Tag: Egypt
This isn’t pretty either
These are the 2010 videos of now-President Morsi that the New York Times cites this morning:
There are several things that strike me about these videos:
- Morsi is a remarkably uninspiring speaker.
- He says a lot of things others in Egypt say about “the Zionists.”
- Some Israeli politicians say similar things about Arabs (may they never become president!).
- Morsi isn’t saying these things in public any longer.
I would prefer that the president of Egypt never have stooped to this kind of hate speech. It reflects badly on him. But contrary to what Washington Institute colleagues suggest today, the important thing now is what Arabs and Israelis do, not only what they say (or said a couple of years ago). The jury is still out on what Morsi will do vis-a-vis Israel. It is unfortunately all too clear what Prime Minister Netanyahu intends to do about expanding settlements.
PS: Apparently President Obama shares my sentiments on Netanyahu.
PPS: Morsi is trying to defuse the flap, and leading U.S. members of Congress seem to be buying it.
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This is bad
Egypt’s President Morsi has given an all too clear response to the State Department’s plea that he reach out to his opposition: the country’s top prosecutor ordered a judicial investigation of the opposition National Salvation Front’s three most prominent leaders, all one-time competitors of Morsi in the first round of the presidential election. They stand accused of trying to overthrow Egypt’s new regime.
The State Department had a different idea. President Morsi, it said,
has a special responsibility to move forward in a way that recognizes the urgent need to bridge divisions, build trust, and broaden support for the political process. We have called for genuine consultation and compromise across Egypt’s political divides.
This was very much the right thing to suggest. The question now is what to do about Morsi’s failure to follow the advice.
Readers will of course note the parallel between the polarization in Egypt and the situation in the U.S. Congress, where there is also an urgent need to bridge divisions, build trust and broaden support for the budget process. Driving into a political cul-de-sac is a bad idea in Washington, as it is in Cairo.
Even paranoids have enemies. It is true that the National Salvation Front opposes the new Egyptian constitution, both on procedural and substantive grounds. They would like to see it scrapped and a new one written. They are entitled to that view. What Morsi is afraid of is that they will organize street demonstrations and try to overthrow him, as they did Mubarak. That is precisely what some of them would like to do, but there is no sign they can mobilize a serious mass movement at this point. Mounting a judicial investigation is far more likely to precipitate the demonstrations he fears than quell them. If he wants a dialogue with the opposition, it would be better for him to hold back from provoking them and sound a note of welcome.
If he is not going to do that, Washington needs to begin to tighten the screws. Any sign that arrest and prosecution of the opposition leaders would be acceptable needs to be avoided. Egypt is in desperate financial condition. Implementation of its $4.8 billion stand-by arrangement needs to wait until Morsi gives a clear signal that he is willing to talk with his opposition without the threat to prosecute them hanging over their heads.
At the same time, American diplomats need to have a sit down with members of the opposition. They need to begin playing by the new rules of the game, even if they don’t like them. Some of them would like to sit out the upcoming parliamentary elections (presumably to be held in February, 60 days after the coming into force of the constitution, though I won’t be surprised if that slips). Few secularists I am told feel like taking on the expense and trouble of running, as they believe the Muslim Brotherhood will cheat, as it is claimed they did in the constitutional referendum. If the new parliament lacks a serious secular opposition, it will give Morsi five years to install an Islamist system in Egypt.
An Egyptian friend of the secularist variety sent me this video by Sheikh Imran Hosein, a Trinidadian who suggests that what Morsi did with the constitution and the referendum is distinctly un-Islamic. Unfortunately the sheikh damages his credibility at the end by suggesting that the “Zionists” approve of what Morsi is doing because they are looking for an excuse to go to war with Egypt. This is nonsense. With their hands full of issues with Syria, Lebanon (Hizbollah in particular), Palestine and Iran, the Israelis want the peace with Egypt to hold. In Islamic discourse it is important to proving your point that somehow your opponent is helping “the Zionists.” But the first part about Mohammed in Medina and its relevance to the constitution in Egypt is well done for my American ears:
PS: I’m assured the Sheikh is unknown in Egypt.
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Five more years
Egypt’s opposition has lost its fight against President Morsi’s proposed constitution. The margin in favor will be well over 60% once the votes in the second round are made official next week. The overall picture is not good for those who hoped to challenge Morsi. He greatly increased his margin compared to the presidential election, and turnout in the referendum was much lower:
Bassem Sabry nevertheless sees some hope for the secularists, who have now united in the National Salvation Front (NSF) led by former IAEA chief Mohammed El Baradei. If it manages to bring into coalition more moderate Islamists as well as more acceptable “remnants” of the Mubarak regime, it could begin to look like a serious counterbalance to Morsi’s excesses.
It will have to happen quickly. Parliamentary elections are due two months after the new constitution comes into force. A new electoral law is needed. The one under which the previous elections were held was a mess. Presumably Morsi will dictate what he wants, as he holds all legislative powers at the moment.* The time for campaigning could, I guess, be significantly less than two months. The shorter the better for the well-organized and motivated Muslim Brotherhood (which contests elections as the Freedom and Justice Party).
