The Generals’ Slow and Unsteady March To Democracy

Egypt Is Still On The Right Road But The Generals Are Making Heavy Weather Of It

Oct 8th 2011
CAIRO
Courtesy Of "The Economist"

THE last time Egypt’s army seized power, in 1952, it promised a swift return to civilian rule. Instead, Egyptians got six decades of autocracy, with generals manning the machinery of state behind a patchy sham of democracy. Even so most people were overjoyed last February when the generals, responding to weeks of massive protests, stepped out from behind their veil, fired the president-for-life, Hosni Mubarak, sent his rubber-stamp parliament packing and promised a swift transition to proper democracy.

Yet during the eight months since the revolution Egypt’s new rulers have steadily lost goodwill. With the economy stalled and the political horizon still blurred, many Egyptians now suspect the army of dragging its boots. They wonder how committed the soldiers really are to their promise of surrendering power to an elected civilian government. One coalition of youth groups proposes yet another rally in a long series of giant Friday demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, this time under the banner “Thank you, now go back to your barracks.”

Some of the doubts may be overblown. The 24 senior officers who make up the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) have repeatedly reaffirmed their desire to exit the political stage. They meet civilian politicians often and have serially conceded to the demands of street protesters. Amid much haggling, and despite the near-impossibility of accommodating the demands of post-revolutionary Egypt’s scores of new fronts, parties and pressure groups, the SCAF has sketched out a rough path for a political transition.

Its current still-evolving plan is to hold an election to the lower house of parliament in three stages, starting at the end of November, followed by similarly staggered votes for the upper house, ending in March. The two houses would then choose a smaller body to write a new constitution, whose ratification by referendum would be followed by a presidential election, presumably some time late next year. Only then would the soldiers cede executive powers.

But as Egyptians look to Tunisia, whose revolution came a month earlier and whose leaders have charted a faster, simpler route to democracy, the SCAF’s chosen course seems painfully long and convoluted. Tunisians are due to go to the polls on October 23rd to vote for a temporary assembly that will be charged both with appointing a government and with drafting a new constitution. They may end up enjoying democratic rule for a full year before Egypt begins to catch up.

Not surprisingly Egypt’s normally fractious politicians have united in complaint, about both the SCAF’s timetable and the peculiarly complex technicalities of the voting system it proposes. Some say the plans would permit the creeping return of Mr Mubarak’s people dressed in new clothing. Others suggest that the aim is to ensure the election of a weak, unwieldy parliament. In a step that would be unusual in any country, Egypt’s seven leading presidential hopefuls, who cross a spectrum from hardline Islamist to secular and liberal, have joined forces to demand that the timeline be drastically shortened. They even say they would prefer to elect a president before drafting a constitution.

Such noisy impatience must be tiresome to the generals, who are keen above all to project confidence and stability, and to ensure a protected place for the army and the sweeping privileges it has long had in Egypt. Yet the current mood of doubt is in many ways their own creation. Under their command Egypt has moved, in fits and starts, towards becoming a more open society, with fairer rules and more accountable institutions. But the generals have often acted only when prompted by shouting from the street, and then grudgingly, leaving the impression that their instincts remain stubbornly autocratic.

Despite sustained protest, the SCAF has insisted both on trying civilians before military courts and on applying the same harsh emergency laws that became notorious during Mr Mubarak’s 30-year reign. Purges and trials have punished former civilian officials, but security officers responsible for decades of abuse have largely escaped serious censure. The military police have proved just as brutal as the ordinary police they were brought in to replace. Egypt’s press, though freer, remains subject to subtle and sometimes overt pressures to curb criticism: newspaper columnists have taken to leaving their spaces blank in protest at renewed censorship. Egypt’s large minority of Christian Copts continue to suffer sporadic attacks, with their persecutors going unpunished, just as they did under Mr Mubarak.

Nor has the generals’ ponderous guidance helped the economy. Egypt in June rejected an offer from the IMF of some $3 billion in low-interest finance, saying it would instead rely on local borrowing and aid from wealthy Gulf states. That aid has not materialised. With foreign-exchange reserves dropping by $1 billion a month, to some $24 billion now, and with the cost of local borrowing for the state rising sharply, Egypt may now go back to the IMF. The generals have also stalled on overhauling a ruinous subsidy regime that drains some 20% of the state budget, passing the inevitable political cost to future governments.

Most costly of all has been the absence of any clear political trajectory. Foreign investment, which topped $12 billion as recently as 2008, has more or less dried up. Court rulings overturning long-concluded land sales or privatisation deals have spooked local investors. Military-style law and order is not the answer. Egypt needs a robust, accountable, elected civilian government, and the sooner the better.