In Tahrir: Divided We Stand

There is a fierce battle raging in Egypt in connection with the approaching presidential elections.  Battles of this sort need flags, symbols and throaty screams amplified by microphones.  There are also signs, photos, music, and speeches in Arabic.  This is the way the millions who occupy Tahrir Square in Cairo are pursuing their dreams in post-Mubarak Egypt.

But the ghost of the Mubarak collapsed regime still haunts these diverse factions whose collective dream is to shape the future of Egypt.  With the Islamists garnering 70% of the seats in the new Egyptian Parliament, the only power zones left for contention are: the Constituent Assembly of 100 which has yet to take shape before it delves in to the formulation of the new constitution, and the election of a President.

Egypt is today divided over which direction to take: a State with an Islamic orientation, or a state with a secular orientation.  There are no model in the Arab/Muslim world to follow.  Because of the balance between its ideological/historical forces, the new Egypt can never emerge this summer as another Saudi Arabia (a Wahhabi policed-State).  Nor as another Turkey (a State whose secularity is guaranteed by the armed forces).  Nor as another Iran (an Ayatollahs theocracy).

The colors of the various flags in Tahrir reflect that noisy search for road signs in the most populous Arab State, Egypt of 90 million of 350 million Arabs.  The green flag represents the Muslim Brotherhood which controls 50% of the seats in the new Parliament; the black flag belongs to the Salafis, the Islamic movement which enjoys 20% of parliamentary seats who look to the Wahhabi failed governance model for guidance; and then the tri-color flag of Egypt, official Egypt, with the yellow eagle (the Quraish falcon) stamped on it to declare that Egypt is an Arab country –The Arab Republic of Egypt.

Missing from the parade of flags is a flag for Al-Azhar, the most moderating Islamic institution in the entire Muslim world of nearly 1.5 billion people, most of whom are non-Arabs.  Nor is there a flag with a cross on it, except that of the liberal Wafd party of Saad Zaghbol, Mustapha El-Nahaas, and Makram Obeid (a Copt) who had all passed away from the scene.  The Wafd flag which is still raised proudly at their beautiful building in Cairo shows a crescent hugging a cross –a great symbol of an Egypt made up of both Muslims and Coptics.

The ingathering by the millions in Tahrir and other equivalents all over Egypt, including Alexandria and Suez, took place last Friday.  They were all united by a fear that the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (the SCAF) whose head is General Tantawi, the de facto Head of State since the removal of Mubarak from power, would overstay its welcome beyond June 30, 2012.  “Yasqott Yasqott Hokm El-Askar!!” (Down Down with Military Rule!!) was their unifying chant.  Beyond that, their chants reflected the facts in Tahrir today: the Egyptian body politic is divided, fractured, polarized, and confused.  At least for the present.

What is all the divisions about?  A panel of Egyptian judges, called the Egyptian Election Commission dismissed the applications to run for president of three contenders.  These were Omar Soliman, former Intelligence chief under Mubarak, regarded as a symbol of that collapsed security regime; Khairat El-Shater, candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, as a person who had served time in jail under Mubarak; and Hazem Salah Abu-Ismail, candidate of the Salafi movement, as a person whose mother was an American citizen and thus disallowed from that race by post-Mubarak enactments.

To the Tahrir masses, the motives for those disqualifications by the Election Commission were suspect.  The Commission is headed by Judge Farouk Sultan, the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, the country’s highest.  He had enjoyed a meteoric rise in the judicial ladder under the Mubarak regime.  Prior to that, he had sat on the military and state security courts, a badge of dishonor in the perception of the new Egypt.  As a neutral agent, Judge Sultan’s problems were compounded by an allegation leveled against him by another senior judge, Zakaria Abdel-Aziz, a former president of the court of appeals.  He called Sultan “a big part” of the former regime.  Hence the suspicion that the SCAF was a co-maker of the decisions adopted by the Farouk Sultan’s Election Commission.

The divergence of views and suspicions were fueled by the fact that decisions adopted by the Sultan Commission were non-appealable.  Who closed the door to such appeals?  Article 28 of the Constitutional declaration promulgated by the SCAF after Mubarak’s departure, pending the formulation and approval of the new Egyptian Constitution.

