Supports of Mohammed Morsi hold his portrait aloft[/caption]Five days have passed since Egypt held their run-off for the presidency between Mohamed Morsi and Ahmed Shafik. Independent polls are pointing towards a victory by Morsi but there are widespread reports of electoral irregularities. As a result, in typical post-Mubarak politics, supporters for both candidates headed to Tahrir Square, the only real symbol of the Arab Spring left in Egypt. Often, delays in electoral results in authoritarian systems is not as much about maintaining the integrity of the vote but more a negotiation for power between the forces of the regime and the opposition.
In the present atmosphere, the military will unlikely prevent Morsi's win, but SCAF has already this past week, despite their rather disingenuous comments about not wanting a central role in Egypt's "democratic" politics, stripped to the bone the power of the presidency. Field Marshall Tantawi unveiled earlier this week plans for a permanent role for the military in the politics and economy of the new state with a wide ranging executive order investing the military with autonomy from civilian politics and temporary, legislative authority as SCAF draws up a new constitution enshrining their position. With a suspended parliament and marshall law re-instated, the President is left with very little power, beyond a formal title.
This exchange between the Brotherhood and the military is not new to Egypt's post 1952 politics. From Nasser to Mubarak, the military and its secular elite have flirted with the Muslim Brothers. These exchanges have gone in cycles of engagement, but have always culminated in suppression by the military as the two traditional sides of Egypt's politics fall out over differences, rooted as much in interests as in deeply antithetical identities.
Hope existed that with the ousting of Mubarak by the military, the Tahrir Square generation would lead Egypt on a new path that would break this cycle of traditional politics, but as Niall Ferguson among others have noted, a leaderless movement does not create a revolution. Instead, Egypt faces not just a return to authoritarian politics, but a more potent variant.
This pessimism may not sit well with some, but as a political scientist, the creation of a bi-structural state where the monopoly of violence is held by an authority separate from popularly representative institutions does not create a united polity but a space where two poles of power inevitably compete with one another for legitimacy, representation, and resources. While informally, this is not a new feature of politics, Pakistan and Turkey through the Kemalist era have and had these features. Formally, few regimes have been so blatant about this delineation of power. These regimes, despite the motivation by the elites at the time to securitize their interests and create a sense of stability for their constituents, often lead to more instability than stability in the long term. Unless corrected, this system will eventually canibalize itself leading to more unrest for Egypt in the decade ahead.
Egypt, after over 30 years of economic stagnation, desperately needs strong (ideally, representative) institutions, the rule of law both procedurally and substantively, and united leadership to take Egypt forward. While there has been discussion of the Turkey model in the months after Mubarak fell, Turkey is a particularly important case for Egypt now. Military dominated politics neither produced stability or substantial economic growth. It has been the rise of the AKP and the military returning to its barracks that has created an environment for democratic politics and substantial economic prosperity. Egypt, geographically and culturally, can represent a model for regional regeneration for non-petroleum sector dominated economies, but the elderly generation of generals are forging a state that resembles more Pakistan's structural politics than Turkey's. As evidenced by Pakistan today, this model leaves very little hope for prosperity in the future.
