The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has long claimed that it is managing and not ruling the country. In the light of events this week, it is more essential than ever that it defines its role, writes Ahmed El-Tonsi* With violence now erupting in incidents across many governorates, Egypt's transitional phase is passing through a critical juncture. Events in Tahrir Square have exposed the inadequacies of the current power structures within the state and the society, and what took place in the square this week means that the current transitional period has failed to achieve its objectives. In the beginning, the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) was assigned by the ousted president with the prerogatives of the president of the republic. The SCAF then drew up an ambitious roadmap for the transitional period that would end with authority being transferred to a civilian administration. It was planned to see the start of this transfer within six months, but realities on the ground have made this scenario a case of wishful thinking. The army's good intentions have also not been conducive to stable conditions in terms of state building, drafting a constitution, reinforcing institutions and security, and bringing about economic resurgence or at least stabilisation. No less importantly, they have not kept the national consensus at its zenith, as it was during the days of the revolution. Little has been achieved in any of these matters, and almost 10 months have elapsed while further setbacks have occurred despite efforts exerted in addressing them. On many of these issues, such as security, the outcome has not met people's expectations. In fact, there has been a deepening sense of crisis with catastrophic implications over the short as well as the long term. In the same context, the SCAF has been too focussed on the internal front, giving Egypt limited influence over many of the changes taking place across the Middle East. Some of these changes, like the Libyan revolution, require the army's full readiness. Many reasons lie behind the limited progress achieved during the transitional phase. The legacy inherited from ousted former president Hosni Mubarak of a failing state has been one of the key factors that has drastically impacted the efforts of the SCAF in re-establishing state institutions. Similarly, popular demands expressed in various contentious forms have adversely affected SCAF plans, rendering many of its steps mere reactions to an emergency situation rather than proactive ones aiming at addressing the root causes of the crisis. Moreover, fragmentation among the revolutionaries has hindered the evolution of a true partner to the SCAF that could have helped to harness the process of transition. On the other hand, some political forces, essentially old and new political parties, have succeeded in diverting attention away from the pressing issues that should have received the SCAF's full attention. One of these issues has been the appalling economic conditions of growing numbers of Egyptians. There has been a near absence of tangible moves intended to address social disparities, these having been deferred to a post-election government despite their urgent nature. The SCAF has also been subject to intense lobbying from global and regional actors that have caused it to avoid any major shift in policy, whether internal or external. These reasons have interacted to yield the current defective transitional phase, in which many urgent issues are still open and have an uncertain future. Many Egyptians expected more from the SCAF, and they have a point. The history of the army, as well as its role in the revolution, raised the expectations of the population and some of the political elites. For millions, the army seemed to be the only efficient institution to have emerged untainted from the ineffectual and corrupt traits characteristic of Mubarak government institutions. Accordingly, now that urgent issues like security and the economy loom larger than during Mubarak's era, a sense of sweeping frustration has become evident. Frustration is always a function of raised expectations, and Egyptians, as well as the SCAF, have had raised expectations in terms of achieving a quick fix to the situation. The magnitude of Mubarak's catastrophic legacy has been beyond the imagination of the army and definitely beyond that of the population as a whole. The SCAF has been stunned by the degree of decrepitude that many of the failing regime's institutions had reached, a finding that catalysed the army's desire to go it alone. Motivated or not motivated, nobody can tell, by the near absence of efficient institutions or dependable managers in the debris of the old regime, the SCAF decided to do things on its own and maintain its distance from all other forces in the country. Yet, in acting in this way the SCAF reproduced the sins of the Mubarak regime without engaging any new partners, paving the way for opportunists to jump into the forefront of the political scene. It would be easy to blame the SCAF for this, and this may relieve other actors of their share of the blame for the many threats we are now facing. However, other actors have also been involved in damaging Egypt's transitional phase, and they have been no less important in adding to the popular frustration and to that of the revolutionaries. The military's tendency to go it alone has become a common trend over recent decades, when the army was assigned the task of carrying out public services without the help of counterpart civilian agencies. The army, with its rapidly developing sectors and agencies, has become accustomed to carrying out such turn- key assignments, and it is only fair to add that the army's performance has in many cases been more impressive than that of its civilian counterparts. This has intensified the army's long- held sense of its own ability to make things happen, especially when compared to some of the civilian institutions and agencies. Viewed by the people as an institution that can exceed expectations because of its inherent discipline and dedication, the army's sense of mission has been increased, and corruption scandals among former regime politicians have only consolidated the growing sense in the military that it should do things alone. Even more decisive in supporting this sense was the welcome extended by the population to the army during the 28 January Revolution. The military was given the task of saving the country, and in fact this was very much what it did: the old regime's institutions and managers had shown themselves unable to manage it alone. As a result, since the revolution the SCAF has preferred to run the country itself. However, state-building is not a turn-key project. Instead, it is a matter of bridge-building, such that authority can be safely transferred in the future. Moreover, it requires the participation of all the country's citizens or their representatives. It must be built on a national consensus, with all that consensus's inevitable compromises and trade-offs. Just as serious have been the appeals made by the SCAF to the ousted regime's opponents, among them the Muslim Brotherhood, with the latter's long history of appeasement, containment and finally confrontation with regimes in Egypt from the movement's foundation in the 1920s onwards. The Brotherhood's current visibility on the political scene has also unleashed other Islamist groups, essentially the Salafis, and their goal of reshaping Egypt. The SCAF overestimated the size and patriotism of many factions within Egypt's political elites, while not making gestures towards their most promising partner: the revolutionaries. The SCAF promulgated a constitutional declaration that would guide the process of transition. But what looked odd here was the emphasis on amending articles in the old constitution, even as the idea was to draft an entirely new one. Evidently those working on the constitutional amendments, all SCAF appointees, were not consulted on the form and content of the declaration. The SCAF went ahead with a referendum on the amendments, while keeping silent about the announcement of a new declaration for a few days after the popular approval of the amendments. This needless secrecy was strange, since it seemed that the SCAF wanted a new constitutional declaration of more than 70 articles, while it deliberated with its own committee on amending eight articles of the abrogated one. If this points to anything, it is to the intention of the SCAF to manage the transition alone at its own pace, and in fact it was the first time that the SCAF showed its willingness to set its own rules for the transitional period. This misstep by the SCAF also spoke to what could be a more lasting shift on the political scene. Notwithstanding such ambivalences, the revolutionaries have started to feel alienated from the mainstream, while other political forces, both old and new, have identified what look like opportunities in an emerging yet ill-defined political landscape. The frustration felt by the Copts at what they have perceived as a victory for the Islamists has been particularly serious, and the Islamists have spared no efforts in showing their support for the SCAF and in projecting an image of being close to the decision-making process. It has not just been the revolutionaries who have felt signs of exclusion. The Copts for the first time have shown a willingness to end their political apathy and participate in shaping the new Egypt. Many crises have subsequently happened between the SCAF and the revolutionaries and the Copts, the latter two groups having had dreams for the new Egypt in which both groups would start to play an active political role after years of isolation. Both groups participated in the January Revolution, and both had ambitions of remaking Egypt. Yet, today such dreams have turned into nightmares, as open confrontations have erupted between the SCAF and the two groups. The SCAF has not engaged with the highly fragmented revolutionaries, who in turn have started to show their disenchantment with the ruling council, culminating in the confrontation with the military police that took place on the eve of 23 July. The two Maspero confrontations represented the culmination of the alienation of a large section of the Copts. These two partners of the revolution have become dislocated as a result, while the political elites have engaged with the SCAF in the political process. This has been detrimental to the state-building process, since it has meant that the political forces have largely wasted the already limited amount of time available to the country in the transitional period. Therefore, it can be said that the March referendum and the constitutional declaration were the starting points for the derailment of the transitional period and its diversion from the right path to accomplish the revolution's objectives. The SCAF has long claimed that it is "managing" and not ruling the state. However, management is essentially about people and not just about processes or timetables. It is about empowerment, delegation, engagement and participation. If the country were well-managed the present prime minister would act as a real leader for the cabinet. Besides, managing a state presupposes the existence of institutions, each performing its assigned functions according to an overall plan. Yet, in the case of Egypt some of the vital institutions have either been dissolved, like the legislature, or decapitated, like the caretaker government. This vague notion of managing, not ruling, the state has no parallel in any other transitional phase of any other state, where laying the foundations for a new era is the major function of the transitional authority, not keeping the rubble of a corrupt regime in place. The people, who represent the third pillar of the revolution, have been denied any way of improving their socioeconomic standards, which were the main reason they joined the revolution in the first place. Obviously, nothing has changed there. Just as serious has been the resentment and alienation felt by growing numbers of people towards the way things have been going. The control, or even containment, of the masses has become an exceptionally difficult task, bearing in mind the appalling condition of the regular security forces. In addressing rising popular demands, we should note that political activism has become a global phenomenon, and that the on-going politicisation of the populace is not just an Egyptian phenomenon. Many researchers, including the US analyst and politician Zbigniew Brzezinski, have identified increasing and