The army has been sidelined but the new president is facing economic and
social problems -- and the fears of one section of Egyptian society, seeing
a Muslim Brotherhood state emerge, reports Alain Gresh.
2012-11-08
Someone close to President Mohammed Morsi of Egypt explained how he finally
managed to take power away from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
(SCAF). It happened on a Sunday morning, 12 August, when the SCAF’s two most
senior members, defence minister Hussein Tantawi and chief of staff Sami
Anan, were summoned to the presidential palace, and confined to a secure
room where they couldn’t even use their mobiles. While they waited, Morsi
swore in a new defence minister, General Abdul Fatah Al-Sisi, in the next
room. The official gazette had just published a decree annulling a
supplementary constitutional declaration issued by the SCAF between the two
rounds of the presidential elections, granting it extra powers to “protect”
itself from a Morsi victory. After the swearing-in, Morsi told the officers
they were dismissed: “It was hard to say which was greater: their
astonishment or their impotence.”
This ended the state of dual power that had prevailed in Cairo since Morsi
became president on 30 June, although no one had believed that such an
unstable situation could last. “The press gave Tantawi’s pronouncements six
columns and the president’s two,” said Abdel Moneim Abul Futouh, an
unsuccessful candidate in the presidential elections. “Before agreeing to
form a government, [Prime Minister] Hisham Kandil asked for the army’s
backing.”
“The SCAF was really only a paper tiger.” That old Maoist slogan is
currently popular on the streets of Cairo, though a few weeks ago no one
imagined that Morsi would manage to check an institution that had dominated
Egypt since Nasser’s “Free Officers” seized power on 23 July 1952, and had
controlled political life since Hosni Mubarak’s resignation on 11 February
2011.
In the first round of elections this 23 and 24 May, the Nasserist Hamdeen
Sabahi, the former Muslim Brotherhood leader Abul Futouh (who has left the
movement) and a number of leftwing candidates who had taken an active part
in the January 2011 revolution together polled 40%. But divisions between
them left in the run-off only General Ahmed Shafiq (23.6%), representing the
old regime, and Morsi (24.8%), of the Muslim Brotherhood. Sabahi did not
instruct his supporters how to vote, but Futouh came out in favour of Morsi,
as did the April 6 Youth Movement and personalities such as the blogger Wael
Ghonim and Alaa Al-Aswany, author of The Yacoubian Building and a staunch
opponent of the Islamists. He justified his support: “We weren’t for Morsi.
We were supporting the revolution.” Their main aim was to sideline the army.
Backing of the people
The SCAF grudgingly accepted the result, but nothing was set in stone. The
nomination of the new cabinet, dominated by figures from the old regime,
bolstered the impression that Morsi was in power in name only. Tantawi,
chairman of the SCAF, said on 15 July that he would not allow a “faction”
(the Brothers) to take over Egypt. There were calls for demonstrations
against the new president on 24 and 25 August and the daily Al-Dustour even
advocated a coup.
There was little chance of that: Legitimacy now resided in the ballot box
and the streets, as was proved by the long queues of citizens waiting under
a blazing late June sun to cast their vote. On the night the results were
declared, happy crowds in bright colours -- many of them young, some wearing
Anonymous movement masks, others carrying Brotherhood posters -- were not so
much celebrating Morsi’s victory as the death of the old regime and the
triumph of universal suffrage.
But, Morsi, who was presented as a dull apparatchik lacking charisma, was
about to demonstrate genuine skill. His position gave him access to all
echelons of the military, so he could see the army was riddled with secret
factions. A generation of officers in their fifties aspired to a greater
role: challenging the hegemony of the “generation of 1973” (a reference to
the October 1973 war against Israel) and tackling the problems of the army
as well as the country -- lack of professionalism, favouritism and
corruption.
