Egypt "Post-Democracy" Nears Point of No-Return
مصر تقترب من نقطة اللاعودة
Army Chief Warns of
the Collapse of the State
Egypt is commemorating the second anniversary of its
“Peaceful” Revolution with the shedding of yet more blood. Violent clashes in
Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, Damanhour and Port Said left almost 60 dead and hundreds
injured and the numbers are rising. There are circumstantial factors in every
incident triggering violence. Whether it is the Port Said Football fans court
verdict or regular confrontations between protesters and the police, but the
root cause is political. It lies in the Muslim Brotherhood failure to create
consensus around the shape of the political process. Last month, the Muslim
Brothers insisted on putting forward the draft constitution to a hasty
referendum despite opposition appeals to take more time to settle disputed
articles. Liberals, leftists and representatives of Egypt’s Churches pulled out
of the constituent assembly which drafted the constitution, leaving only Muslim
Brothers and Salafis to craft a document which should ideally embody Egyptians’
ideology of coexistence in a country which had historically prided itself of
being a “melting pot” and where accommodating diversity is a prerequisite for
survival.
The referendum revealed that 57% of the voters in Cairo,
Egypt’s capital and home to about fifth of Egyptians, rejected the draft
constitution. And while urban voters all over Egypt mostly said “No” to the
constitution, the Muslim Brothers, election savvy and superior in organization
and funding, managed to pass the constitution with 63% majority. After the
vote, a video was widely shared where Burhamy, a Salafi member of the
constituent assembly, bragged about how Islamists deceived seculars and
Christians from the beginning till the end. He described how Islamists
dominated the constituent assembly by placing
secret “sleeping cells” or sympathizers with the “Islamist Enterprise”
secretly in the seats allocated to “seculars” in breach of reached agreement.
He then goes on explaining how he confounded seculars and Christians, whom he
calls Nazerites, with tricky words and definitions from Sharia which would
“annul and restrict rights and freedoms as never before witnessed in any
Egyptian constitution”, according to Burhamy’s filmed confessions! This comes after a Revolution which provided
freedom for Burhamy and his Salafi fellows from prosecution that they suffered
from for decades under Mubarak regime.
Clashes in Egypt reflect Muslim Brotherhood and opposition failure
to work together in building a working democracy with an inclusive political process.
Like many countries in Europe, no single political party or even stream
commands an absolute majority in Egypt. This means Islamist and secular parties
must work together to reach agreement on broader issues defining the political
process. In the first round of the Presidential Elections, Muhamed Morsi, now
president, got only 25% of the votes. This more or less represents the
Islamists share of popular support in Egypt. The problem persists since the
beginning of the revolution as the Muslim Brotherhood insists on getting 100%
of power. The Muslim Brothers are skilled and experienced in election tactics
and mobilization. There is no doubt about that. But they seem to be too clever
for their own good. They are becoming hostage of their ability to leverage
their popular share thus cornering the rest of the opposition in a squeezed
political space where they will always kick back. This can hardly provide an
atmosphere for a stable and sustainable government. A political party which has
25% popular support would usually seek coalitions and in so-doing accepts
compromises. But for whatever technical reasons, the Brotherhood believes they
do not have to make such compromises. They have been waiting for 85 years and
this is their moment. They managed to get exceptionally much higher share in
the elections following the revolution and they want to cling to that. The
reality now is, this is an unsustainable situation and one which may threaten
their future survival. On the other hand, the opposition, most notably the
National Salvation Front (NSF), is limping and always a few steps behind. With
mostly infant organizations and piggy bank financing, they can hardly turn the
wide dissent against the Brotherhood into tangible election gains.
Since the revolution, Egypt has witnessed what we may call “post-democracy”.
Failure of the democratic process to produce results agreeable to a wide
spectrum representing diversity of the people, and specially the activists, is
always met with resistance and pressure through protests, forcing authority to
make amends to reflect voices of parties not even present on the table. Forces
or sentiments poorly represented in the democratic institutions, such as the
parliament, were able for instance to force SCAF and other political forces to
amend a deal which would have left SCAF in power till 2013, bringing a deadline
of handing power to a civilian president
to June 30, 2012. Similar pressure forced Morsi to withdraw his “Dictatorial
Decrees” in November 2012. And when the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled to
annul the People’s Assembly elected only months before, activists appalled with
the Parliament’s performance applied zero or even “negative” pressure in
sustaining the dissolved lower chamber of the Parliament.
On Sunday, President Morsi announced
a state of emergency cities near Egypt's Suez Canal and invited NSF and other
opposition leaders to dialogue the following day. NSF declined to join the
dialogue accusing Morsi of not being serious and demanded guarantees which
Morsi did not provide. People of Suez, Ismailia and Port Said totally ignored
the curfew and organized massive rallies in defiance of the Emergency measures
imposed. Commenting on the deteriorating security situation and increasing
chaos the Army Chief announced
on Tuesday that failure to reach a political deal threatens the integrity of
the Egyptian State.
With the continued disarray of the political scene, Egypt
may be approaching a point of “No-return” on the road to becoming a failed
state on several dimensions. Lack of political consensus is dragging the
economy preventing a much needed return to normalcy. Tourism is badly hit.
Foreign investment, business and consumer confidence are at record lows. The
Egyptian pound is losing grounds fast and could further go to a free fall if a
political deal is not reached soon. This will in turn send prices of many basic
commodities soaring which will further increase suffering of many people. What
is worse is the general disintegration of law and order. Militias are being formed
and smuggling of Arms from Libya has provided Jihadist organizations with ample
supply of heavy ammunitions. If the political forces do not reach that deal
soon, more street fights will erupt and intensify and the country will descend
into chaos at which point the Army, supported by local and international
demands for intervention, will almost certainly seize power to prevent further
disintegration of the State.
Once this point of “no return” is reached, additional chaos
would bring “loss of control” to an irreversible state when even a Military
intervention would not be able to fix things or restore order. On the other
hand, a Military coup will bring Egypt’s transition to square one or even a
step below, as short-term measures which the Army would use to regain order may
become long term deductions of newly acquired freedoms. Time will tell if the
Egyptian political forces in government and opposition are able to grasp the
risks involved as they push things ever closer to the brink, approaching the
dangerous “point of no return”.
https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2013/01/egypt-crisis-morsi-state-of-emergency-army-chief-warning.html
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