dagblog - Comments for "I was totally wrong on the Egyptian election"

Except that we aren't alone

acanuck — Sun, 27 May 2012 22:05:12 +0000

In reply to Too bad we're afraid of this

Except that we aren't alone in gravitating to the apparently safe picks. Faced with a multitude of choices (13, actually), half of Egyptians who voted went for one of the two "devils that they know" -- either a remnant of the old Mubarak regime or a candidate of the long-time-opposition Muslim Brotherhood.

This is one time when a preferential ballot, allowing voters to specify second, third or fourth preferences if their first choice were eliminated, would have been much fairer and would (I believe) have yielded a very different result.

By the way, there is talk from the camps of the two remaining candidates of offering either Sabahi or Aboul Fotouh the vice-presidency in a bid to lure his supporters. That makes a lot of sense, and might ease somewhat the bitter disappointment many Tahrir revolutionaries are now feeling.

Too bad we're afraid of this

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 27 May 2012 18:18:45 +0000

In reply to I just realized your question

Too bad we're afraid of this flexible, scary, chaotic, promising type of democracy in our country. Here we've bought into how it's important to stick with the mainstream, obvious choices, with only a Donald Trump here or there to break up the monotony with a ridiculous side-show.

I just realized your question

acanuck — Sun, 27 May 2012 17:37:46 +0000

In reply to Caveat: I've been wrong

I just realized your question may be serious. This is what I wrote three weeks and five days ago at In the News:

Bombshell in Egyptian presidential race

by acanuck 5/1/2012 - 3:41 am

The campaign for the presidency of Egypt starts in less than a month, and the twists and turns get ever weirder. First came the withdrawal of Mohamed ElBaradei, ex-head of the UN's nuclear-arms inspection agency, over the army's slowness in turning power over to civilians.

Then came a court ruling that disqualified three leading candidates: Mubarak's former right-hand man, Omar Suleiman; a prominent hard-line Islamist (on the grounds his mother was a U.S. citizen!); and the candidate endorsed by the powerful Muslim Brotherhood. The MB has since put forward a replacement candidate -- but one who is less well-known and less charismatic.

Now the latest twist: Abdul Moneim Abol Fotouh, leader of the Brotherhood's more liberal youth wing, had been booted out of the organization last year when he decided (without party approval) to submit his own candidacy. He picked up some of ElBaradei's supporters but was still running at 10 per cent or less. Saturday, however, he was endorsed by the Nour Party, a leading group in the fundamentalist Salafi coalition that took 25% of the vote in the parliamentary elections.

This is huge! Even though many hoped and expected the Brotherhood to reach out to moderates and secularists, it has failed to do so. Now the hard-line Islamists are bidding to outflank the MB by throwing their votes to a candidate even liberals can support. And Abol Fotouh still has support among disaffected (especially young) Brothers. Suddenly Abol Fotouh is looking like a serious rival to former Arab League head Amr Moussa, who had been leading in most polls.

Very, very interesting development.

Read the full article at http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/29/us-egypt-presidency-idUSBRE83S08K20120429

Like in the headline? Yeah, I

acanuck — Sun, 27 May 2012 17:24:27 +0000

In reply to Caveat: I've been wrong

Like in the headline? Yeah, I should have thought of that.

Quite right. And there is so

acanuck — Sun, 27 May 2012 17:21:23 +0000

In reply to The Brotherhood has been the

Quite right. And there is so much in Egypt that needs fixing, whoever runs the country is going to screw up in some ways.

It would have been great to see a reformist in the presidency, forcing the Brotherhood to compromise in its decision-making. If they run both executive and legislature, there's nothing to stop them going off the rails.

But the prospect of an ex-regime president who'll dig in on military privilege and power is equally scary. The result would be either a clash with parliament or, perhaps worse, a backroom deal in which the military and the Brothers agree on permanently sharing power to the exclusion of other democratic voices.

I'm sure Egyptians aren't yet ready for Tahrir 2.0, but that may be necessary to keep the revolution's gains. They like the idea of democratic self-government, but they also long for peace, stability and order. I worry that may be all they get.

The Brotherhood has been the

moat — Sun, 27 May 2012 16:23:04 +0000

In reply to I was totally wrong on the Egyptian election

The Brotherhood has been the very definition of an opposition party for so many decades in so many places, it will be interesting to see how they handle being responsible for a legitimate government.

A lot of their language has been centered upon the idea: "all these problems we have would go away if we were in charge."

If they screw this up, they won't get to use that rhetoric any longer.

Caveat: I've been wrong

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 27 May 2012 14:13:46 +0000

In reply to Logic always favored the

Caveat: I've been wrong before.

When?

I wish you'd warned us at the TOP of the post-:)

Yes indeed, Peter, and I

acanuck — Sun, 27 May 2012 06:47:16 +0000

In reply to Just having an election was

Yes indeed, Peter, and I haven't lost hope. Four elections, actually, in less than a year: A constitutional referendum, a parliamentary election, this presidential first round, and the runoff vote next month. Egyptians are getting a crash course in democracy.

Rough times are ahead. But having paid for their revolution in blood, I think they'll hold on to it.

Logic always favored the

acanuck — Sun, 27 May 2012 06:36:33 +0000

In reply to Ac, I completely agree. What

Logic always favored the Brotherhood candidate (whoever it was), especially in a field of 13 candidates of all imaginable stripes. But the very factor that gave them their parliamentary majority -- their rigid internal discipline -- came close to costing them a spot in the presidential runoff. Their hit-or-miss political stances, and flip-flops on such issues as running a candidate, convinced a lot of people they were not ready for prime time. The movement's conservative, near-calcified leadership failed to win the trust of non-Islamist revolutionaries, Coptic Christians and even the fundamentalist Salafis.

It went without saying that a hard-line Islamist like Abu Ismail couldn't win the presidency. The main Salafi leadership, to everyone's surprise, turned his disqualification into an advantage by endorsing Aboul Fotouh, a "reform" Islamist and ex-leader of the Brothers' youth wing who had for long reached out to secularists and liberals. A uniter, not a divider. But also, hope and change.

Aboul Fotouh fell short in the vote count -- in part because the Copts opted not to trust any Islamist, no matter how moderate, and backed a remnant of the old regime instead. Aboul Fotouh's spread on the political spectrum also got cut into by the late surge of Hamdeen Sabahi. A leftwing populist in the Nasser style with a bare-bones campaign, Sabahi managed to come within a couple of percentage points of the second-place finisher (he's even demanding a recount).

So we've basically got a four-way split of Egyptian society: institutionalized Islamism, Mubarak lite, leftwing populism, and a move to bridge those gaps and amalgamate those tendencies into a coherent hole. I still think the fourth way, Aboul Fotouh's, is what Egypt needs. I also think he and Hamdeen Sabahi will both be players in the country's politics for years to come.

If Shafik loses, as I suspect he will, he'll become a historical footnote. Morsi , if he wins, is also a transitional figure. He'll try to consolidate power to permanently set Egypt's future path, but that could well backfire. The revolution has suffered a setback, but democracy hasn't been killed. It may take a few years, but Egypt will find its balance of moderate Islamism, modernism and leftist populism. Caveat: I've been wrong before.

Just having an election was

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 27 May 2012 03:59:20 +0000

In reply to I was totally wrong on the Egyptian election

Just having an election was and is hopeful.