Egypt's next president will need to rebuild national consensus, restore the prestige of the country's damaged institutions, and act to end the economic crisis, writes Ahmed El-Tonsi According to the timetable, Egypt's transitional period is supposedly reaching its due date at the end of June with the transfer of power from the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to an elected civilian government. Theoretically, the timetable of the transitional period has been followed, and there has been no delay. The drafting of the new constitution and the holding of the presidential elections were the last two steps in this timetable, as approved by the political forces. The first round of the presidential elections took place on 23 May. However, the drafting of the country's new constitution has been obstructed because of the exclusionist attitudes of the Islamist forces, which have resulted in the current political impasse. As a result, the new president will start his term in office at a time when the Constitutional Declaration of March 2011, with all its multiple inadequacies and ambiguities, is still the country's basic law. Fortunately, or unfortunately -- it depends on one's personal perspective on the Islamist trend -- the legislature faces an increasing risk of being dissolved. Most likely, the Supreme Constitutional Court will void the legislative elections law under which elections to the legislature were held, though this was drafted, amended and approved by the political forces in the country at the time, including the Islamists. As a result of all this, on 1 July Egypt will have a presidency that will be perhaps the only institution in the country to have been re-established under the terms of the transitional timetable. The threat of non-constitutionality will continue to hang over the results of the legislative elections, until the Supreme Constitutional Court decides otherwise. Put another way, with the exception of the elections for a new president, the transitional period will continue to be marked by instability, political as well as societal, a condition that does not differ much from what it was on 11 February, 2011, when former president Hosni Mubarak stepped down. It could also be argued that at that time Egypt was witnessing its first ever broad national consensus following the popular 25 January Revolution, whereas the Egypt of July 2012 will see the country's fragmented political elites spreading disruptive messages throughout society and reinforcing the many lines of division that exist in the country. The current loss of national consensus has been caused by many reasons. At the very least, Egypt has lost an historic opportunity to maintain and consolidate its previously broad-based consensus, characteristic of the heyday of the revolution, paving the way for conflicts to emerge and crises to happen. As a result, when the transitional phase reaches its end point later in June this year, there is likely to be an exceptionally low level of consensus in the country, and this may even decrease, turning into fully-fledged political polarisation among the voters regarding the nature of the new Egyptian state and whether it is to be religious or civil. The SCAF's defective management of the transitional period, the predominance of mediocre politicians among the country's political forces, and the exclusionist attitude of the Islamists have all led to the failure to maintain the national consensus and the further deepening of divisions among the people. DAMAGED INSTITUTIONS: The transitional phase is also likely to end with nearly all the country's major actors and institutions having been damaged as they attempted to continue to perform their assigned roles. The army, the police and the judiciary have all been exposed to the tragic events of the transitional phase, and none of these three institutions has been spared the detrimental impacts of such events on their public images, roles and future prospects in the new state. As an example of one such damaged institution, one should remember how the army emerged in the aftermath of Mubarak's ousting as the most revered institution in the country and the one with the highest popular approval rating. Today, a few weeks from the end of the transitional period, the SCAF has reaped the bitterness and mistrust of increasing sectors of the country's elites and to a lesser extent also those of the masses. Moreover, the army has its own concerns about its future status in the embryonic new state of Egypt. This is only to be expected, given the noise made by the presidential candidates regarding their plans for the military in the aftermath of the elections. One candidate stressed that he would not keep the members of the SCAF in their current positions, for example. Much the same could be said of the police, which has been coerced by many forces having their own conflicting objectives, with the result that the police today looks like a defeated institution. There has also been growing disenchantment within sections of the elites, as well as among the masses, with the judiciary. This is a serious development that should be carefully addressed, since otherwise the nation, as well as the soon-to-be-established state, will be subject to existential threats. Many forces, particularly within the Islamist movement, have been expressing unacceptable criticisms of judicial verdicts or decisions. The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) MPs, for example, have been threatening to obstruct the dissolution of parliament in the case of an unfavourable verdict from the Supreme Constitutional Court voiding the legislative elections law. The same could be said about the decisions of the Presidential Elections Commission, which have been met with inappropriate responses from many of the disqualified candidates, as well as their patrons and clients. More serious still has been the new bill proposed by the People's Assembly regarding the SCC, which encroaches upon the basic principle of the separation of powers. This bill is an unprecedented attack on the judiciary's independence, and if passed it would have far-reaching repercussions for this institution, which has been exceptionally active in domains such as the development of civil society institutions, human rights, and in acting as a check on both the executive and the legislature power. The recent condemnation of former president Mubarak was accompanied by massive protests against the judiciary. Such protests have been partially stirred up by the political environment of the current presidential election campaigns. Involving the judiciary in these campaigns should stop forthwith, as it is unprecedented in the