The final round of Egypt’s presidential elections will take place on June 16-17. The outcome of this ballot will determine not only the future identity of Egypt, but of the whole region.
Nobody could have anticipated that much-awaited democracy, which was purchased with blood through the revolution, would have produced so many problems.
Egypt’s 50 million voters are now being asked to choose between two extremes — an Islamist and a member of deposed president Hosni Mubarak’s government — neither of whom satisfies their demands for peaceful change, moderation and new beginnings.
The candidate who received the most votes (24.3 per cent) in the first round, is Mohammad Mursi, the Chair of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). Mursi, 60, was educated in the US and lived in California for more than a decade. He says he wants an inclusive government but many fear that his long-term goal will be to impose Sharia and turn Egypt into an Islamic state.
Since the combined Islamist political forces of the FJP and the Salafist Al Nour already dominate parliament and the Shura council, many — myself included — feel that Mursi should step aside and allow the candidate who came in third, Hamdeen Sabahi, to run for president. It will be remembered that the FJP initially said it would not field a candidate for the presidency and this would have been in the interest of more widespread national representation.
Sabahi, 57, is the leader of the left-wing, Nasserite, Dignity Party, whose policies are probably most akin to those of the secular liberals who drove the revolution. Mursi has offered Sabahi the post of vice-president in his putative cabinet. Sabahi has declined, saying he will not work with either candidate to support a religion-based autocratic regime or a reproduction of the old one. Having secured nearly as many votes as the two remaining candidates (20.4 per cent) Sabahi may be inclined to wait for his next electoral opportunity.
Second in the primary ballot was Mubarak’s former prime minister and minister of aviation, 71-year-old Ahmad Shafiq who received 23.3 per cent of the votes. This result demonstrates the continuation of the ‘Mubarak tendency’ both within elements of the population and the pillars of the state — ‘Mubarakites’ are still in control of the nation’s military, security and the press, despite the revolution.
The three-way split at the top between Islamists, socialists and adherents of the former regime is demonstrative of the general political pattern which is emerging across the region, and the difficulty of forming a truly representative government.
Turnout in the primary elections was low — only 50 per cent chose to participate — and of those who did vote, 12.4 million Egyptians did not vote for either Mursi or Shafiq in the first round. These will be the ‘kingmakers’. But who can blame them if they are disillusioned with the political process when it has brought them what many perceive as a ‘lesser of two evils’ scenario?
The next Egyptian president will be the single most important figure in the region. Egypt is the major driving force in the Arab world, and its influence will be crucial in developing and reshaping the Arab world’s post-revolutionary landscape. Egyptian foreign policy will set the tone for relations with Iran and Turkey, with Israel and the West.
The West is mindful of the importance of a friendly regime in Egypt and views the prospect of a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government with alarm. It has a number of instruments at its disposal with which it can attempt to influence political outcomes, including aid and investment.
In addition, as the writers of an August 2011 US Army report, The Arab Spring and the Future of US Interests and Cooperative Security in the Arab World put it, the Egyptian military would always “seek to retain strong US ties since the capabilities of their forces would rapidly deteriorate in quality and effectiveness without US military aid”.
The role of the Egyptian military in the forthcoming months worries me greatly; there are many echoes of Algeria past and present. Egypt risks a military take-over in either presidential scenario — if Shafiq wins, we will see a civilian head on the existing ruling military junta (as is the case with President Abdul Aziz Bouteflika in present-day Algeria); if Mursi wins, Egypt could face a military coup to prevent his accession to the presidency, just as happened after the victory of the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria in the elections of 1991.
The next two weeks may be volatile as people express their fears and anxieties that their revolution has been snatched from them or that it has brought no real changes. The violent attack on Shafiq’s headquarters, which was ransacked by hundreds of protesters, could be a foretaste of more violence to come.
Abdel Bari Atwan is editor of the pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi
