Egypt and the tyranny of the minority

‘If you want to once and for all discredit Authoritarian Islamism, then defeat it at the polls. A military intervention, even one backed by the street, will never achieve the lasting impact of an electoral defeat, and will always leave the impression that those backing the intervention fear that they cannot win an election. Beware the boomerang!’

– Daniel Brumberg, Associate Professor of Conflict Management, University of Georgetown, USA.

Towards the end of December 2012, Mohammed Morsi, the now deposed president of Egypt, presented a draft new constitution to the people of the country for approval via a referendum. Egypt had then of course undergone a chastening revolution few months before which swept away the old regime of Housni Mubarak and led to the election of Mohammed Morsi as the president and one of the demands of the revolutionaries was for a new constitution which will incorporate the core values of the Egyptian people. The weeks leading to the referendum had witnessed anti-Morsi demonstrations in which hundreds of thousands protested against the new constitution. The thrust of their anger was that the draft constitution was capable of gravitating Egypt towards Islamism and that it offered very little protections to minority rights. It was effectively a referendum on the 6-month-old Morsi regime. Despite this, 63.8 percent of Egyptians who partook in the referendum supported the new constitution and voted in its favour.

Yet six months later, Morsi is history – apparently swept away by the revolutionary waves of discontented Egyptians. Or at least that is what the military coupists will like the world to believe. It is the opinion of this writer that the recent forceful change of government in Egypt is wrong and dangerous for a number of reasons, three of which will be the focus of this write-up. First, the overthrow does not appear to enjoy the support of vast majority of Egyptians and is an unlawful abortion of the democratic process in Egypt. Second, even if the majority of Egyptians have become disillusioned of Morsi’s government, the most acceptable way of doing away with his service is to follow the democratic process and vote him out at the next elections. And finally, the coup will only further radicalise the Moslem brotherhood and drive it away from the mainstream of Egyptian politics.

One argument for the proposition that the majority of Egyptians still support Morsi lies in the December 2012 referendum. A previously indicated, over 63 percent of those who took part in the vote supported the new constitution despite the groundswell of opposition to it by the organised opposition. There was no indication from anyone that the referendum was rigged. More recently, in May 2013, the Pew Foundation of the US, one of the most credible, non-partisan political research institutions, conducted a survey of Egyptians and the result was that as of May 2013, Mohammed Morsi had an approval rating of 53 percent. It is instructive that this survey was conducted in May – a period of increased turmoil in the country; when the economy of Egypt had nosedived and there was growing insecurity in the country. Yet 53 percent of Egyptians viewed him favourably and thought he was doing a good job. To put that in context, in June 2013 Barack Obama’s approval rating was 47 percent; David Cameron’s was 23 percent; whilst the French President Francois Hollande’s rating was 29 percent in May 2013. None of these leaders faced the type of turmoil faced by Morsi, yet his approval rating trumped the three of them.

Even if Morsi made fundamental errors of judgment, the barrel of the gun is never the appropriate means of resolving democratic conflict. And make no mistake, Morsi really made a number of crucial mistakes. He had a Majoritarian approach to governance – failing to realise that he was the president of all Egyptians and not just for the 51 percent who voted for him last year. Perhaps due to lack of democratic tradition and practice in Egypt, he failed to realise that democracy is all about horse-trading and building consensus amongst disparate and often conflicting interests. Yet, despite this, the fact is Morsi had three years to run before the expiry of the mandate freely given to him by the Egyptian people in 2012 and it is simply wrong for anyone, including the people, to prematurely abort that mandate. The Americans who designed the presidential system of government also incorporate into it a term limit within which a government is allowed to carry out its programmes after which it goes to the electorates for renewal of that mandate. It is at that time that the electorates will choose whether to renew that mandate or vote the government away. Any other method is a recipe for chaos and instability.

Finally, the recent coup in Egypt will do nothing to encourage members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood that there is a place for them in the Egyptian democratic process. There is a subtle parallel with what is happening in Egypt with what happened in Algeria in 1991. When in the 1991 Algerian presidential elections the Islamic Brotherhood Party in Algeria (the FIS) won the first round of voting and was on course to form the government, the military immediately intervened, annulled the elections, banned the FIS and reasserted its control of government. History has simply repeated itself in Egypt in a different but ultimately damaging manner. It is interesting to note that neither the US nor the UK has expressly condemned the unlawful overthrow of Morsi. Indeed, they both appear to have welcomed the development. This is dangerous for Egypt and the region. The danger here is that this ‘Conditional Democracy’ – the idea that the West will countenance the military overthrow of a popularly elected Arab government which appears to gravitate towards an Islamic agenda, has the tendency to drive away key players in Egypt from the political process and drive them into militancy. It makes democratic process a waste of time and makes the West susceptible to valid allegation of hypocrisy – what is the point of partaking in elections when the wishes of the people can be easily aborted to universal acclaim?

Democracy is by no mean a perfect system. It has many ills, one of which is what to do when voters realised, just after an election, that they had just voted into power vagabonds whose policies they passionately oppose. Many presidential constitutions do not allow for a recall of the president. Voters are thus left with the option of impeachment or wait until the next elections before voting out the unpopular regime. In order to build a sustainable democratic culture, fidelity must be maintained towards democratic procedures. Democracy is no a la carte where voters are able to pick, choose and dispense with their leaders without recourse to laid-down rules and procedures. Perhaps one way of avoiding this type of circumstance is for the voters to exercise better judgment when electing their leaders in the first instance. Another is to ensure that the enabling constitutional framework is framed in such a manner that an incumbent is unable to inflict irreversible damage on the nation so that when such incumbent is ultimately voted out of power, their errors will not be fatal on the country. Whatever the magnitude of Morsi’s mistakes, military coup is not the solution to Egypt’s democratic crisis and will not engender the nurturing of Egypt’s democratic culture.

Kareem, a lawyer, is contactable at omoalufa@hotmail.co.uk.

Send reactions to:

comment@s19080.p615.sites.pressdns.com/en