Presidential candidates who ostensibly remain approved by the Election Commission number, as of now, between 10 to 13.  Leading that pack are: Amr Moussa, former Foreign Minister under Mubarak –a secularist; Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a liberal Islamist who had split from the Muslim Brotherhood and formed the Freedom and Justice Party; and Hamdeen Sabbahi, a secularist in the mold of the failed pan-Arabism of Gamal Abdel-Nasser who in 1952, led the coup that destroyed Egypt’s old traditional multi-party system.

This is the tip of the iceberg (though it hardly ever snows in Egypt, let alone forming icebergs!!).  There are 20 parties, movements and coalitions, not counting student, labor, professional, university syndical organizations, and artistic groups.

They all competing to be heard, struggling to be visible, and regularly competing for “OCCUPY TAHRIR SQUARE!!”

Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Who is the Fairest of Them All?

Four front runners competing for the post of President of the largest demographically Arab country: Egypt.  The time is short, and the elections are to be held around mid-May.  At this time, out of nearly 1000 would be candidates, only four of them are in the lead.

These are: Amr Moussa, former Secretary-General of the League of Arab States; Abdel-Monim Abu-Elfotouh, formerly of the Muslim Brotherhood, now the head of the Freedom and Justice Party of Egypt, with Brotherhood solid connections; Khairat El-Shatter, the economic and financial brain of the Muslim Brotherhood; and Omar Soliman, former head of Intelligence and former Vice-President of Egypt in the days leading to the collapse of the Mubarak regime.

Who is the Fairest of Them All?  The mirror on the wall is a bit foggy and this blogger cannot read the tea leaves.  Beyond the four front runners named above, there are others who are still in the race, and yet others who are being pushed out of the race.  In the first category, the numbers are too many to count; in the second category (the pushed out), there is the Salafi would-be candidate, Abu-Ismail whose credentials were called into question from his late mother's grave (she was a U.S. citizen -a disqualification).  In the same category, there is Dr. El-Baradie, former Director-General of the UN-affiliated International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who pushed himself out of the maddening melee.

Had the Revolution of January 25, 2011 been true to itself, Muhammad El-Baradie, a Noble Peace Prize Laureate, should have been declared presidential candidate by acclamation.  But like every revolution, with the US Revolution of 1776 against British domination the only exception, the Egyptian Revolution has swallowed up those who planted the first seeds.  Thus the first potential leader who, under Mubarak's nose, called for freedom and democracy in the then-dictatorial Egypt, El-Baradie was side-lined.  In fact I was afraid that the Mubarak regime might "rub him off," to use the language of the Mafia.  Perhaps, his high world-wide visibility saved his life.  Charisma, his opponents, especially Amr Moussa, claimed was a Baradie-deficiency; his long career abroad, others alleged, made his connection to a complex Egypt rather weak.

Looking into the magic globe at the four front-runners for candidacy for the top job in Egypt, one can see potential problems overwhelming their election by a clear majority.

Amr Moussa had served under Mubarak as a foreign minister.  Abdel-Monim Abu-Elfotouh does not have the backing of the Muslim Brotherhood which commands 50% of seats in the new Parliament.  El-Shatter's candidacy  was like a Johnny-Come-Lately.  The Muslim brotherhood hurriedly pushed that candidacy forward, just a few days before the deadline for papers filing was upon them.  It was a sudden switch, which began with "no nomination from the Brotherhood for President," to "our concern for Egypt caused us to nominate El-Shatter for president."

As to ideology, Abu-Elfotouh is ideologically to the left of the Brotherhood and is an advocate of diversity.  El-Shatter is calling for a modified application of Sharia (Islamic Law).  And Oman Soliman seems destined for failure in his bid, having been the face of a brutalizing Egyptian intelligence for most of his tenure under Mubarak.  As a military man, a General, he is suspected to have the backing of the SCAF (the Supreme Council of Armed Forces).  Yet the SCAF days may come to an end on July 1st of this year.

The mix of presidential aspirants is a bit confusing.  The walls of Egypt everywhere is plastered by electioneering ads.  In fact the traffic in Cairo is super-snarled because of street closures when a candidate is campaigning.  And the Copts, especially after the passing of Pope Shenouda, are guessing at what the future might hold.  So are women, together with the creators of Egyptian art and films.  Egypt desperately needs tourism and trade.

Who is the fairest of them all? Who knows!!

