Day: July 14, 2012
Where diplomats earn their pinstripes
Hillary Clinton’s visit today to Egypt this weekend is one of those awkward diplomatic moments: she has to convey to all concerned that the United States backs a democratic transition whose fate is contested between the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and President Morsy, who spent a lifetime as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. That would be the SCAF’s arch enemy for many decades.
For now, the SCAF seems to have won its tug-of-war with Morsy over the future of the parliament Egypt elected last winter. The President has accepted the court decision to dissolve it. This leaves the democratically elected Morsy with little power, as the self-appointed SCAF has arrogated to itself legislative authority and fenced off the military and its budget from presidential decisions.
But it is the SCAF that is vital to America’s most important interest in Egypt: maintenance of the peace treaty with Israel, which Morsy and the Muslim Brotherhood have criticized for a long time. They are likely to seek changes in its provisions and have threatened to subject it to a referendum, which it could well lose. Morsy can also be expected to be friendlier to Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood affiliate that now controls Gaza, than the Americans or the SCAF will like.
No wonder the Secretary of State waxed eloquent on the need for dialogue as she made it clear that the United States expects the SCAF to give up its governing authority and return to a security role, presumably one subordinated to a democratically elected president. She meets with Field Marshall Tantawi, the SCAF’s chair, tomorrow. Rarely have American values and interests been more obviously in conflict. This is where diplomats earn their pinstripes.
The transition in Egypt is a mess. It is no longer clear how and when the new constitution will be written, or how and when the SCAF will surrender its legislative powers. Morsy is so far president in name only, though he has a good deal of popular legitimacy. It is no doubt awkward for the Americans to be helping a Muslim Brotherhood president to pry the powers of his office from a military establishment they have long supported and funded. But that is the only route to a decent outcome in Egypt.
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Milestone on a bumpy road
Ilona Gerbakher reports:
Wednesday’s Atlantic Council discussion on the results of the Libyan election veered between exuberance and caution.
Gregory Kehalia, from the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) opened on a hopeful note. Libyans are full of pride, motivation and joy. The media has called July 7 “exceptional.” Not every Libyan has turned into a democrat, as attacks on polling places in Ajdabiya demonstrate, but the elections did not turn into the kind of bloodbath that some were expecting. Security was good. By Tuesday 100% of polling places had opened. A 63% turnout is excellent for a first election and a relatively uneducated population. From the point of view of an electoral technician, the elections themselves are–against all odds–an unquestionable success. It is still too early to know the official election results, and we cannot yet know if Libya will be an exception to the recent string of Islamist victories in the region. But the election is a major new milestone for Arab democracies in the Middle East, even if the road is “still littered with problems.”
Fadel Laman of the American Libyan Council illuminated some of these problems. He was critical of the pre-election campaign. Despite very high turnout, particularly for women, most Libyans were not well educated about their candidates. Until the day before the election, Libyans were unsure of whom to vote for, or did not understand that receiving a registration card was not the same as casting a vote. A thirteen-day campaigning period was too brief for people to understand much about the political parties or their agendas. Most Libyans voted for people they knew, or felt they knew, or felt they trusted, such as Mahmoud Jibril.
The big bump in the road is governance. Regardless of who wins the popular vote, it is unlikely that any one person or party will have an absolute majority. Assuming a Jibril victory, which early polls seem to indicate, will he be able to create and maintain a ruling coalition? What will be done about the militias? How will the place of Shari’a law be decided? The “morning after,” when the election winners come to power, Libya will still be facing the same problems and challenges. Whether 200 newly minted representatives can unite to overcome these is uncertain.
Dr. Esam Omeigh, director of the Libyan Emergency Taskforce, was also more concerned with the aftermath of the elections than with the elections themselves. Yes, they were historic, but now the question is whether the new National Assembly can tackle Libya’s to-do list? Can the new representatives remain coherent and create a coalition around which bigger alliances can be constructed? It’s a difficult question, which leaves room for worry. Neither the Justice and Development Party nor the National Forces Alliance will have a real majority. It is the large block of independents who will be the real movers and shakers in the parliament. Regional power brokers, tribal alliances and some holdovers from the Gaddafi regime will plague the government with problems and divisions. How this will all play out, and how this will affect US interests in the region is impossible to control.
Libya represents a good vantage point for looking forward to what will become of the region. Observers of the Middle East (and US policy makers) should take a step back and give the fledgling democracy space to develop–it might allow us to project what a post-Arab Spring world will look like.
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