In the literature of Egyptian political heritage, there are still certain immortal expressions which were said in parliament throughout Egyptian parliamentary history. Moreover, court rooms, seminars, important political conferences and forums usually witness the same interest from the political and cultural elite at the level of the use of these expressions after they became extremely famous sayings or final rulings. Despite the fierce conflict between the political parties before the July revolution or between the opposition forces following the return of the partisan regime in the second half of the 1970s, the language used in parliament remained sophisticated while the deputies continued to avoid harmful expressions in their political rhetoric, especially toward the other sides, not only because the deputies were concerned about their image and the impression that the people may have of them, but also because the parliamentary seats were only occupied by people enjoying intellect and political history and by scholars in different areas. However, times have changed and situations have shifted, considering that each era has its men and its rhetoric. The way the deputies or the political forces deal with each other and the language used to describe the positions of the other powers changed to the point where it was no longer important to the deputies to enter history through famous sayings, as long as they could enter it through commotion and mudslinging. Indeed, the Egyptians are now busy following the reports addressing the verbal assaults witnessed between the deputies in parliament during the last few days, while it seems that the language currently used falls in line with the current age which features decadence on all levels. The last few days thus proved there were words and expressions which will enter history not for being famous sayings, rather for being harmful expressions having nothing to do with the differences affecting the visions or political stands. The most important event that will be seen in Egypt during this new year is probably the legislative elections which will be held at the end of 2010 to choose the new members of the People's Assembly, and before that the elections to change half the members of the Shura Council. However, this new year started off on the loud beat of inappropriate expressions exchanged between the current members of parliament, as well as on the beat of disputes and fights which reached the level of mudslinging. All of this was due to an incident featuring a senior government official, after Egyptian newspapers said that Minister of Finance Dr. Youssef Boutros Ghali - during the discussion of the violations in cases of unlicensed construction - said harmful words regarding religion. This was denied by leaders in the ruling party who replaced the expressions he said with others that were also harmful. For their part, journalists and deputies from outside the ruling party corroborated the incident which seemed to have opened the door for more insults, mudslinging and unacceptable practices between the deputies. In general, it seems that the last year of the term of the Egyptian parliament will not go by without additional commotion and insults, in light of the political division between the ruling National Party and the opposition forces, namely the deputies of the Muslim Brotherhood who have been unable to find an opportunity to appear before the people and criticize the government and the ruling party in the governmental media outlets, thus resorting during the last few years to satellite channels to secure their political presence and daily media appearances, which increased the anger prevailing in the ranks of the NDP deputies. On the other hand, the ruling party which only earned one third of the seats in the People's Assembly during the last elections and was later able to secure a parliamentary majority when it was joined once again by candidates belonging to it but who had ran as independent candidates, will run in the upcoming elections while determined to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood or the other political forces from earning seats. Moreover, the amendments which were introduced to the electoral system, the annulment of the judicial supervision over the ballot boxes and the limitation of this supervision to the general committees, will pave the way before additional accusations, insults and mudslinging in the electoral competition. According to Egyptian parliamentary traditions, the parliament speaker is allowed to order the removal of harmful words and expressions from the minutes of the session which feature the full transcript of all the developments. This was done by current Parliament Speaker Dr. Ahmed Fathi Srour, but history will always recall what was said and done, although they were not registered.