Morsi has already announced his choices for one-third of the members in the upper house (Shura Council), with sparse representation of liberals, women and Christians. Morsi seems no better at compromise than John Boehner, who stiffed President Obama last week and then couldn’t even convince the Republican caucus to back his alternative. By contrast, Morsi’s control of Freedom and Justice seems absolute, and he has kept the Salafists and military content enough so that they have not tried to challenge him forcefully.
Egyptians are tired of revolution. They want stability and a return to normality. For the vast majority, this means eking out a living, difficult even in better times. Islam appears to offer answers to many problems, not least the corruption and venality of the old regime. Dignity, the ideal for which the revolution was fought, means something quite different to poor and illiterate Egyptians than it does to the less numerous and better educated secular liberals. Morsi, though amply well-educated at the University of Southern California, has a far better understanding of this difference than many middle class Egyptians, who too often view the lower classes as ignorant and unworthy of choosing how the country should be run.
Egypt’s polity is going to end up tilted heavily in the direction of the Islamists unless the opposition gets its act together quickly and at least blocks them from gaining a two-thirds super majority in the lower house. Morsi has four years in office from the time of his election in June. If I read the constitution correctly, he cannot succeed himself. The new parliament will have five years from the time it convenes. While it can be dissolved, the process is a tortuous one. Whatever happens in the parliamentary elections is going to set Egypt’s direction for a long time to come.
I am wishing the secularist liberals all the votes they can scrounge up. They will need them if the next five years are going to be tolerable to non-Islamists in Egypt.
*PS: I gather he intends to hand over legislative power to the Shura Council, see below.
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Morsi wins, but…
If unofficial results are correct, Egyptian President Morsi won his bet on the new constitution in the first round of the referendum yesterday: 56.5% voted “yes”; 43.5% voted “no.” The results next weekend are likely to be more favorable, as the voting population will include rural areas that generally back the Muslim Brotherhood. Yesterday’s voting in half the provinces included Alexandria, where “yes” won, and Cairo, where “no” votes prevailed.
The issue of turnout is unclear. Al Ahram says it was 33%, which would be strikingly low. But the electoral commission claims 50%, which would be respectable but not impressive. The “party of couch,” as Egyptians call those who abstain from political participation, was in either event large. The process was for the most part orderly, but riddled with allegations of fraud. There were no international observers. Domestic observers were also restricted.
What happens now? First there is next Saturday’s vote. The intervening week is likely to see protests. If they are peaceful, they may win some “no” votes. If they are violent, some people may get up off the couch to vote “yes.” The desire for stability in Egypt seems stronger than interest in restarting the constitution-drafting process, especially in more traditional and poorer rural areas. Those who oppose the Muslim Brotherhood’s draft would be well-advised to use the week talking with prospective voters and trying to win them over rather than taking their often justified complaints to the street.
Then there will be parliamentary elections within two months after the constitution enters into force. That is where the opposition must focus its efforts: unifying its political organization, developing a message with broad popular appeal and getting its voters out to the polls. Last time around (late 2011 and early 2012), Islamists won more than 70% of the seats, in part due to fragmentation among more secularist forces. That is the root of current Islamist political dominance, along with the razor-thin election of Morsi. Depriving them of that dominance in the parliamentary election should be the opposition goal.
Morsi is going to win his referendum bet, likely with more than 60% of the final result. But the constitution only establishes the rules of the game. Those tilt towards the Islamists, especially when it comes to judicial decisions and social issues. The opposition–be it secularist, former regime, moderate Islamist or whatever–still has a chance in the first parliamentary elections of the second Egyptian republic to stymie the more radical Islamist pretensions and begin to win the kind of democratic legitimacy that would enable it to counter Morsi’s still strong position. Democracy is a process that doesn’t end after the first round.
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The referendum is about Morsi
Egypt is voting today and next Saturday on its draft constitution, which President Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists ramrodded through a rump constituent assembly that secularists, Christians, moderate Islamists and others had abandoned. Most of the opposition seems to be urging a “no” vote, rather than a boycott. But turnout may be low. Egypt has had a lot of elections in the last two years. The rules have been changed to require that people vote in their assigned polling places. Previously you could vote anywhere.
Morsi won his presidency with only 51% of the vote. If he loses this referendum, that will be a vote of no confidence from the Egyptian people, who have had a scant two (or three) weeks to consider the question. Morsi has promised popular election of a new constituent assembly to draft a new constitution within six months thereafter if this one fails to gain majority approval.
What if he wins, as most expect? Then Egypt is supposed to go to parliamentary elections. But a win with less than 60% of the vote will send one signal: Morsi is vulnerable. A win with more than 70% of the vote will send a different one: Morsi is in command. Between 60 and 70%, some will spin it one way, others the other way. In any event, it will be the parliamentary elections that will determine Egypt’s course, if Morsi in fact surrenders the dictatorial powers he had arrogated to himself.