The only certainty is that neither Amr Moussa, nor El-Shatter nor Abu-Elfotouh nor Soliman was in Tahrir Square on Day One when the Revolution of January 25, 2011 erupted.  They seem to have waited to see whether it would topple Mubarak before they decided that the time was ripe to surf the wave to the highest position in the land.  Each one of the above-named gentlemen has a revolutionary deficiency. 

The young who made that epic Revolution, the first popular one since 1919, seem, at least for now, to have gone under that wave.

Needed in Egypt: A Crash Course in Anger Management

In the Constitutional Declaration, an interim legal measure acting as a stop gap pending the drafting of a permanent Constitution for Egypt later this year, there is an important provision for those who are now aspiring to run for president of Egypt.  It says that a candidate for the highest office in this important Arab country, must prove that neither he nor she, nor their parents have ever carried a non-Egyptian passport.

This provision is proving very troublesome to two potential presidential candidates whose orientation is Islamic.  They are: Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, a Salafi (extreme Islamist) and Muhammad Saleem Al-Awwa.  The rumors flooding Egypt now is that the late mother of Abu Ismail had a US passport, and that the father of Al-Awwa was a of Syrian nationality.  Oops!!

A flurry of angry responses, for and against, erupted.  Abu-Ismail declared that his own group was stabbing him in the back.  They were, the would-be candidate charged, a bunch of liars.  Only his sister, who resides in America, carries a US passport, he retorted.  His late mother, he claimed, had only a green card, and was never a US citizen.

In rebuttal to Abu-Ismail, Sheikh Tarek Youssef, an Imam of a mosque in Brooklyn countered as he shook with anger in an interview with an Egyptian cable channel called Dream. "Abu-Ismail is lying about his mother's nationality.  She was an American citizen, thus her son cannot be a candidate for the Egyptian presidency."

At long last, the Supreme Commission for Presidential Elections, stepped in the sea of mutual recrimination.  It said that Egypt's Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Interior had been requested to check on the backgrounds of all aspirants to the presidential post.  Until those investigations are completed, no one should presume what the results might be.

In the meantime, rumors were flying hard and fast about attempts by the Muslim Brotherhood to have Abu-Ismail cede his campaign in favor of its own would be candidate Khairat El-Shatter, a millionaire businessman.  The price for Abu-Ismail's withdrawal would be a vice-presidential position in an El-Shatter administration.  "Absolutely, No," Abu-Ismail's campaign declared.  A vice-presidential candidate is not subject to the same restrictions noted above with regard to a non-Egyptian nationality.  He ended up being excluded from running for president.

Yet in the first mass rally for El-Shatter, there were voices of support which were drowned by counter voices in opposition.  Those opposed to the nominee of the Brotherhood declared on its Facebook page that the nomination of El-Shatter was a disaster.  The Muslim Brotherhood, with a 50% of parliamentary seats, "should not have presented a nominee.  It is a dangerous trap!!  It is wrong for the Brotherhood to shoulder alone the entire heavy burden of ruling Egypt, by cornering for itself both the legislative powers and presidential power as well.  This is a recipe for disaster."

Le us now turn our attention to the Constituent Assembly of 100 which is charged with the awesome responsibility of drafting a post Mubarak constitution.  All eligible voters would say "yea" or "nay" on it in a national referendum whose result would establish a legal baseline for the presidential elections.  The Islamists (the Brotherhood and the Salafis) control 70% of seats in the new Parliament.

In a move to deny the Islamists the exercise of those monopolistic powers in the legislature, in the drafting of a Constitution, and in connection with the election of the president, members of the liberal secular parties simply walked away from the Assembly of 100.  This put the onus on the Islamist majority to fill that critical gap in order to legitimize the constitutionality of the Assembly of 100.

Feverish attempts at compromise followed:  "Please come back.  We need you.  OK??  The vote in the Assembly shall not be 50% + 1; it shall be 60%.  We shall also abide by Al-Azhar declarations about diversity, inclusiveness, and representativeness of the entire rainbow of Egyptian society including the Copts.  Would you please come back??"  "No!" said the secularists.  "Your Assembly has no legitimacy because it does not reflect the shades of the entirety of Egyptian public opinion."

Rage On, Egypt!!  Democracy lives on intelligent compromises.  So find your way to a middle ground!!