Having removed Mubarak, the revolutionaries in Tahrir Square are realising that the struggle for democracy has just began
Last week,
Egyptians went to the polls to vote in the second round of their
presidential elections. The first round had produced two candidates:
Ahmed Shafiq, a former air force commander and last Prime Minister under
Hosni Mubarak; and Mohammed Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood. The two
candidates reflected the historical contours of political division in
Egypt since the 1952 revolution led by Gamal Abdel Nasser: the army and
the Islamists. Funny how little things change.
This
outcome has actually forced the revolutionaries into an awkward position
of having to oppose the democratic process and protest against the will
of the people. It turns out that many ordinary Egyptians do not trust
the pro-democracy movement. Instead, they seem more inclined to support
either the Islamists or the former Mubarak allies now backed by the
military. This has forced the pro-democracy groups into undemocratic
positions. For example, rather than seek to defeat Mubarak’s allies
through a democratic contest i.e. the ballot box, they have been calling
for legal fiat i.e. asking the ruling military council to ban the
former president’s allies from the election.
The
Egyptian military has no love for the Brotherhood whose candidate
declared victory in the hotly contested race. Perhaps aware of the
likely outcome and unable to openly rig the vote, the ruling military
council dissolved parliament (where the Islamists enjoy a comfortable
majority) and declared martial law on the eve of the election. It also
issued a new constitution that gives legislative powers to the army and
that allows the army to take control of the budget. The Brotherhood
immediately rejected these schemes – setting the stage for a likely
confrontation.
The
revolutionaries who had looked at the military as allies during the
final days of Mubarak may need to go back to the drawing table.
Currently, they may have to forge alliances with the Islamists to defeat
the military in the struggle to control the Egyptian state. However,
the Islamists are the most solid social organisation in Egyptian
political life. It is possible that once placed in power, it may be
difficult to get them out. They may use the democratic process to gain
power and like Adolf Hitler in Germany in 1933, use it to end the
democratic experiment. Organisations with such deep social roots are
very difficult to dislodge from power.
In the
short term, the biggest losers seem to have been the “pro-democracy”
protesters in Tahrir Square. They proved to have no mass support
especially among the upper and lower classes of Egyptian society. The
very rich sided with the military-backed Shafiq alongside poor women;
the very poor, largely male, threw in their lot with the candidate of
the Brotherhood. Which begs the question: Were the revolutionaries who
toppled Mubarak a reflection of genuine mass movement? Or could they
have been a minority group of angry youths concentrated in urban areas
who were lucky to get the support of the military for their cause?
In all
countries, especially developing ones, it is difficult to gauge the
level of mass participation in politics. All too often, the usual
platforms of democratic expression – the mass media, civil society and
political parties – are controlled by a few elites concentrated in urban
areas. This tends to amplify their voice and thus project their demands
as enjoying wide support. Without control over such instruments of
organised and amplified political expression, the large mass of poor
rural people constitutes a silent majority. The challenge is always how
to organise their voice.
The
revolutionaries who toppled Mubarak through mass protests were actually
given a decisive hand by the army. Mubarak is a highly decorated former
air force general who excelled in the October 1973 Arab-Israel war. So
why did the Egyptian military seek to remove one of their own? The
contradiction is that although Mubarak was scheming for a family
succession (to his son Gamal), he was also the first leader of post 1952
Egypt who sought to transfer power from the military to a political
party.
The
Egyptian military enjoys overwhelming control over the Egyptian state
and economy. Some estimates suggest that almost 40 percent of the
country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is produced by businesses
directly owned or indirectly controlled by the army. This gives Egyptian
generals daunting political weight. In his search for family
succession, Mubarak had not taken his son to the army where promotion
through the ranks is done on merit. Some suggest that he felt he could
not easily manipulate the structures of such a deeply institutionalised
military to get his son through.
Mubarak
therefore sought to use his political party, the National Democratic
Party (NDP), to promote his chances of family succession. This also
meant that he needed to shift power from the military to his party. Thus
Mubarak began to give lucrative government tenders and contracts to
individuals and groups allied to the NDP. He was calculating that by
this, he would create a private sector constituency located in his party
to support his son’s bid for the presidency. But this also signaled to
the army elite that the president was working against their interests.
Thus, when the “pro-democracy” protestors took to the streets and the
army was called in, it just joined them.
The
honeymoon between the military and the revolutionaries has been
short-lived. Now, both the Islamists and the revolutionaries are united
in hating the military. But the revolutionaries need to learn that
protesting is not enough. Organising is better. The future of democracy
in Egypt will depend on how fast the revolutionaries move from Tahrir
Square to establish a foothold in Egyptian society.
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