All Morsi needed was the opportunity, which came earlier than expected when
jihadists attacked a military post at Rafah in Sinai on 5 August, killing 16
soldiers in cold blood. The attackers escaped and travelled 15km inside
Egyptian territory before they were killed by the Israeli army while
attempting to cross the border. This security disaster for the Egyptian army
enabled Morsi to marginalise the SCAF. And so a page of the fledgling
Egyptian revolution was calmly turned, and the army returned to barracks. It
will continue to influence security decisions (especially in Sinai) and
regional questions (Egypt’s relations with Israel and the US), but it will
no longer be in overall control.
Political work to do
The political transition is far from complete. A new constitution is
currently being drafted by the Constituent Assembly. It should be voted on
by the end of November, then put to the country in a referendum, leading to
fresh legislative elections (parliament was dissolved by the high court in
June). The Constituent Assembly holds its sessions, in a Senate chamber near
Tahrir Square, in front of the press: agreeing the composition of the
assembly was difficult and even presented judicial challenges. It has around
100 members, half of them Muslim Brothers or Salafists. Some of the
opposition boycott it intermittently. “We sometimes have almost medieval
debates,” said commission spokesman and former parliamentarian Wahid Abdel
Meguid, who also works on Al-Ahram. “But we’re making progress and even the
Salafists have to recognise that none of our laws are contrary to Islam.”
In the same building, with its ancient Egyptian-style frescoes of scantily
clad women, the former secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, for
whom “religious problems are not a constitutional matter,” can rub shoulders
with Nader Bakkar, the media-savvy spokesman for the Salafist Nour Party.
There are women (some in headscarves, others not), generals, a small number
of young revolutionaries, Coptic priests, representatives of Al-Azhar
University, a peasant in traditional dress lobbying for agricultural
support. This could be a parliamentary assembly anywhere, yet in spite of
profound differences, the debates, chaired firmly by the respected judge
Hossam Al-Gheriany, are good-natured.
At the core of the discussions is the place of sharia and especially article
2 of the constitution. In 1971 President Sadat had a paragraph included in
the constitution stipulating that sharia would be a major source for
legislation. A 1980 amendment turned it in to “the” major source for
legislation. The Salafists asked the committee to replace “sharia” with “the
principles of sharia,” a potentially worrying extension. Abandoning that
idea, they then demanded that the Constitutional Court cede its
responsibility for adjudicating on a law’s conformity with sharia to
Al-Azhar, the highest authority in Sunni Islam. Ironically, “this would be a
‘shiisation’ of Egypt,” I was told. “Such a reform would give a religious
body the final say over the country’s laws, as in Iran.” This is out of the
question for the Salafists, who are profoundly hostile to Shiism. Al-Azhar
refused to take on the role.
Will a compromise emerge? An opponent of the Islamists said: “Morsi has an
interest in the constitution being balanced so as not to create problems for
his presidency. It would be very bad for him if all the non-Islamists quit
the commission in protest.”
Fears for the future
These debates don’t generate much public interest, even if they concern
important principles relating to religion and equality among citizens, and
between men and women. Indirectly, other questions are emerging. Will the
Brotherhood seize power? Is the state being reshaped in the Brothers’ image?
Will Egypt turn into a new Iran?
The Brotherhood is firmly rejected by large sections of the people, and this
rejection, contrary to what many of its members believe, is not just the
result of a campaign of misinformation. The Brotherhood (remarkably well
organised and supported by devoted activists who have often served time in
prison) is often considered, even by some practising believers, as cynical,
mixed up in political machinations and more concerned with its own interests
than the country’s. Even the Salafists are critical and accuse the Brothers
of wanting to oppress in the name of religion those whom they despise. The
Brotherhood’s role in the revolution is not contested -- though it jumped on
the bandwagon -- but its compromises with the SCAF throughout 2011 have
caused resentment. Its decision to run in the presidential elections,
contrary to earlier promises, has worsened distrust.
The Brotherhood’s star has dimmed: Morsi won only 5.7m votes in the first
round of the presidential elections; his Freedom and Justice Party polled
almost double that in the legislative elections in late 2011/early 2012. In
the second round General Shafiq got 12m votes, more in rejection of the
Brotherhood than from nostalgia for the old regime.
