Who will benefit from the chaos?

Egypt’s turmoil

The obtuse generals may have dished the electoral chances of Egypt’s secular liberal democrats

  CAIRO |

QUICK-WITTED street vendors in Cairo’s Tahrir Square have enjoyed a steady, if dwindling trade in revolutionary flags and stickers since mass protests toppled the regime of Hosni Mubarak in February. In recent days souvenir tat has given way to a hotter-selling item. With riot-police spewing choking clouds of tear-gas round the clock, and Tahrir’s resilient crowds of protesters again swelling into hundreds of thousands, the market for cheap, Chinese-made gas masks has proved rewardingly brisk.


Egypt’s rulers, on the other hand, seem sorely lacking in such street wisdom. When the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), a body of 24 generals, assumed power in the wake of Mr Mubarak’s fall, Egyptians by and large expressed joy and relief. The council promised sweeping reforms, a swift return to stability and a prompt transition to elected civilian rule.
Instead, the country has lurched from crisis to crisis. In the absence of either a clear political horizon or bold, pragmatic policies, the economy has stumbled into a morass, even as the generals stretched their timetable for democracy from months to years, and hinted that even then they expected to retain a dominant role.
This was not the revolution that many Egyptians feel they fought and suffered for. Frustration at having been cheated, and fear of regression to the ways of Mr Mubarak’s 30-year dictatorship, underlie the latest dramatic return to street protests. When riot-police, disgraced by the brutality that helped trigger last year’s uprising, again reverted to murderous force to evict a small number of protesters in Tahrir Square on November 19th, on orders from the generals and with the help of military police, the patience of disappointed revolutionaries snapped.
Over the next few days, culminating on November 22nd, tens of thousands of Egyptians descended on Tahrir in the largest such gatherings since the final days of Mr Mubarak’s rule. Back then, the protesters’ anger focused on the goal of ousting the president. In the interim, political fragmentation between secularists and Islamists, reactionaries and progressives, has prevented similar unity around a single objective. But as unrelenting clashes with security forces, not only in Tahrir Square but in a dozen other Egyptian cities, produced a mounting toll—40-odd protesters had been killed and 3,500 injured across Egypt in the week leading up to November 23rd, according the Ministry of Health—the fury has again found a focus.
“Get out! Get out!” bellowed the vast throng in Tahrir. The demand was aimed at Field-Marshal Muhammad Hussein Tantawi, Egypt’s 76-year-old minister of defence and effective head of state, in a rousing echo of the chants that sealed Mr Mubarak’s doom. Yet this personalisation was mostly rhetorical. The broader wish, shared now not only by the Tahrir protesters but across a wide spectrum of Egyptian opinion, is for the army, which many people now think has lost its legitimacy, to relinquish power as soon as possible.
In another echo of last winter, the generals responded to the sudden challenge in ways that some regard as offering too little, too late. Bowing to long-standing demands as if suddenly inspired, Field-Marshal Tantawi promised to hold presidential elections by the end of June, to free political prisoners and to allow impartial investigation of the security forces’ abuses. Reiterating the army’s determination to leave power eventually, he said it might even go soon, should the people express this wish in a referendum. More immediately, he accepted the resignation of the appointed civilian cabinet, which has been seen as weakened by interference from the military council. Discussions are under way to appoint what many expect to be a new cabinet better representing political forces, perhaps under the premiership of one of the leading presidential candidates.

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These moves have gone some way to meet popular demands. Notably, the Muslim Brotherhood, by far Egypt’s strongest political party, has voiced cautious support. Yet by refusing to join the Tahrir demonstrations, the Brotherhood also exposed itself to sharp criticism, as well as to another round of defections from youths inspired more by revolutionary action than by its ageing leadership. Several prominent politicians, including Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel peace-prize laureate, pointedly refused to accept an invitation to meet the generals in an attempt to restore calm. At this juncture, said Mr ElBaradei, solutions should come from Tahrir Square and not be imposed by a ruling council that should retire to the barracks rather than run the country.
Yet it will be hard for Egypt’s fissiparous people to express their opinion through the maelstrom of Tahrir. Big differences persist between political forces. Many people, particularly working-class Egyptians facing grim economic prospects, have increasingly seen the protests, and even the political class in general, as the cause of their troubles rather than a source of hope.
In an ideal world, the answer to such quandaries would be elections to produce a new leadership with a clear mandate. Egypt’s first post-revolutionary polls are due to open on November 28th. Yet politics in the most populous and influential Arab state is fragmented among dozens of parties and starkly polarised between secular and religious trends. Buffeted by pressures from all sides, the military council opted for an electoral system so complex that it seems designed to generate confusion and controversy rather than conclusive results.
Elections for the People’s Assembly are to take place in three stages, across different regions, over the next six weeks, followed by elections to an upper house known as the Shura Council in a similar time frame. The recent violence has placed in doubt the wisdom of holding them at all just now. And the voting looks likely to produce a skewed outcome. Politically experienced, well-financed and disciplined, the Muslim Brotherhood is guaranteed a strong showing. The fundamentalist Salafists have created networks with strong roots among the poor. Local strongmen of the former ruling party may also do well, while the biggest losers are likely to be the newer parties that stand for the spirit of Egypt’s revolution. Small wonder that they have again taken to the streets in force.