A major outcome of Egypt's defective transition period, or periods, has been the slow evolution of a mainstream popular bloc that has imposed its will upon the political landscape. By slow is meant the fact that this evolution has passed through multiple steps and has eventually given birth to a popular bloc that forms an embryonic form of national consensus. It has also meant the appearance of a solid majority of Egyptians who rose up in June 2013 and achieved a landslide victory in the referendum on the new constitution and in the recent presidential elections. Following the ousting of former president Mohamed Morsi last July, this national bloc has reflected growing cohesion, while at the same time fighting the terrorism launched by the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies. Within the same context, this national bloc has also identified recently inaugurated President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi as its potential and now actual leader. It was consolidated through the ebbs and flows of the three years following the 25 January Revolution, and of particular importance in this consolidation was the election of Morsi in June 2012, which divided the nation. Morsi's year in office was pivotal in consolidating the formation of the emerging national bloc through his group's failed attempts at Islamising the Egyptian state and society. Popular resentment against Morsi's rule cemented the newly formed national bloc, which effectively halted the development of a fundamentalist state in Egypt. No less important in the mainstream-building process was the terrorism espoused and practised by the Brotherhood in the aftermath of Morsi's ousting. This sharpened the previously ill-defined boundaries of the national bloc through the de facto and de jure exclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood, making it an underground anti-system organisation. Holding a national referendum on the newly drafted constitution as well as the recent presidential elections have added further momentum to this process through marginalising extremist views, such as those held by young ultra-liberals and a tiny minority of socialist revolutionaries. Instead, the bloc has been formed of a loose amalgamation of people from different age groups, social backgrounds and political orientations that have a shared objective of going beyond, and remedying, the current status quo. In fact, this national bloc is close to political commentator Tarek Al-Bishri's definition of a major national current, which he has described as “the common element that is shared by the nation's communities, sects and social and political components.” In other words, the bloc is the shared element that will help the country overcome the socio-economic debacle that formed the framework of the situation described by Al-Bishri. Being a cross section of Egyptian society, this major trend is diverse in its political spectrum, which has extended to include liberals, nationalists, mainly Nasserites, leftists and even some Islamists represented by the Salafi trend. However, the critical mass within the major current has predominantly had no specific ideological preference. It is made up of the people who revolted against the rule of ousted former president Hosni Mubarak in January 2011 and then again against that of Morsi in June 2013. For this critical mass, Al-Sisi is now the man who can calm the revolution. This “Thermidor,” or calming period, described by US academic Crane Brinton in his book Anatomy of the Revolution, is designed to end the terror and chaos that in any revolution can characterise earlier periods. According to Brinton, every revolution has a Thermidor, a period like “a convalescence after a fever, because human nature can't take the extremists and their revolutionary purity for too long.” Though the Egyptian Revolution has been a typical in many respects, it now seems that the critical mass that took part in Egypt's two uprisings wanted to end the untoward features of the revolution, namely the chaos that has impacted, if not completely interrupted, people's daily lives. Al-Sisi, a charismatic leader, is the outcome of the challenging period that Egypt has been passing through. A major achievement of the Egyptian Revolution has been its demystification of the ruler and its demand for his accountability to the public. Egyptians will never abandon this hard-won right. Meanwhile, the events of the last three years have made Egyptians more than ever insist on the need to establish the rule of law in the state and society. Al-Sisi's candidacy and subsequent election to the presidency, despite the domestic and foreign allegations against him, was the free choice of Egypt's people who participated in two successful uprisings. And the will of a free nation should be accepted and respected. The writer is a political commentator.