broadening politicisation across the globe, and he has coined the term "global political awakening" to describe it. According to Brzezinski, "for the first time in human history almost all of humanity is politically activated, politically conscious and politically interactive. There are only a few pockets of humanity left in the remotest corners of the world that are not politically alert and engaged with the political turmoil and stirrings that are so widespread today around the world. The resulting global political activism is generating a surge in the quest for personal dignity, cultural respect and economic opportunity in a world painfully scarred by memories of centuries-long alien colonial or imperial domination." Such developments, highlighted by Brzezinski in 2008, have parallels in our revolution's slogans. Not only Egyptians have become politically active, but activism has had its own global as well as regional ramifications. The on- going political activism of the population will likely continue, and it won't be contained by traditional stratagems or institutions. The brutality of the police in dealing with the protesters in Tahrir Square was of no value, except to show how obsolete our security apparatus had become. Contentious politics are the rule worldwide, and this is particularly the case during the present phase of democratisation. This is the lesson of history, as indicated by democratisation experiences in various countries, from which we should learn. Our political forces should be aware of the disruptive and sometimes violent nature of such politics, which will not subside and will have their own demands regardless of the level of democratisation. Perceptions of the role to be played by the SCAF in all this have varied among the people, the revolutionaries, the political elites, and even the media. Sometimes when there is no conclusive evidence in medicine pointing to a specific condition, physicians resort to what is called "diagnosis by exclusion," meaning that they define a condition by what it is not and by excluding other options. In the case of the SCAF, it is clear that it is not the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) that ran the country after the 1952 Revolution, though many, for good or bad, have thought of the SCAF as if it were the RCC. Those aspiring for the SCAF to play the role of the RCC have been waiting for the SCAF to make decisive decisions regarding various pending issues, such as the deteriorating economic conditions in the country. On the other side have been those who have historical objections to the RCC and consequently have been pressuring the SCAF not to play a similar role. Harsh criticisms have been made of the SCAF, which has had no reason to look as apologetic as it sometimes has done. The game has been repeated many times, and it has been successful in getting concessions from the SCAF, including on the elections law, which was a result of pressure on the ruling council from many political forces. The SCAF is not part of the ousted Mubarak regime, though the military has been an integral institution of the Egyptian state since its establishment. The army was not ruling from behind the scenes during the Mubarak era, since he allowed no power to be exercised beyond his own and obstructed the emergence of any potential successor or power base in the state. Such intended misperceptions on behalf of many political forces have been effectively utilised in extracting political gains from the SCAF, such as the establishment of political parties with overt religious affiliations. In a deliberate misperception of the exact role of the SCAF, some aspirants for power have blackmailed the SCAF, and unfortunately it too has been misled by forces with a history of persecution to gain short-term political gains. The SCAF has been embroiled in the quagmire of a failing state with a vibrant civil society formed of a recently politicised population and many aspirants for power. The SCAF's declaration that it is not after power should be taken seriously, and mistrust of its intentions is unfounded. The army's role in the revolution should not be forgotten. More than that, Egypt needs the contribution of the army as the only remaining institution able to guarantee its statehood. When people talk about the transfer of authority to a civilian government, it is essential to ask what authority is to be transferred. The SCAF represents the hard power and prowess of the army, as well as the soft power emanating from popular belief in the army as an institution that has been facing difficulties in imposing law and order. What will the case be with the next civilian government, built on a narrow majority or shaky coalition? The army's role in the current period is indispensable, and we have to avoid further missteps by developing a new formula that can accommodate the indispensable army role. For its part, the SCAF should rethink the current situation and not just the elections. It should assess the flawed transitional phase with all its mishaps, including its approach to decision-making. Priorities are becoming more pressing, particularly the security crisis and the near collapse of the economy. In order to act effectively, the SCAF should establish a presidential council formed of a limited number of non-partisan politicians, and this council should be assigned the duty of rebuilding the state. Members of the council should be selected from among experienced statesmen who have a record of confidence among the people and not just the elites. The council should be vested with the power to implement its decisions through the various ministers, who will be accountable to the council. The council should be presided over by a military man, who would liaise with the SCAF, which would be assigned the pressing task of restoring security to the country. The SCAF is in need of a political body that can run the transitional period. Such a body is the only hope of overcoming the on-going problems in which all of us, in one way or another, have participated. The people should be able to participate in the upcoming elections and be able to decide on their future, while rejecting the political apathy that has been characteristic of Egyptians. Many people are counting on their participation. * The writer is a political analyst.
