Mohamed El-Baradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has bowed out of Egypt's presidential race. Justifying his sudden announcement, El-Baradei spoke of the erratic course of the interim phase and deplored the inability of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to keep the country on the right path. Before the 25 January Revolution, our system of government was despotic. Calling it presidential was just a euphemism. The Americans have a presidential system, and it works altogether differently. The US president, although he holds the reins of the executive branch, cannot implement any policy without congressional approval of the bills he proposes. His nominees to top executive posts have to be screened by Congress. Although he is the one who calls the shots, he is vetted -- and can be stopped -- every step of the way. In the aftermath of dictatorships, power tends to disperse among several political factions, which may complicate decision-making unless viable coalitions emerge. Therefore, a strong president leading a cohesive executive, without necessarily commanding the excessive powers Mubarak once had, could be a boost to stability. Ten months ago, the nation voted yes to constitutional amendments proposed by SCAF. According to those amendments, the first step in rebuilding the country's political apparatus was to elect a new parliament. After that, SCAF will ask parliament to form a constitutive assembly. The latter will write the constitution, and then we'll have presidential elections. This is the sequence we're now following, and it poses quite a few problems. What, for example, happens if the new constitution de- legalises the manner in which the last parliament was elected? Wouldn't we need to elect another parliament? Also, we seem to have a lot of presidential hopefuls, but no clear idea of the powers the new president would have. Let's assume, for argument's sake, that the new constitution would go for a parliamentary system, one in which the president's powers would be nominal at best. In this case, all the fuss about the presidential elections would be unjustified. Now that we have a parliament -- or at least the lower house of one -- it is clear that the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) has emerged as the largest party in the People's Assembly, and will not have much trouble forming a coalition. But one source for political instability remains, which is the potential clash between the policies of the parliamentary majority on the one hand and the secular elite and other pressure groups on the other. This is why it may be helpful to have a presidential system at present. A strong president, acting within democratic boundaries, may be able to bring about the consensus we need. A lot, however, depends on what the Muslim Brotherhood wants. The FJP is the largest party in the parliament, with the Salafist Nour Party, with quarter of the vote, a distant second. So one has to assume that the constitutive assembly, which will write the constitution, would be dominated by the Islamists. Not quite the situation one would hope for when a country is writing a crucial document that may affect its future for decades to come. Now we have to choose. Either we go for a parliamentary system that would concentrate political power in the hands of the Brotherhood and other Islamists. Or we would opt for a presidential system that involves some power sharing between the president and the parliament. In the case of a presidential system, the Brotherhood and the president will have to work closely. The Muslim Brotherhood is not going to abide an adversarial president, so someone like Gamal Abdel-Nasser is out of the question. But what kind of president would the Brotherhood support? So far, the Brotherhood is not sharing its thoughts. It was said that its preferred candidate is a professor of economics and political science, or Arab League chief Nabil El-Arabi, or Consultative Council chief Mansour Hassan. Amr Moussa is also a possibility. For all intents and purposes, the Muslim Brotherhood will influence the choice of the next president. No presidential candidate will be taken seriously unless he has the Brotherhood's stamp of approval. For the sake of democratic decorum, the Muslim Brotherhood says that it will not field any presidential candidates. But even so, it is in the driving seat. None of this is reassuring. The building of our post-revolutionary institutions calls for a new attitude. A lot of people have worked hard for this revolution and a lot have sacrificed their lives. So we need to see real change in this country. And we need our parliamentarians to share, not monopolise, power.
