Getting to know the Committee for Party Youth Representatives (CPYR)

CAIRO – 29 August 2018: Created to solve the problems facing different parties through its work, the Committee for Party Youth Representatives (CPYR) aims to capitalize on the current political system’s let-downs and find measures to rejuvenate the political scene in Egypt. The CPYR is made up of young political parties members and young political actors.

“The 2011 Revolution proved that we need political entities that can create effective policies and real solutions to the problems facing the Egyptian society. The actual crisis that faced the Egyptian political life in the past was the absence of those who can practice politics clearly and systematically. Therefore, everyone supported the idea of establishing an entity to solve political problems, and create a strong political life and not just prepare themselves for assuming higher positions in their parties,” explains Shehab Wagih, Spokesperson for CPYR.

Wagih assured that the CPYR includes parties representing the right-wing politics, such as the Salafist Nour Party and the Wafd Party, while the left-wing politics is represented by the Tagammu Party. There also a large number of independent young politicians who are not affiliated with any political parties. Agreeing with this, Amr Younes, Secretary of the CPYR, said, “Our entity is distinguished with its political diversity. It represents 20 parties with different political directions. The CPYR allows everyone to express their opinion freely to ensure reaching a final outcome that suits everyone.”

Mohamed Mehany, the secretary of Freedom Party and member in the committee, adds, “President Sisi's attention to empowering youth's role in the country's progress is unprecedented, encouraging us to propose our ideas to the state, in order to provide a model of young people who can take responsibilities, and assume high rank positions. The media has also a role in supporting the Committee for Party Youth Representatives (CPYR) because it works for the sake of the country.”



For the committee, as Mohamed Azmy, Secretary of Youth at the Egyptian Patriotic Movement Party and member of the committee explains, the idea of establishing the CPYR was based on creating a platform for political dialogue in which the opposition parties and young political forces are represented to present their ideas. This committee will thereby fix the issue of a lack of a unified body encompassing all political actors.

Asked about the freedom of joining the party and the criteria required, Younes explained, “There are membership criteria of the CPYR for parties, and we have seven parties that have submitted applications to join the committee and the criteria will be applied to them. The founding document of the CPYR requires that its party members be represented in the parliament and have a political program.”

The committee also aims to advance political reforms and create an environment in which all political forces can exercise political action in accordance with the constitution and the laws that guarantee freedom, democracy and national consensus. This comes, according to Bilal Habash, a member of the CPYR and member of the political bureau of the Free Egyptians Party, after the President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s interest after the previous presidential elections in developing the political and party life in Egypt. “One of the tools to achieve that goal was the launch of the CPYR which will play a vital role in the next period. We succeeded in the first step and formed the political formation of the CPYR,” explains Habash.

“We are working on specific laws related to the development of political life, and we aim to achieve consensus on these laws, but we do not want to create a parallel parliament,” explains Wageh, Habesh continues, “We prepare some amendments to the Law No. 45 of 2014 to regulate the exercise of political rights, and other laws regulating political parties, youth bodies and local administrations.”

The young committee also believes that the parties are currently out of touch with the public, therefore, they aim to solidify interactions between the different parties and the public and engage with different segments of the populations to understand more what they need and want. By doing this, the committee believes that they will be able to understand civilians’ daily struggles and issues, allowing them to find feasible solutions.

Serving the argument that this committee is vital for Egypt to continue growing and developing, Ibrahim al-Shehaby, a representative of Al-Geel (The Generation) Party, argued during a debate titled “Analyzing the Egyptian Political Scene from Youth’s Perspective” regarding the current political parties’ system was held during the National Youth Conference on May 16, that for many years, the state has treated politics with a crisis management strategy, not with the aim to “strategically build” but with the aim to end the crisis at hand.

“The result was that political parties and politics were being dealt with on an ad hoc basis, because bigger challenges were being met at the same time.”

The committee imitates the democratic system of Egypt in that all decisions are made after intensive consultations to avoid any conflicts, especially since there is a difference between the parliamentary coalition, political party and bloc organizations.