let Internal Government Handle Things)