The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Egypt won the presidency, and the military won its powers. No winners or losers. This month, when I was in Cairo on the eve of the presidential elections, I asked incumbent and former ministers, presidential candidates, and intellectuals and colleagues whether there might be a military coup in Egypt. Everybody's answer was that it is possible, or ‘very possible', as Major General Omar Suleiman told me. The coup in fact happened, but without it being declared with a ‘statement number one', or with a curfew and mass arrests against politicians. The new president Mohamed Morsi will have very limited powers. This is while the armed forces can draft the constitution, dissolve the parliament – through the supreme constitutional court – and isolate the elected executive branch away from any interference in the army's budget, operations and companies. Indeed, the army controls directly and indirectly a third of Egypt's economy, and perhaps even 40 percent of it. A few months ago, it seemed that the army and the MB had reached an unwritten agreement to share power. However, the old mutual mistrust between the two sides in the end resurfaced, as the army felt that the MB was prevaricating and lying, and wanted to impose the rule of a religious party over the country. On the other hand, the MB was seeing decision after decision by the ruling military council, all serving one purpose, namely the abolition of the will of the people in choosing their leaders. The MB enjoys great popularity and the trust and loyalty of their supporters. However, this is met by deep suspicions among their opponents regarding the sincerity of their rhetoric and the real nature of their undeclared political agenda. Following the revolution of January 25, I wrote here, in this column, that the Brotherhood operates along the lines of ‘pretend you are weak when you can'; I still hold this opinion of them. Whatever the dispute between the army and the secular forces on one hand, and the MB and its allies on the other, it is agreed among all active political forces without exception that Egypt needs security to be safeguarded as a prelude to reforming the national economy, which was among the victims of the revolution. Security first then the economy; I do not see this to be difficult to achieve, if the contending parties seek to serve the interests of the people, rather than their own. Security can be safeguarded without oppression. Meanwhile, the Egyptian economy had indeed progressed and prospered greatly in the first decade of this century, but the benefits remained limited to a minority at the top of the economic pyramid, because of massive corruption, and never trickled down to the average citizen. If the new rulers manage to eliminate corruption, and jail the corrupt, then the resumption of the march of the economy from the point it had stopped – after the departure of the government of Ahmed Nazif – will lead to quick results. This would definitely be faster than building a new economy, a process that takes years, and then wait for the benefits to reach all citizens. While this is possible, it is also possible that the struggle for power may lead to a conventional military coup, rather than the secret coup we have witnessed in recent weeks. Such a coup would mean robbing the youths of their revolution, and squandering the blood its martyrs have shed. All those who wish well for Egypt do not want a military coup. The army will stand to gain and will allow others to gain if it refrains from seeking to make itself an authority above the elected authority. This is while the MB would be protecting itself if it practices what it preaches. In other words, its declared rhetoric should not be a mere attempt to buy time, pending the implementation of its old ambition of monopolizing power. All the two sides in this dispute need to do is evaluate the results of the presidential election. Indeed, the Egyptian people seem to be divided equally between the religious parties and their opponents, and no side that claims to be democratic should attempt to impose itself over the others. All the stances and statements made by the MB in recent weeks, as well as those of the new president Mohamed Morsi and his advisers, reflect a good understanding of the nature of the political situation prevailing in Egypt now; what remains is for them to make good on their promises. Perhaps the MB has reached the stage of political maturity after 80 years of political innocence, not to say adolescence, for which it paid a steep price in every previous confrontation with the monarchy, and then the First Republic. The Second Republic must be for all Egyptians to be worthy of its name. The people of Egypt deserve a better life. [email protected]
