Evidently, President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have been passing through a series of crises that have deeply affected the state under establishment and the whole of society. In nearly all economic, political and social dimensions, the substandard — if not poor — performance of the president and his associates has inevitably pushed state and society to the edge. Many of the crises have been a manifestation of the Muslim Brotherhood's disastrous interface with the complex realities of Egypt in multiple spheres. This has reflected a widening gap between, on the one hand, the escalated draconian challenges facing the Brotherhood while ruling the Egyptian state and society, and its obviously limited intrinsic capabilities in addressing such challenges or threats on the other. The Brotherhood has resorted to tightening its grip on the state, aiming at consolidating its power across different agencies. Instead of broadening its pool of talents and/or ideas through partnership with other forces the Brotherhood has deliberately excluded other stakeholders from participation in the reshaping of the state in the aftermath of January's revolution. Such exclusionist stratagem has proved risky, as it has further exposed the vulnerabilities of the Brotherhood, especially its lack in sufficient cadres to staff the various state agencies. As such, building state institutions — the basic task of Morsi — has become reduced to a long array of legal cases raised and challenged before the various types of courts, embroiling the judiciary in day-to-day politics. What is more serious is the Brotherhood's historic misunderstanding of the dramatic change that took place with the Egyptian revolution, ending the state's subordination of society. The latter has massively changed from the so-called silent majority to become highly divided with many of its sectors ending their silence and directing their resentment towards the so-called the Islamic project. Among the latter many have started to question the validity of Brotherhood's basic slogan: Islam is the solution. Put differently, the Brotherhood has failed to contain Egypt's post-revolution society with its volatile political landscape. It can be said that the only form of consensus that Morsi has been unintentionally cementing has been a growing popular conviction that the Islamists have been stunningly unable to manage state and society. The abandoned presidential institution with its continuous flux of resigning aides and assistants has been a depiction of such deeply rooted mismanagement. And the shockingly frank statements Mohamed Fouad Gaballah made in his resignation should be viewed as an official indictment against the failing regime. Marc Lynch has summarised the performance of the Brotherhood stating: “The greatest surprise in the Brotherhood's post-2011 performance has been its simple incompetence. The Brotherhood's behaviour in power and in the post-revolutionary environment more broadly has been appalling, strategically inept, and enormously destructive of the broader social consensus. It is rightly blamed for much of the social polarisation and institutional dysfunction that has plagued Egypt's transition.” Odd, yet highly true, has been Lynch's attribution of the incompetence to the Brotherhood and not to its political party, its MPs or to the presidential “institution”. Illusory have become such superstructures that have been resting on the Brotherhood, the only substructure underlying the current ruling regime. Lack of experience has been pinpointed by the Brotherhood's sympathisers as the reason underlying its devastatingly poor performance, whether in the executive branch or in the legislature. However, such reasoning is rather erroneous as the grim reality has been that the Brotherhood and its cadres have been utterly bankrupt. Had experience been the sole reason for such unprecedented poor performance, the Brotherhood would have shown gradual improvement on the learning curve reflected in a better quality of governance. In fact, the opposite has been true, as the performance of the Brotherhood in both the legislature and the executive has exhibited a declining curve. In other words, Morsi has been endlessly repeating his mistakes, a condition that has rendered his 10-month rule a continuum of missteps. This uninterrupted path of wrong decisions has been evident on both the strategic as well as the tactical levels. On the strategic level, Morsi has had a distorted list of priorities where security improvement, economic stabilisation and building national consensus have fared low in Morsi's priorities. The same could be said on the tactical level where many of Morsi's limited actions or reactions have been characteristically either too little or too late. Accordingly, the performance of the Brotherhood has not been the sum of its lack of political experience but rather an outcome of its intrinsic inadequacies and limited capabilities. Moreover, the Brotherhood's obviously limited potential is the outcome of intrinsic structural and cultural factors that have impeded the emergence of reliable leaders and valid strategic options. According to Nathan Brown, “the Brotherhood was not built primarily for politics and certainly not for governing.” The group's poor performance has been manifest in the ceaseless drop in Morsi's approval rate. An example was the most recent poll conducted by the Egyptian Centre for Public Opinion Research (Baseera), stating that Morsi's job approval rating hit an all-time low in March, with 47 per cent of Egyptians thinking he was doing well, compared to 78 per cent after his first 100 days in power. Against such documented decline, Morsi on the other hand has been confidently claiming that his popularity has been on the rise. Not less important has been the image of the Brotherhood and its impact on how the other nations have been viewing Egypt. For instance, The Washington Post has recently pointed to a poll, conducted by the Arab American Institute, revealing that, “only 36 per cent of Americans had favourable views of Egypt, down from 66 per cent in 1997. At least some of the decline has been attributed to the Muslim Brotherhood, and to Morsi himself.” Attempting to negate the obviously rising popular disenchantment with the ruling regime and its deplorable practices, the Brotherhood has been pointing to the highly controversial results of the last referendum on the constitution. Such results, the Brotherhood claims, manifest a growing acceptance for Morsi's rule as the percentage approval of the constitution (67 per cent) was higher than that (52 per cent) achieved by Morsi in the June 2012 presidential elections. However, apart from the various mishaps surrounding the referendum and the voting processes and results, the “no” vote added to those who boycotted the referendum, describing the draft as the Brotherhood's constitution, almost certainly constitute the numeric majority when voter turnout is taken into account. The regime's performance crisis has ceaselessly eroded its legitimacy. Accordingly, Morsi's credentials have been fading, leaving a shadowy frame of an electoral right to rule that has become de facto, devoid of nearly all normative or teleological elements necessary for considering a regime truly legitimate. In effect, the regime's poor performance has become a chronic issue that may intensify further, bearing in mind the volatility of the socio-political order, on the one hand, and the precariousness of the economic situation on the other. The regime has been losing immunity, with any minimal problem escalating to a fully-fledged crisis, local strife transforming to sectarian conflict, and court verdicts presaging national catastrophes. Morsi has to face the reality that after January 2011 Egypt will not be ruled by a rayyes, or all-powerful ruler, even if elected in a free and fair electoral contest. The time of the all-powerful ruler, with broad prerogatives and unchecked powers, has simply come to an end. Only accountable presidents with solid performances and meaningful contributions will be legitimate. The presidential seat as a source of in-built legitimacy has ceased to exist. Evidently Morsi and his association have been denying such historical change. No less important, has been the changing political landscape that would never allow any president to act as a rayyes. Many have talked about Morsi's need for a change of mind and behaviour, to cope with the Egyptian political landscape with its complexities. Even many of Morsi's followers praised his willingness and readiness to accommodate. Yet the issue is about more than Morsi's own capacity to change. Morsi cannot change unless he becomes aware of the desperate situation assailing Egypt's current path. And even if he changes, will the Brotherhood change?
