ElBaradei should not make Morsi’s mistakes

If Americans remember Mohamed ElBaradei at all, it is for his stubborn and ultimately vindicated resistance to the George W. Bush administration’s claims that Iraq was acquiring nuclear weapons.  ElBaradei was then Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, with which he shared a Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.  While an important figure on the secular/liberal part of the political spectrum since the February 2011 revolution, he polled poorly and withdrew as a candidate in the 2012 presidential election that Mohamed Morsi won.  ElBaradei said it was a mistake to elect a president before revising the constitution.  He wanted a more inclusive, slower process.  He then founded the Constitution Party, with his eye on the 2016 election.

Now ElBaradei is to be prime minister of an interim government resulting from this week’s military coup.  He faces no lesser challenges than Morsi did.  The economy is in a tailspin.  The government’s coffers are empty.  Security is deteriorating.  Rival demonstrations are clashing in the streets of Cairo, Port Said and other major cities.  Plus he faces the enormous resentment of the Muslim Brotherhood, which rightly claims Morsi had democratic legitimacy that ElBaradei lacks.

Egypt will be under enormous pressure to hold elections quickly, certainly no more than a year from now.  ElBaradei will want a new constitution written first.

Experts can do that quickly behind closed doors.  But that would be the wrong way to do it.  A liberal constitution jammed down the throats of the Islamic opposition would be no better than the Islamist constitution Morsi jammed down the throats of the liberal opposition.  Nor will a quick process help ElBaradei at the polls, which he or his political heirs will have to face sooner rather than later.

What Egypt needs now is an inclusive process that somehow convinces the Muslim Brotherhood to stay inside the tent pissing out rather than outside the tent pissing in.  It will take all of ElBaradei’s significant persuasive abilities to overcome its understandable distrust of a process run by someone put in place by the army that deposed an elected president, arresting him and dozens of his aides, and that closed the Brotherhood’s media outlets.  Why should Morsy and his people believe that they would ever get a fair shake from the likes of ElBaradei?

They likely won’t, but there are other reasons for them to continue in the political game, even if the playing field is not level.  The Brotherhood has strong grass roots support and organization.  If elections are held within a year, it might still do better than anyone else.  If the Brotherhood leaves the political arena, their  more fundamentalist Salafist competitors will occupy more of the Islamist part of the political spectrum, making future recovery all the more difficult.

The Brotherhood may nevertheless choose a hard, even violent, opposition to an army-backed regime that they regard as illegitimate.  That would make ElBaradei’s job even harder.  The economy will not stabilize and security will not improve unless Morsy and his minions are somehow included in the political process.

This is what Washington should focus on, contrary to its deepest instincts.  Speed in going to new elections should be secondary to the quality of the political process.  An inclusive process of writing the new constitution and electoral law may be slower, but it is far more likely to lay a firm foundation for future democracy.  ElBaradei should not make Morsi’s mistakes.