Confronting realities
Café Riche is in a 19th century district of central Cairo redolent of the
French cultural influence of the past: Its heyday was just after the first
world war, when revolutionaries campaigning for independence would meet in a
room they entered through a secret door. I met there with the leader of the
Social Democratic Party, Mohammed Abul Ghar, 72, a well-known gynaecologist.
He had just returned from the International Socialist Congress in Cape Town,
which had at last decided to exclude Mubarak’s party. He recalled his
long-running battle with the Brotherhood and his clashes with it at
university: “I didn’t vote for Shafiq or for Morsi, but a victory for Shafiq
would have led to violence and another uprising, this time directed by the
Brothers. It’s in everyone’s interest that they get into government, where
they will have to act. They’ll make mistakes and take unpopular decisions.”
A few days earlier, Morsi had confirmed that an agreement would be signed by
the end of the year for an IMF loan of $4.8bn at an interest rate of 1.1%.
Brothers and Salafists who had denounced this in principle a few months
earlier justified this departure from the Islamic prohibition on borrowing
with interest using arguments one might call Jesuitical.
“Islam is the solution.” For decades, the Brotherhood has been able to hide
behind this slogan and avoid taking a position on most vital questions --
even if it found itself with Mubarak on winding up land reforms. Now in
power, it is no longer able to sidestep a deteriorating economic and social
situation, exemplified by strikes in factories, schools and hospitals. The
Brothers have no solution apart from a form of economic liberalism less
corrupt than that adopted under Mubarak’s brand, which they always defended.
Morsi’s best hope is still that the opposition will be divided. As time goes
by, that opposition forms diverse coalitions, whose leading figures move
easily from one to another, and may be members of several at the same time.
Even Hamdeen Sabahi, the candidate who managed to galvanise progressive
public opinion during the presidential campaign, is having difficulty
putting forward a coherent programme. As an observer said, “the central
committee of his Popular Current includes representatives of liberal,
socialist and Nasserist parties who don’t agree about anything, whether it’s
the role of the private sector or the place of social justice, or relations
with the US and Israel.” An independent Nasserist activist agreed: “How can
liberals and Nasserists unite against the Islamists when they disagree about
everything else?” The problem is forging a democratic system -- impossible
without integrating the Brotherhood into the political game -- while
affirming an independent social and foreign policy programme. The left has
not yet found the answer.
The way ahead for the Brotherhood is far from clear. The economic and social
challenges are huge; the old regime still has a solid base in the apparatus
of the state, and it is hard to change structures and mindsets overnight --
for instance, teaching a police officer who has arrested someone that his
first job back at the station is not to beat them. The president has
pardoned everyone imprisoned by the army on political grounds, but will he
fight persistent violations of human rights?
The Brotherhood’s unconditional loyalty to the murshid (the supreme guide)
is, for the first time, no longer guaranteed. It took three days of meetings
of the majlis al-shura, the organisation’s highest body, to get his
participation in the presidential election ratified, and even then by a slim
majority. For the first time in its history, the Brotherhood has experienced
major splits with the creation of Abul Futouh’s movement and the Wasat
(Centre) Party, and the younger generation are restive.
There are as many obstacles to the organisation seizing control of the state
in the way Mubarak did. “To achieve hegemony over the state, the Brothers
need to have real vision,” said Alaa Al-Din Arafat, director of studies at
Cedej, the French-sponsored centre for economic, social and judicial study
in Cairo. “In 1952, the Free Officers were able to build their hegemony and
rally the elites around the objective of national independence and the
construction of an independent economy. When Sadat seized power in 1970, he
used the defeat of 1967, and proposed opening up the economy and a
multi-party system. The Brothers don’t have a global plan -- not even in
international affairs -- that would permit them to win over different
echelons of the state apparatus.”
Alain Gresh is vice chairman of Le Monde diplomatique. Translated by George
Miller.
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Received on Thu Nov 08 2012 - 19:22:31 EST
