Some believe that the political violence Egypt is experiencing these days threatens to destroy the political process. Others argue that boycotting the elections will bring this about, while yet a third camp of opinion holds that failure to realise the aims of the revolution and retribution for the revolution's martyrs undermine the legitimacy of the political process. Contrary to such claims, while all of these factors may weaken or rock the political process, these are not the factors that, either individually or combined, can destroy it. The violence in Muqattam last week, which marked a dangerous turn in the nature and magnitude of violence in the country, would never have reached this level had the Muslim Brotherhood not failed to rehabilitate the police as a professional and neutral agency capable of remaining above the political fray and unaligned with the current ruling clique. Political violence, boycotting elections and other manifestations of protest and discontent do not surface and escalate unless the major political forces fail to resolve the country's most pressing problems and unless those in power set down and play by fair rules for a political process that will bring on board the majority of opposition forces, even if a small minority of opposition forces remains marginalised, as is generally the case in all democratic experiences. Free and fair elections alone are not enough to guarantee a successful political process. There must also exist a political order capable of embracing the greater majority of effective voices in society in a gamut of political and legislative activities and decision-making processes that take place between one election and the next. Indeed, the success of any system of government resides in its ability to engage the broadest possible spectrum of political forces, segments of society and younger generations into the political process, and to respond if only partially to the diverse ideas they voice. Conversely, rigidity and exclusion, the inability to reform and rejuvenate itself, and the aversion to the development and incorporation of new ideas are the keys to failure, loss of legitimacy and perhaps collapse, as occurred with the Mubarak regime after 30 years in power. A successful political process is primarily the product of a successful system of government (as opposed to merely successful elections) capable of remaining open to all that is new taking shape in society and capable of drawing revolutionary and extremist trends into the democratic process precisely because it can convince them of the value of the legitimate political process and hence the electoral process, and therefore induce them to recognise the legitimacy of the ballot box and the political and legislative consequences. Examples of successful experiences of this nature are to be found in post-World War Europe and especially in France after the 1968 student rebellion when many of the youth who had been communist and Trotskyist revolutionaries eventually became leaders and members of reformist socialist parties. The same applies to Turkey where a secular democratic system, in spite of its shortcomings, brought on board most of the Islamist trends that had previously formed a radical opposition that sought to destroy the Ataturk republican order at a time when the latter was equally determined to eliminate Islamists from the political process. Ultimately, the chief function of a system of government is to create a political process for the effective and peaceful management of national affairs. It follows that such a process must be as inclusive as possible. The very opposite was the case under the Mubarak regime. Its reverberating fall was the outcome of years of almost total exclusion of influential political forces, the Islamists above all. If the regime had had the flexibility to absorb a portion of the Islamist camp and to give it the opportunity to engage in a political system in accordance with the rules and provisions of the constitution and the law, the majority of that camp would have gradually evolved, and we would see, today, a truly democratic Islamist trend whose chief aim is not to monopolise power and exclude everyone else. It is also the case that we would not be in the situation we are in today following the rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood, which took advantage of its new found power to tailor to itself the rules of the political process from the constitution and electoral laws to the continued extraordinary influence of this group above the law, the institutions of the state and, to its thinking, the rulings of the judiciary, had there been a proper ground plan for a system of government, prepared during the transitional period, before the Muslim Brothers — or any other party — came to power under the rules of the new order. Unfortunately, one of the gravest mistakes committed by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces was that it facilitated a smooth handover of power to the Muslim Brotherhood without so much as requiring that this organisation establish itself as a legal entity, and by allowing parliamentary elections to proceed before a new constitution was drafted, or at least before a consensus was reached on the general principles and framework of a constitution. The result was that Egypt followed the reverse order of those countries that had made successful transitions to democracy, because they had set down the constitution first, through a truly representative consensual process, thereby establishing the frameworks and principles of government, the rules of the political game and an even playing field before rival political forces entered electoral races and engaged in other political processes. A successful government is an open and dynamic one, a government that can offer hope to all. It is a government that does not need to rely on coercion and force as its means of persuasion, one that can entertain innovative solutions to its problems rather than blaming its failures on a “conspiracy” and levelling Mubarak-like smears and allegations against the political opposition. An effective government is one that can get things done, not just because it can influence others but also, and more importantly, because it can be influenced: it can accommodate new ideas, explore ways to improve its performance, and alter its ways of thinking and behaving. An effective government is also one that can take the lead in de-radicalising extremists or revolutionaries, inducing them to bring their ideas or dreams down to earth and to work in practical and legitimate ways to realise them. But this will not happen in Egypt until there is a system of government that reflects the spirit of all the Egyptian people, and not just the views and aspirations of the Muslim Brotherhood. Therefore, to reduce Egypt's current problem to “violence” and “radical protest groups” is inaccurate and misleading. The problem resides first and foremost in a political regime that, to a broad sector of Egyptians, is exclusivist with the added irony that those in power today were not so long ago the victims of the cruelties of the politics of exclusion of the former regime, in spite of which they are currently reapplying many of the same methods. Egypt, today, is teeming with new political forces and trends that are seeking to have an effective say in the shape of our society and its future. Yet the current regime is incapable of assimilating them into the political process. Worse yet, it has driven many to question the value of that process and the value of electoral participation that, in a democratic order, presumes the assimilation of the greater majority of political forces into the political process. The longer the government fails to draw the new political forces and trends into the political process, the louder and more influential the protest voice will become. But this will be due not so much to the inherent strength of that voice as to the weaknesses and fragility of the political process.
The writer is a political analyst in Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies and a former MP.