Apart from the outcome, the conduct of the referendum will count. Judges are supposed to supervise each polling center. It is unclear whether enough will be available to do so. This is presumably one of the reasons Morsi chose to conduct the voting in some governorates this weekend and in others next weekend. But the opposition is challenging that arrangement in court. Despite clashes in Alexandria yesterday, polling so far seems to be proceeding, with the usual glitches. If it becomes disorderly, a great deal will depend on whom Egyptians blame for precipitating problems.
Egypt has careened through a tumultuous transition since Hosni Mubarak stepped down in February 2011. The best that can be said for the outcome so far is that no one is fully satisfied. The secularists who mounted the initial demonstrations are disappointed that the result is not full-fledged democracy. Minorities, especially Egypt’s Coptic Christians, feel ill-treated. Rich Egyptians and the “remnants” of the old regime feel under attack. Poor Egyptians have seen little tangible benefit. The economy is on the ropes. The Muslim Brotherhood sees threats behind every demonstrator. The Salafists regard even the draft constitution as insufficiently Islamic.
I am hoping the constitution is defeated. That would give Egypt the opportunity for a more inclusive do-over. It would also teach Morsi that he needs to exert himself to be the president of all Egyptians. The process by which the current constitutional draft was written failed to be inclusive and transparent. Even an overwhelming vote in its favor will not erase the hard feelings that has engendered.
The odds are against defeat. If the referendum is approved, the only immediate recourse is the parliamentary election. The opposition needs to learn quickly the tricks of the electoral process if it is to do well. It has consistently failed to do so. Competing with the Muslim Brotherhood will require grassroots campaigning, not unruly demonstrations. It will also require opposition collaboration and unity.
Is Egypt headed back to autocracy, or will it develop a more open and representative political system? Only time will tell. Ten years from now, the answer will be clear. Today nothing is.
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The EU kicks the can
Carl Bildt, Sweden’s long-time and much-followed Foreign Minister, tweeted earlier this week from the General Affairs Council of the European Union:
Finally everything done. Cyprus presidency, Stefan Füle and Cathy Ashton moved all EU enlargement issues successfully forward. Off we go.
I wondered at the time what this meant. Now I know.
It meant nothing: no date for Serbia or Macedonia to begin accession talks, no date for Kosovo to negotiate a Stabilization and Association Agreement. Croatia’s membership next year is expected to proceed on autopilot (with some corrections in Zagreb’s course requested) and Montenegro will continue accession talks. Albania still awaits for a date to start accession negotiations.
Admittedly it is difficult to get too excited about anything in the Western Balkans these days. Syria is imploding. Egypt is turning its judicial system over to religious supervision. Iran is making progress towards nuclear weapons. North Korea is successfully launching a longer-range ballistic missile, disguised as a space-launch vehicle. Afghanistan and Iraq are teetering. Al Qaeda is setting up shop in Mali. The euro is going down the tubes. Who cares what the Greeks want to call Macedonia or whether the former belligerents who run Serbia and Kosovo get dates to begin negotiations (Belgrade for accession, Pristina for a Stabilization and Association Agreement) with Brussels?
The people who live in those places do, that’s who. However insignificant the Balkans look these days from Washington, which is busy with its own domestic quarrels above all else, the region is important to those who inhabit it and has the potential to make life difficult for the rest of us, as it has proven repeatedly over the past 100 years.
A closer reading suggests that things might unfreeze in Brussels in the spring. Macedonia at least can expect a framework for negotiations then, provided it delivers on reforms in the meanwhile. Likewise Serbia, which is asked specifically for
…irreversible progress towards delivering structures in northern Kosovo which meet the security and justice needs of the local population in a transparent and cooperative manner, and in a way that ensures the functionality of a single institutional and administrative set up within Kosovo.
Also important is
…the agreement of the two Prime Ministers to work together in order to ensure a transparent flow of money in support of the Kosovo Serb community…
While couched in the EU’s usual obscurantist language, we see emerging here a detailed understanding of the real challenges that have so far blocked reintegration of the north with the rest of Kosovo. Bravo to the EU for acknowledging them!
Some of the same perspicacity is evident in the discussion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the EU finds the need to reiterate
…its unequivocal support for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s EU perspective as a sovereign and united country enjoying full territorial integrity.
It’s not good news when Brussels kicks off this way, though I’d be the first to admit that its subsequent suggestions of what needs to be done to fix the problem are thoroughly inadequate.
Pristina gets a pat on the back for its engagement in the talks and language identical to that addressed to Belgrade on northern Kosovo, plus a recommendation to develop an outreach plan.
Don’t get me wrong: it is correct for the EU to insist on specific reforms and benchmarks in dealing with the Western Balkans. Unfortunately, it is still true that conditionality is what moves things forward in many of these countries. In most of them, I expect the EU carrot will bring real changes, albeit in fits and starts. The most concerning is Bosnia, where the EU acknowledges the challenges to sovereignty that Milorad Dodik and Republika Srpska pose but fails to offer adequate responses and continues to quarrel with Washington over whether the High Representative should stay or go.
The EU has kicked the can down the road. The best we can hope for is a spring thaw.
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