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RSIS
presents the following commentary Egypt: Heading for more turbulence by James
M.
Dorsey. It is also available online at this link. (To print it, click on this link.). Kindly
forward
any comments or feedback to
the Editor RSIS Commentaries, at
No.
107/2012 dated 21 June 2012
Egypt:
Heading for more turbulence
By
James M. Dorsey
Synopsis
Former
Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s fight for life during a key stage in his
country’s
troubled transition, is unlikely to influence the course of events. Egypt’s
military
rulers are battling it out with the Muslim Brotherhood and proponents of
political
and economic reforms in a decisive phase of Egypt’s effort to move from
autocracy
to a more democratic state.
Commentary
Egypt’s
former president Hosni Mubarak was fighting for his life this week as the
country’s
electoral committee postponed announcing the results of the presidential
run-off
between Ahmed Shafiq, a former air force general and last prime minister
under
Mr. Mubarak, and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi. With both
candidates
claiming victory, irrespective of whoever emerges victorious, the
outcome
of the election promises to increase volatility and unrest rather than put
Egypt
back on a path towards political stability and economic recovery.
Victory
for Mr. Shafiq would leave the Brotherhood feeling robbed of its electoral
gains,
while the youth and militant soccer fan groups who drove last year’s mass
protests
that ousted Mr. Mubarak after 30 years in office, would feel that their revolt
had
been hijacked.
Eighteen
months of transitory military rule have already taught them that
overthrowing
the head of state is a far cry from uprooting an entrenched political
system.
The problem of the youth and soccer fan groups is that while Egypt’s
armchair
activists, the country’s silent majority, largely long for change, they may
well
opt for stability in the short run rather than the volatility, unrest and
violence
that
pushing for real change would likely involve.
The
joker in the pack is the Muslim Brotherhood, a cautious political movement that
has
proven to be inclined to compromise rather than rock the boat. The Brotherhood,
like
Mr. Shafiq has declared victory in the presidential run-off and has threatened
a
second
popular revolt if the electoral commission fails to confirm this. The
Brotherhood
has
already called for mass protests on Cairo’s Tahrir Square against what it
sees
as the military’s usurpation of power. Unlike the youth and soccer fan groups,
the
Brotherhood still has the power to bring large numbers of its followers on to
the
streets.
Turning
confrontational
A
Morsi victory however would not make the situation in Egypt any less volatile.
The
ruling
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in a series of moves in the past
week
has effectively neutered the incoming president by declaring that he would only
be
in office until a new parliament is elected and a new constitution promulgated.
The
military
council dissolved Egypt’s first freely elected, post Mubarak people’s assembly
after
the Constitutional Court declared the election of one third of its members
unconstitutional.
SCAF further issued an annex to the current constitution giving it a
significant
role in the drafting of a new constitution, depriving the new president of the
right
to initiate new legislation and stripping him of control of the defence budget
and the
military.
If
the toppling of Mubarak was relatively bloodless compared to the overthrow of
Libyan
leader
Moammar Qaddafi and the brutal 15-month old struggle to depose Syrian
president
Bashar al-Assad, the next phase in the battle for Egypt's future threatens
to
be far more confrontational. The military last year championed the protesters'
cause
because that allowed it to protect its political, economic and social
interests.
The
rise of the deep state
Those
interests are now at stake as the military is pitted against the protesters,
the
Brotherhood
and others seeking to curb the military's powers and return it to the barracks.
The
military has, since Mubarak's fall, refrained from reforming the interior
ministry and
the
security forces that were the brutal enforcers of the former president's
regime. It
recently
declared its right to make arbitrary arrests in what many see as a return of
the
police
state. In doing so, the military has focused attention on the Egyptian deep
state –
a
network of vested political, military and business interests -- similar to the
one in Turkey
that
took decades to uproot.
The
return of the police state, the emasculation of the presidency and the
resurrection of
the
interior ministry in the old regime’s mould pits the military not only against
the
Brotherhood,
the country's foremost political force, but also against the ultras, Egypt's
fearless,
street-battle hardened group of militant soccer fans who have years of
experience
in
confronting the security forces and for whom an unreconstructed interior
ministry has the
effect
of waving a red cloth at a bull.
Also
sharpening the battle lines is the statement by military officials to
state-owned
newspaper
Al Ahram that it would not allow the Brotherhood to take power. The paper
quoted
a
military source as saying that the military would only return to the barracks
once "a
balanced
political process" had been
achieved, a code word for a system that guarantees
the
military's sway over politics as well as its economic privileges and social
perks. The
source
justified the military's position in nationalist terms by portraying the
Brotherhood as a
pawn
of the United States and the European Union.
A
Morsi victory gives reformers a chance to fight for greater accountability,
transparency and
freedom
from within the system. However, like a Shafiq victory, it is unlikely to make
the
transition
in Egypt any less volatile. Nor will the outcome of the presidential run-off
transform
Cairo's
Tahrir Square any time soon from being a focal point for political agitation to
simply
functioning
as a traffic circle. In the unfolding battle, Mubarak dead or alive has become
a side
event
in a show that threatens to be messy and potentially violent.
James
M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International
Studies
(RSIS),
Nanyang Technological University. He has been a journalist covering the Middle
East
for
over 30 years.
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