The main features of this stalled revolution is the antagonism between the Executive and the Judicial authorities; a disorganized secular opposition; the resurgence of the backers of the defunct Mubarak regime; and the pressures on the Morsi regime to resist the stringent conditions of the International Monetary Fund for providing Egypt with a sorely needed loan.
Taking up the alienation between the Morsi regime and the Judiciary, we note that the new Justice Minister, Ahmed Soliman, has announced on May 8 that his first priority was to rebuild the bridges between the Government (a new Cabinet was sworn in by Morsi on May 7) and the Judiciary. One of the many sticking points in this issue is a draft bill supported by the Government providing for the retirement of judges at the age of sixty instead of seventy. If adopted, the result would be the retirement of more than 3000 Egyptian judges.
The judiciary, backed up by the opposition, suspect that retirement at 60 would aid the Morsi regime, which has sprung from the womb of the Muslim Brotherhood in appointing a new generation of judges who are in favor of the Brotherhood. If this happens, which now seems unlikely, the Brotherhood would claim control or exercise influence on the legislature (for now, the Upper Chamber of Parliament called the Shura), the executive, and the judiciary. A recipe for a reversion by Egypt to an unwanted autocracy.
Still more on the judicial crisis: the new Minister of Justice, in his commitment to supporting judicial independence, draws his strength from his former opposition to Morsi's so-called "Constitutional Declaration" of November 22, 2012 which, prior to its nullification, had virtually placed Morsi above the law. Minister Soliman, in a balancing act, is trying to convince his judiciary brethren not to press for the removal of Attorney General (AG) Talaat Abdullah. The appointment by Morsi of the AG has been declared unconstitutional by a court decision.
Turning now to the opposition to the Morsi regime which is viewed by them as too Islamist, one finds it plagued by factionalism and a short-sighted abstention from participation in governance. The opposition, secular and liberal, seems to adopt the dead-end motto of "my way or the highway." That group, fragmented as they are and headed by two men, Mohammed El-Baradei and Amr Musa, was invited by both President Morsi and Prime Minister Qandeel to nominate persons to assume some of the Cabinet posts in the newly reshuffled Cabinet. They refused.
That refusal was short-sighted in two ways: allowing the gaps to be filled by ministers who are allied with the Muslim Brotherhood; and impeding the march of the Revolution towards diversity and stability. Explaining that attitude of rejectionism, Amr Musa said: "We have refused to be partners because the new Cabinet lacks vision!!" An excuse which is worse than the wrong for which the excuse is offered.
In his statements to the Ashrak Al-Awsat, a Saudi Arabian daily, Amr Musa went on May 7 to expound on the opposition's intractable position. "There is no consensual national program. There are no policies which are transparently formulated. There is nothing new about the newly-appointed Cabinet members. That Cabinet does not reflect the urgent need of Egypt for reversing the collapse of the country's security and economy."
Abstention from participation cannot constitute constructive policy. So the bickering goes on while the new Egypt lies prostrate. If the opposition desires a slow down of what it calls "the Brotherization (in reference to the Muslim Brotherhood) of the State," they should practice their opposition from within the Cabinet not simply from the outside.
The stalemate has opened the door to a gradual resurgence of the former backers of the ex-Mubarak regime. The man and woman of the Egyptian street now seem to long for that age of stability. To them, democracy has brought about chaos and economic destitution. They are now asking: "What price is freedom?" The retrial of Mubarak and the other members of the "Gang of Ten" has generated sympathy for the ousted dictator which, at its roots, is sympathy for an Egypt that functions.
If the International Monetary Fund (IMF) sees in government subsidies for basic goods and services an economical strain, it is right economically but dead wrong politically. As an international organization, the IMF is slow to learn from its disastrous lessons in Egypt of Sadat (1970-1981). At that time, Sadat had agreed to the IMF conditions for a loan, by eliminating the subsidies for bread, sugar, and cooking oil.
The result was huge demonstrations ("the bread riots") all over Egypt in February 1977. I was in Cairo with my wife at that time and witnessed the tumult. Consequently, Sadat had to rescind his decree and, among other measures, began discreet consultations which led to the Camp David agreement of 1978 with Israel under the tutelage of U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
On the stage of the new Egypt, the IMF is back with the same package of strong remedies for the ailing Egyptian economy. Morsi and his regime are acutely aware of the lessons learnt the hard way from the Sadat era. Egypt and the IMF are at present locked in futile negotiations. Revolt of the masses is a continuous threat to the new Egypt. Fear of further popular hostility to the regime and by extension to the Muslim Brotherhood is palpable.
So the continued drift of the Egypt Revolution goes on. No present safe harbor is in sight. It is the materialization of a theme song in a recent Egyptian soap series called "Zohra and her five husbands." In that fictional soap story, the song goes like this:
"From the days of my entering the Sea of Life,
I have found no safe harbor;
Every event in my life begins with a celebration and ends with a catastrophe."
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