Brothers Tread Cautiously
This should be a time for the Muslim Brotherhood to savour their
election victory. The final results of the parliamentary elections that
ended yesterday will determine whether or not its political arm, the
Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), secures a majority, ie half the
People’s Assembly seats plus one. Currently hovering around 49 per cent
of the total the Brothers — banned and persecuted for decades — have
emerged as Egypt’s dominant political force.
But the Brotherhood’s vindication through the ballot box brings with
it a host of potentially explosive challenges. Egypt is a poor country
with a population of 85 million. The economy is faltering. There is
flagrant inequality in wealth and opportunities. The security situation
is volatile and the security apparatus seems capable of operating only
when empowered by draconian emergency laws, in force since 1981.
It will not be lost on the Muslim Brotherhood that failure to address
these problems brought down Hosni Mubarak’s regime. How, then, will the
Brotherhood approach them?
Mubarak’s “legacy weighs heavy, not just on us but on all of Egypt”,
says FJP leader Essam El-Erian. The realisation of just how entrenched
“corruption and destruction” is “grows by the hour and by the day”. In
other words, the situation is so bad the Brotherhood is not ready to
shoulder the burden alone.
El-Erian’s statements can be read as an indirect response to ongoing
speculation over the formation of a post-election government. Article 56
of the constitutional declaration of 30 March 2011 gives the Supreme
Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) the right to appoint the prime
minister and cabinet. But Article 33 of the declaration — which serves
as the constitutional reference for the interim period — stipulates that
the People’s Assembly shall determine policy, the state budget, and
oversee the executive authority.
The People’s Assembly cannot name the government, but it can dismiss
it through a vote of no confidence, says Tarek El-Beshri, head of the
committee which drafted the constitutional amendments that form the core
of the 30 March declaration.
The support of the parliamentary majority, then, is crucial to the government’s survival.
Given their success at the polls, the FJP could easily demand they be
represented in the government. But they don’t want to go there.
According to El-Erian: “We’re not thinking of that at all right now. Our
focus is on parliament.”
The Brotherhood’s strategy — as far as it goes in the immediate
aftermath of electoral success — seems clear. It does not want to be
closely associated with a transitional government which few believe can
deliver on the public’s expectations. Used to playing the long game, its
sights are set well beyond the next few months.
Post-revolution Egypt has already seen three ministers of finance
come and go. Any future government, says Samir Radwan, who spent two
months in the post, must “immediately” address unemployment, low wages,
services and security.
“These impact on the public every hour. The country’s new rulers have
no choice but to find solutions, and find them quickly,” Radwan told
Al-Ahram Weekly.
During his short term in office Radwan’s ministry faced strikes
across Egypt demanding better wages and working conditions. The street,
he says, was “boiling”.
Radwan was able to offer some pay rises in an attempt to contain the
situation but any real solution, he says, will require a radical
restructuring of the public sector. Yet no feasible, full-cost programme
to move beyond piecemeal solutions has been developed. And the public
sector is just one of the problems an incoming government will have to
face. In short, says Radwan, any new government will be faced with
overcoming “defects in the system that have accumulated over 60 years”.
Foreign direct investment since the revolution has fallen from $13
billion per annum to $8 billion. The budget deficit is running at 10 per
cent, and Egypt’s foreign reserves are half of what they were 12 months
ago. These are the hard facts the FJP would face should it venture into
government now.
In the absence of “a clear and ready vision on the part of Egypt’s
new rulers” the country will, Radwan argues “face very real dangers”.
Nationwide strikes and economic problems, however serious, were not
the only reason two finance ministers left within 10 months. When
security forces clashed with protesters on 28 June — providing
unmistakable evidence that the Interior Ministry has yet to abandon its
brutal practices — the Essam Sharaf government was already on the brink
of collapse. It survived the nationwide demonstrations that ensued,
thanks to a minor reshuffle. But renewed clashes in Tahrir Square
between the security forces and protesters on 19 November which ended in
the death of more than 40 demonstrators signalled the beginning of the
end for Sharaf. The brutality of the security forces had been fully
exposed, and thousands of angry protesters began to call for the ouster
of SCAF head Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi. Instead it was the
government that was sacrificed. On 22 November Sharaf resigned. The
demise of his premiership makes clear that any future government is
vulnerable to public outrage at the behaviour of the police.
“Nothing has changed on the security front since February,” says
Hossam Bahgat, head of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a
human rights group has documented post-revolution violence. The
Brotherhood may be correct in its calculation that any involvement in a
new government will not be to its advantage, says Bahgat, but there is
no “easy path through the system”. Sharaf avoided the security file and
still his government fell. One possible way forward, suggests Bahgat, is
for the Muslim Brotherhood to remain apart from the Interior Ministry
but to subject the security apparatus to parliamentary scrutiny: “This
kind of oversight could be key to reform. Imagine the impact of a
monthly questioning of the interior minister by the parliamentary
majority.”
No one should assume ruling Egypt is easy, especially after 30 years
of despotic rule during which corruption has grown like a cancer. The
problem the Brotherhood’s leadership now faces is that they are no
longer in opposition. They must act to show the electorate that they are
worthy of the faith that has been placed in them, whether in parliament
or government. As they calculate their steps they appear to be doing
their homework. Khairat El-Shater, the Brotherhood’s deputy supreme
guide, recently toured Malaysia, Thailand and Turkey, consulting over
ways to improve social services and boost the economy. The FJP has
entered into talks with a Turkish firm on ways to address Cairo’s
traffic and garbage collection problems.
Mubarak’s legacy, and how to defeat it: the Brothers clearly have too
much on their plate to spend their time in debating whether bikinis be
banned.
Amira Howeidy is an editor at Al-Ahram Weekly.
