Egypt’s bid for Arab League’s top role growing pushback

Egypt reportedly plans to nominate its Prime Minister, Mustafa Madbouli, for the principal office of the Arab League, a move that may trigger opposition from other league member states that also covet the same post.  

The Egyptian plan coincides with unconfirmed reports about alternative candidates proposed by other countries, especially Saudi Arabia, for the chief office of the pan-Arab organisation.  

While there has been no official confirmation from either Cairo or Riyadh of these plans, they are seen as heralding a diplomatic crisis that spotlights Egypt’s monopoly over the top spot inside the league. 

“Demands for picking a non-Egyptian for the top office of the Arab League keep recurring,” Ahmed Youssef, a political science professor at Cairo University, told The New Arab. 

“However, the selection of the next chief should focus more on the candidate’s qualifications than his nationality,” he added.  

Youssef expressed fears that debate over the nationality of the next chief of the league can overshadow pressing Arab issues at the present time. 

He also called for restricting discussions about whom the next chief would be to official Arab institutions. 

The Arab League has been central to common Arab action and cooperation since its founding in 1945, proving its efficiency as a collaboration mechanism among Arab states on numerous occasions.  

Over the years, however, it has lost its influence in uniting the Arabs, primarily due to the ever-shifting agendas and priorities of Arab states. 

The changing regional and international political and economic landscape also contributes to diminishing importance of this mechanism.  

Egypt also hosts the permanent headquarters of the Arab League, a requirement stipulated in its foundation charter, and also reserved the chief office of the union for itself since the Arab League’s founding in 1945.  

This monopoly was broken only in 1979, when league member states expelled Egypt as punishment for signing a peace treaty with Israel. 

A Tunisian politician, Chedli Klibi, was then appointed as league chief, a move that entailed the transfer of the organisation’s headquarters to Tunis. 

Klibi remained on the helm until 1990, but then the reins were handed back to Egypt, with the downtown Cairo headquarters of the league coming back to life as a focal point for its meetings.  

Shifting interests

An intense social media war is underway, with everybody, including commentators from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, sparring over whether Egypt should maintain its grip on the Arab League’s highest position.  

This social media war is seen by some as a reflection of the deep cracks that are forming at the public level among Arab states. 

These cracks, some commentators argue, might be rooted in intra-Arab competition and xenophobia.

Such a feeling also arises at a time when the Arab political order appears to be taking a new shape, with oil-rich Gulf nations expanding their political influence at the expense of Egypt’s traditional leadership.  

“There is a marked rise in the political influence of rich Gulf nations,” Ambassadress Mona Omar, a former assistant of the Egyptian foreign minister, remarked to TNA. 

“Nevertheless, this growing influence should be viewed as beneficial to Egypt and the Arab nation as a whole,” she quickly added. 

She argued that Egypt was not experiencing a political relapse, but rather is expanding its leverage in Africa and the Mediterranean region.  

Omar also cited Egypt’s growing coordination with Russia, China and Eastern European states. 

“Rising political powers in the region, on the other hand, have limited leverage, and it is also strongly connected with their interests,” Omar said.  

Egypt, the traditional leader of the Arab world, has been losing its allure as an Arab political powerhouse for several years now, according to other analysts, due to significant economic, political and security challenges. 

With every passing day, Cairo struggles to prove that it still has relevance, they said.  

A major factor behind Cairo’s legitimacy arises from its history, nature and geography.  With almost a third of all Arabs living in it, Egypt, which has one of the world’s oldest civilizations, possesses the most powerful Arab army. 

It is central to efforts to bring Israel’s war in Gaza to an end, and constitutes the main hindrance in the face of Israel’s desire to depopulate Gaza and entirely liquidate the Palestinian issue. 

Egypt is a cornerstone of Mediterranean and regional stability, one that stands in stark contrast to the surrounding countries, which boil in conflicts and wars.  

The Saudi alternative

Whether the Arab League chief should continue to be Egyptian is a question that has been raised for several years, especially whenever the pan-Arab organisation prepares to welcome a new head.  

This time is different. The debates over the nationality of the Arab League’s next chief are manifesting out of the downtown Cairo premises of the organisation and into social media and general Arab streets.  

Madbouli has served as Egypt’s Prime Minister since 2018. In seeking the upper echelon of the league, he faces a bumpy road ahead. 

He is a civil engineer by profession, an initial disqualifying point, in the light of the foundation charter of the league, which stipulates its secretary general should have been an ambassador.  

If reports about Egypt’s plan to present him as a candidate prove to be true, he will succeed Ahmed Abul Gheit, the organisation’s chief, whose second and last term is expected to come to an end soon. 

Abul Gheit, in the position since July 2016, is the eighth Egyptian national to assume this role. He was Egypt’s foreign minister from 2004 to 2011. 

To assume the rolse of league chief, he was summoned from retirement for the lack of more competitive candidates.  

Abul Gheit’s replacement would have been Moustafa al-Fiqi, a longtime aide of former ruler Hosni Mubarak, who apparently could not meet the standards of the Egyptian government for the post.  

Whether Madbouli meets the same standards is open to question, but in the light of the organisation’s charter, he needs to be approved by at least two-thirds of the member states of the Arab League. 

He also expects to face stiff competition, especially if reports are confirmed about Saudi Arabia planning to propose Adel al-Jubir, its minister of state for foreign affairs since 2018, for the job. 

Unlike Madbouli, al-Jubir is a seasoned veteran in the Arab and international political arena, having served as his country’s ambassador to the United States from 2007 to 2015 and previously as a foreign policy advisor to Saudi Arabia’s late king, Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz.  

This is why some Egyptian commentators caution against proceeding with Madbouli’s reported potential nomination. This move, they say, might open the door for future political setbacks for Egypt, including the relocation of the Arab League’s headquarters to another Arab state.  

“Madbouli’s nomination is not only about putting up a weak candidate, but also about an initial episode in a potential long series of regressions,” Ayman Nour, a former presidential candidate, who is now part of the Egyptian opposition in exile, wrote on Facebook on 9 June. 

“Egypt’s withdrawal from the forefront of Arab decision-making will be the first of those regressions which will culminate in changing the regional order altogether,” he added.