Although official results are not due out until Thursday, the Muslim Brotherhood claims that it has won Egypt’s weekend run-off elections, making its candidate Mohammad Morsi the fifth president of Egypt. The secular officer turned politician Ahmad Shafiq, however, is challenging this claim while the Military Council, empowered like no time before since Husni Mubarak’s fall in February 2011, is bracing itself for the lion’s share of authority in the new Egypt. Presidential powers after all have not yet been defined, and there is no parliament or constitution to control the Council. The generals issued an interim constitution giving themselves legislative powers, budget control and the power to name authors of Egypt’s new Constitution.
Overnight, Muslim Brotherhood shifted from being a powerful party controlling no less than 46 per cent of parliamentary seats into a party that, although still powerful, finds itself stripped of the platform that it rightfully won after decades in the underground. More than ever, power shifts back, yet again, to the self-appointed Military Council, which was due to dissolve itself on July 1. It might now keep legislative powers in its hands until a new parliament is elected. Muslim Brotherhood claims that a “counter-revolution” is currently under way in Egypt, staged by the officers, backed by the judiciary and supported by the US.
Is it a soft coup? Of course it is, but a closer look shows that it also is a blessing in disguise for Egypt and for Muslim Brotherhood itself.
Taking parliament and the presidency combined would have been the gravest mistake the Muslim Brotherhood could have ever committed. Simply, it would have bitten off more than it could chew. Leading an underground movement is one thing, but running a state is completely different and the Brotherhood has no experience whatsoever of running a state — let alone one as a state as complicated as Egypt. History is riddled with examples of political parties that performed exceptionally well when working from underground, but failed dramatically the minute they came to office — thanks to corruption, nepotism and political greed. The Iraqi and Syrian Baath parties are prime examples and so is Fatah in Palestine.
The Muslim Brotherhood will likely be no exception. Wise men in the Muslim Brotherhood were originally reluctant to nominate a candidate for the presidency, arguing that parliament was more than enough for now. Many opponents were even arguing in favour of a double victory for the Brotherhood, seeing it could spell out a political suicide for the group. Now having lost parliament, however, the Brotherhood is more adamant than ever at taking the presidency, explaining why it rejected calls to boycott the run-off elections. They have every right to the Egyptian presidency, no doubt, but taking the presidential palace and the Chamber combined would be too much for the millions of Egyptians who don’t support political Islam. It would have been a dramatic blow to Arab seculars and music to the ears of Arab regimes, arguing that the Arab Spring aims at bringing theocracies to the Arab World.
Several hard realities need to be digested here. One is that the Brotherhood ought to stop hijacking the revolution in which it played a fundamental role, but certainly did not lead. Mohammad Mursi and his team see themselves and the revolution as two sides of the same coin, which is factually incorrect, just like Mubarak saw himself as one with the Egyptian Republic. If the Brotherhood’s victory in parliament is gone, or if it doesn’t make it to the presidency, this does not mean that the Egyptian Revolution is dead.
Ahmad Shafiq, despite his connections with the Mubarak regime, cannot rule Egypt in a Mubarak-like fashion any more, even if he wants to. The Military Council cannot hold on to power indefinitely. The revolution has put Egypt on the right track and there is no turning back. But a closer look at Egypt shows that freedom, equality and nation-building are in high demand today, than a utopian democracy. Iraq got its share of a working democracy after the downfall of Saddam Hussain in 2003. The result was a failed state with Islam-driven politicians running the government, transforming it into an Iranian satellite.
In post-Saddam Iraq, democracy was high, but security and stability were lacking.
Egypt needs seasoned statesmen with an open mind and real leadership skills, willing to deal with everybody, not clerics learning the political trade through trial and error. Theocracies have never ever been democratic, regardless of what Arab history books tell us about democracy under the Caliphs or during the heydays of the Muslim empire.
Dissolving the Egyptian parliament in such a manner was no doubt a tough blow to democracy, since nobody can doubt the democratic elections that brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power. If it manages to create a functioning state that cements the road to democracy, then history will forget how harsh the court ruling actually was.
Sami Moubayed is editor in chief of Forward magazine in Damascus.
