DEMOCRACY’S FLAW AND THE NASCENT SYMPTOMS OF EGYPTIAN AMNESIA
A watershed moment or an unhistoric vote? (MFB)
HURGHADA - Let’s put it out there: the results from the preliminary round of the presidential elections in Egypt portend a failure by the revolution to yield real, democratic change. Some may disagree and say that the people have spoken and that the votes though fragmented were genuinely cast. So let it be written, so it shall be done. But this is where the revolutionary will hits a wall.
Majority rule is no democracy, and even if it were, Egypt is neither. If you look at the sheer numbers in the distribution of votes according to the Presidential Elections Committee (PEC), you’ll see that it’s almost evenly divvied up among the top contenders, with no majority: Mohamed Morsy: 5,764,952, Ahmed Shafiq: 5,505,327; Hamdeen Sabbahi: 4,820,273, Abdel Moneim Abouel Fottouh: 4,065,239, Amr Moussa: 2,588,850. For many Egyptians a second round-vote between the top two candidates is an unsavory vote between Scylla and Charybdis.
An elected Ahmed Shafiq, allegedly tied to the Battle of the Camels in Tahrir last year (arguably the most gruesome attack by Mubarak supporters on protesters during the revolution), would be a throwback to the former regime and would barter a feigned revolutionary legacy that mirrors the moot success of the Solidarity elections against Communism in Poland in 1989. On the other hand a victory by Mohamed Morsi would concede control over the entire government to the Muslim Brotherhood, which already makes up the largest bloc in the Egyptian parliament and the Constituent Assembly, the appointed body tasked with authoring a new constitution.
In speaking with taxi drivers, students, journalists, engineers and Egyptians across the board, there is a palpable disconnect between the determination of the revolution and its political articulation.
“It’s depressing,” says an editor of a English daily based in Cairo.
A student who voted for the more left-leaning Hamdeen Sabbahi, expressed a similar sentiment at the results.
“It’s like deciding between shooting myself or being stoned to death. Either way, I’m dead. It’s very depressing,” he says.
Others more vocal and active in the revolution chose not to vote at all. Some were dissuaded by the initial choice of candidates, calling it a “circus.” And still others were discouraged by the inconvenience of having to vote in one’s own district. Many Cairenes did not vote because they are registered in towns and villages outside of Cairo. Of the 51 million eligible voters, less than half came out to the polls.
The supporters of the revolution would have likely garnered a majority vote in the presidential elections had they rallied under a single candidate. But lacking central leadership or even a demagogic figure, anti-Mubarak sympathizers were swayed into splintered factions. Like the protests of 1968, the Egyptian revolution was stirred by dissatisfied youth, who championed a grassroots method of dissent and challenged the status quo en masse with no distinct head. These demonstrations are undoubtedly romantic in their executions of democratic ideals, but they face the tragic reality of compromising with the human tendency towards control, power, and undemocratic rule.
The Arab Spring would have made the perfect opportunity to embolden a socio-epistemological change in the accepted forms of legitimate government. A reassessment of the political institutions and their processes, which validated the longstanding regimes, may better qualify the revolutionary’s discontent (like consociationalism over majority rule). It is clear that deposing a dictator alone does not preclude state oppression. In Egypt the possibility of greater repression of minorities and their rights under a conservative, Islamist government still stands.
So how will the 50% of voters who did not vote for Morsi or Shafiq decide in the second round? Will there be a larger turnout? Or will they wash their hands and boycott the election, take to the streets and reignite the revolution?
Maybe, we’re onto another historical episode of social amnesia where in four years the revolution wouldn’t matter. Then again, perhaps this week, Egyptians have already forgotten.
The eternal return is upon us.