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In the nation’s first democratic presidential election in the republic’s history, with 50 million people eligible to vote, Mubarak’s final Prime Minister, Ahmed Shafik received 24.9 percent of the vote and the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate, Mohammed Morsi, received 25.3 percent of the vote qualifying the two candidates out of a field of 13 to take part in a run-off election on June 16.
The two candidates, Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh and Amr Moussa who had gone into the race as the anointed front-runners by many media outlets, placed respectively fourth and fifth.
These election results may be surprising for some who saw this election as the culmination of the events on Tahrir Square eighteen months ago and the beginning of a new generation of politics in Egypt. But, these elections are more so the triumph of traditional politics over revolutionary politics in Egypt. The silent majority has now spoken, and this voice critically will now guide Egypt as it returns to a form of civilian rule.
The urban and rural poor, the elites and the traditional middle class, the army and security services, and the Coptic Christian community have seen their country deteriorate into chaos, leading to an acute economic crisis and instability since the fall of Mubarak. Tourism (30 percent of GDP), the lifeline of the Egyptian economy, has all but dried up, and the other industries and sources of revenue are in no position to fill this gap. Instability has been exacerbated as well by protests and inter-communal violence.
For many, the cost of the Revolution was too high of price to pay, and one that many of them, living outside of Cairo, importantly, did not take part in. A return to normalcy has prevailed over a moment for change.
The Muslim Brotherhood, despite its attempts to brand itself as the leaders of the Revolution did not initially lead it, and has championed the status quo more so than the leftist, nationalist, and Salifist parties and the youth movement, the leaders of the Tahrir Square protests, who are representative of a new course for Egypt’s politics. Shafik, the former head of the Air Force, is not so markedly different than Hosni Mubarak and has gained a lot of support from those who want a return to the stability they experienced during the Mubarak era whether it be a member of the elite or the urban and rural poor who relied on the former President’s patronage.
While speculation carries its own risks, Morsi will likely be elected President if he can carry the votes of Fotouh and the Salifists, and liberals who oppose the return of any member of Mubarak’s old government. If he fails to carry those votes, it would be very difficult for him to beat Shafik who will inevitably receive all the votes of those who do not want to see the Muslim Brotherhood dominate both the Presidency and the Parliament.
While this can certainly be seen as a democratic milestone in the Arab world, this election result marks crucially the defeat of the Tahrir Square generation. While Shafik and Morsi have the capacity to lead their country forward on stable path, a question mark remains on whether the status quo is enough too revive the state after decades of decay and mismanagement.
