A barrier is being erected separating the president, his party and their parent association from growing numbers of Egyptians. This barrier essentially reflects a negative assessment of the current power structure of the ruling troika formed of the president, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and the Muslim Brotherhood association. The focus of the troika has been on its consolidation of power while deferring the most pressing social questions, and this has been behind its ongoing failure to maintain its narrowly won majority in the last presidential elections. \par This very visible barrier has been cemented by the Brotherhood\rquote s arrogantly coercive behaviour towards its opponents. In a highly emotional society that has been passing through a turbulent transformation process, such behaviour plays an important role in shaping the attitude of the mass of th e people towards the political actors. In effect, the practices of the Muslim Brotherhood, with its apparently limited number of true politicians and capable leaders, have to a great extent been conducive to the growing sense of unease felt by some sectors of Egyptian society. The net result has been that the troika has been facing a real crisis in managing citizens with their diverse legitimate needs that should be adequately met. \par For decades, the Brotherhood has been addressing Egyptians as voters with basic, short-term and non-binding needs and not as citizens with long-denied demands that have escalated to high expectations in the aftermath of the 25 January Revolution. This shif t in status from mere voters to true citizens has not been accompanied by a parallel upgrading in the Brotherhood\rquote s capabilities to address the change. Accordingly, the social contract between the Brotherhood and its ever-ready constituency has been revised by many of its long-term adherents, supporters and sympathisers. \par The famous electoral machine of the Brotherhood has been looking increasingly exhausted and the recent demonstrations in front of Cairo University were indicative of the group\rquote s weakened capacity for mobilisation, such that major segments of the demonstrators were in fact Salafis and Jihadis. The horizontal expansion of the Brotherhood\rquote s members to encompass new supporters from the political Islamists has not been risk free for an organisation built on a vertical structure of unconditional obedience. This attempt on the part of the Brotherhood to broaden its basis of support will be politically expensive, even as the group is looking bankrupt in terms of future rewards.\par The Brotherhood has been left with no other choice but to maintain and restore its hard-won elec toral victories through political elimination and not just exclusion of its competitors. It has come to the forefront of the political scene as a force that has practically no equivalent counterforce to balance it that can match its political clout. The fi rst counterforce, now pushed to the back of the political scene, was the former ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), a major actor throughout the transitional phase. Ending the directly political role of the SCAF was the first objective pursu ed by the troika, followed by dismantling the judiciary and disabling its prestigious status as a relatively independent institution. \par However, such moves have further deepened the crisis in the troika by magnifying the anxieties of its political adversaries while at the same time raising the expectations of its supporters. The current crisis summed up in the president\rquote s recent constitutional declaration is part of a broader crisis related to the troika\rquote s bankruptcy in terms of its identification of tangibl e options related to the future of a state that is still on its way to being established, the highly divided state of the country\rquote s politics and the serious issues of social justice with all their various ramifications. Evidently, the troika is not qualified to address such interrelated issues alone, even as it has been arrogantly claiming its mastery of the political street. \par Perhaps president Mohamed Morsi\rquote s ultimate achievement will be to highlight the originally ill-defined boundaries around the Brothe rhood, with its predominantly inexperienced political cadres and sympathisers. Morsi has unintentionally succeeded in differentiating the group as a well-circumscribed political entity, a development which has rendered the Brotherhood very visible and has made it politically accountable before the public. For decades, the Brotherhood looked like untapped potential: persecuted by successive regimes that feared its coming to power, it began to look like a ready-made panacea for the maladies of Egypt and Egypt ians. However, this deliberately ambiguous halo has now faded, leaving the group exposed in all its stark reality, ideology, structure, leaders, and policies strategies.\par The Brotherhood now faces a moment of truth, and for the second time in its first year in power it has demonstrated its inadequacies, first in the legislature realm and second in the presidency. Morsi has delivered a strong message about the group\rquote s view of political governance, which amounts to its long-held belief that this is from the gr oup, by the group, and to the group. As such, it will inevitably become a well-defined political entity with a poor record in managing the state and leading the society. \par Clearly, the Brotherhood has been burnt in the quagmire of post-revolutionary Egyptian politics. This can easily be seen in people's description of the troika as the ruling regime and one whose downfall they have been demanding rather than seeing it as sim ply the elected legislative or executive authority. The demonstrations, protests and sit-ins against the Brotherhood have attributed the current debacle in the country to its rule as the substructure lying beneath the superstructure of the Freedom and Justice Party and President Morsi. Such a link between the troika\rquote s rule and the present appalling sociopolitical crisis has become inevitable. Though the troika may tactically be able to flex its muscles against the judiciary and against growing sectors within society, strategically the Brotherhood has failed to present itself as a valid poli tical option. \par Indeed, it has become evident that the Brotherhood has become a form of sub-national loyalty and that it is led by a narrow echelon of leaders of limited capability directing mindless zealots. It has been identified as a form of oligarchy reminiscent of th e ousted regime of former president Hosni Mubarak. Many have thus seen in the Brotherhood merely a form of d'8ej'88 vu of the earlier regime with all its failures. \par Many signs point to rising disenchantment with the Brotherhood and not just w ith the FJP or Morsi. The recent attacks on Brotherhood and FJP premises have been expressive of such popular attitudes against the group. The Brotherhood will be misled if it attempts to reassure, if not deceive, itself to the effect that these attacks we re directed by remnants of the former regime, the so-called }{\plain \i\fs28 fulul.}{\plain \fs28 Rather, they should be interpreted as part of the ongoing development of rising antipathies against the group and its surrogate Party that cannot be negated by rallies of support arranged by the Brotherhood.\par Many people have wishfully thought that Morsi could function as a president for all Egyptians, a dream that has now turned into a nightmare with Morsi highly dependent on rallies of support organised by the Brotherhood and its surrogate Party. While such r allies can work as a form of solidarity with a troubled president, they cannot offset the impacts of wrong decisions felt by some sectors within the polity. On the contrary, such forms of solidarity have further highlighted the role of t he Brotherhood in presidential affairs, casting dark shadows on the decision-making process. \par Egypt cannot be reduced to a mismanaged professional syndicate like those that have been monopolised and ruined by the Brotherhood, its sole form of political experience. Management gurus have long stressed that if leaders cannot identify solutions for a g iven problem, they become part of it, if not its cause.\par }\pard {\plain \i\fs28 \par The writer is a political analyst.\par }}
