The success of the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohammed Mursi, in the opening round of Egypt’s first post-Mubarak presidential election will undoubtedly prompt fearful responses in the West. Already there have been well-publicised complaints about the elections process by prominent figures like Nobel laureate Mohamed Al-Baradei (who spoiled his ballot) about the dangers of choosing a president before the constitution has clearly determined his powers. Although the military council that has controlled Egypt for the last 16 months will presently issue a constitutional amendment scaling back some of these powers, the next president will likely retain a stronger sway on the government than either his American or even French counterparts.
On Friday, the results were too close to call, but Mursi’s likely rivals were the former aviation minister and air force general Ahmad Shafiq and the late-surging socialist candidate Hamdeen Sabahi. Neither seemed in contention even a week ago when the newspaper Al-Shuruq published polls that showed undecided voters outnumbered support for the strongest candidate by more than two to one. Both Shafiq and Sabahi capitalised on of the poor showing of much more plausible candidates: the Liberal Muslim candidate Abdul Moneim Abou’l-Futouh (a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood) and Amr Moussa (former head of the Arab League and foreign minister under Mubarak).
The collapse of Abou’l-Futouh’s and Moussa’s candidacies suggests that however rudimentary its democracy may be, the Egyptian electorate is doing its best to send a nuanced message to those in power. Support for Abou’l-Futouh nosedived after he was seen to be shamelessly pandering to all-comers, adopting an Arafat-like strategy of speaking moderately to moderates while promising Islamists, especially the ultraconservative Salafis, a hardline agenda. Moussa seems to have been rejected more straightforwardly as one of the “feloul” or “leftovers” from the Mubarak years.
Hamdeen Sabahi was buoyed by a surprise victory in Alexandria, Egypt’s second largest city and, usually, a safe territory for the Brotherhood and Salafis. His political pedigree speaks to hopes for a very different Egypt. Although self-described as an unapologetic nationalist in the mould of Gamal Abdel-Nasser, Sabahi rose to prominence primarily as a protest organizer, co-founding the Kifaya! (Enough!) movement against Mubarak. Support for his candidacy can be read largely as a rejection of both the Muslim Brotherhood’s recent mismanagement of the parliament — especially its bungling of the appointments process for the committee that will draft the new constitution. On Friday, the Associated Press quoted a Sabahi campaign spokesman as saying: “The results reflect that people are searching for a third alternative, those who fear a religious state and those who don’t want Mubarak’s regime to come back.”
Seen through Western eyes, Shafiq is a less promising candidate. The Mid-East expert Juan Cole describes him as “very much a creature of the old regime and of the Egyptian military” who has “ominously promised to crack down hard on ‘destructive demonstrations.’” Cole warns that: “Although the Western politicians and business classes might favour Shafiq for surface reasons, in fact they’d be buying a whole lot of trouble if they backed him.”
The Egyptian electorate therefore faces momentous choices in the weeks ahead. If Mursi wins the runoff election next month the Brotherhood will control two of the main branches of the civilian government and stand well placed to impose Islamic law and a one-party state; a Shafiq victory would be seen in many quarters as a step back to the Mubarak years; whereas a win for Sabahi — who, among other Nasserisms, has a geopolitically problematic stance towards Israel — could place Egypt much further afield in its current economic and political uncertainty.
Interestingly, Tunisian voters have faced similar choices in their emerging democracy, with hardline religious candidates competing well with the new, more liberal opposition. What should encourage any Western observer, however, is the stated concerns of nearly all of the voters in these young democracies. In Egypt, for example, the leading issue is security, followed by the economic crisis and education. (Most analysts believe Shafiq’s primary appeal is his ‘law and order’ platform rather than his political past.)
The brutal suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood in recent decades undermined any serious prospect of democracy in Egypt and turned successive governments into completely intolerant regimes. Now, faced with the Brotherhood’s ambivalent showing in an emergent democracy, Egypt’s voters face a more complex set of choices, yet the democratic process, however incomplete and imperfect, is making Egypt confront its hard choices sooner rather than later. Although this may seem a rather ambivalent sequel to the drama of the Arab Spring, elections like these are usually a necessary first step on the long journey towards sustainable democracy.