history of the Egyptian judiciary. There have also been mounting pressures from the masses with their ever-increasing, though many times legitimate, demands that have paralysed many sectors within the emerging state and radicalised growing segments within society. Popular grievances have been manipulated by some political forces, and the case of disqualified presidential elections candidate Abu Ismail was illustrative in this regard. The same can be said about the ongoing protests against the court's ruling in the Mubarak case, which has been seen as being too lenient by many people who have become easily manipulated by the political forces in their campaigning in the presidential elections. A NEW TRANSITIONAL PHASE: The originally planned transitional phase is therefore about to come to an end, even as the state and nation have not completed transformation processes reflecting the early aspirations of the revolution. Accordingly, a new transitional phase is now necessary, and leading this will be the prerogative of the new president. In selecting the right candidate for the job, one should consider issues that have been deferred or postponed and the extent to which he will be able to address such issues with all their potentially destabilising impacts. Endeavours will need to be made, when deciding between the two candidates now facing each other in the elections' second round, to explore how far the election of one or the other could help in addressing such rising threats. These will be the challenges that the new president will need to meet, and the presidency will be the only institution in the country that is able to do so. The presidency has been re-established in line with the timetable of the transitional phase, even as the legitimacy of the parliament has been challenged by the SCC. The idiosyncrasies of the two candidates, and their different backgrounds and ideological commitments, will impact their policy choices when dealing with such issues, and these factors should be considered when evaluating their prospects. Building national consensus will be the major challenge of the new transitional period. The ability to compromise and the tendency towards coalitional politics should dominate the political scene. The willingness to form a presidential council is one example of such efforts to build national consensus, and this should start by pacifying anxieties, as well as possible intolerance, of the elections results felt by supporters of the other candidate. Within the same context, there have been threats by some members of the FJP to return to the streets should former prime minister Ahmed Shafik win the elections. This would be a catastrophic development, since it would mean that they would perceive a Shafik victory in the elections as a triumph for the ancien regime or a form of counter-revolution rather than the expression of the people's will that he should assume the leadership of the country during the coming period. However, if the majority, even the simple majority, of the nation votes for a particular candidate, then that vote should be respected, and no forces have the right to confiscate the will of the majority. Safeguarding the revolution, a theme raised by many political forces, is neither a part-time job, nor a seasonal practice that any particular movement has the right to claim. A defeated political force, whatever its size and regardless of its contribution to the revolution, should not consider itself to be that revolution's sole custodian. Holding elections is a way of building consensus, and this should be considered before protests are held against what some may perceive to be unfavourable results. The January Revolution is not at stake in the run-off presidential elections. Instead, what is at stake is the nature of the new state that the people will decide upon, and whoever is selected will be the representative of the popular will for the new state. Polarisation should not turn into confrontation, and the ballot box should be used to settle political arguments. Anything else would constitute an Egyptian version of McCarthyism, as well as a negation of the basic principle of the people's sovereignty. Will either Ahmed Shafik or Mohamed Mursi be able to rebuild such a national consensus? The answer to this question will depend on each candidate's ability to build his own primary coalition first, formed of diverse supporters. In the case of Shafik, he will be in a good position to restart reconciliation efforts, being positioned as the representative of the civil state versus the Islamist candidate, Mohamed Mursi. This may encourage people who have a strong antipathy to the Muslim Brotherhood to vote for him. Can Mursi, as a representative of the Islamist trend, be distinguished from Shafik in terms of his ability to build a new national consensus? Which of the two candidates is the more capable of such a process? The Islamist trend has been highly exclusionist, a fact related to the peculiar nature of its political-religious doctrine or reference. The Muslim Brotherhood is no exception to this, and, starting from the early days of the revolution, the group has reinforced the generally held view that it is not constitutionally in favour of forming coalitions with other forces. The Brotherhood and its political party have not wanted to build coalitions in the People's Assembly, and they have disrupted the building of a national consensus. Mursi, therefore, does not seem to be the ideal candidate for the vital task of rebuilding consensus on a national level, and he has not won the unalloyed support of his own mother organisation or that of the other Islamist factions either. Yet, building consensus is vital to all the other issues that will be crucial in the new transitional phase. The newly elected president will need to start with the drafting of a new constitution as a new form of social contract. Drafting this new constitution will be a challenge in as much as national consensus is both the means and the end of the process. As a result, the new president will need to be able to work impartially with all the other trends, first to achieve, and second to consolidate, such a consensus while drafting the new constitution. This will be his major task and the one that best expresses his abilities in leading the nation's representatives towards a consensual document that is expressive of national aspirations and interests and not of the whims of a transient legislative majority, whatever its size. The new president should be able to amass the social capital necessary to start on the national reconciliation process, which is fundamental to the drafting of the new constitution. He should not talk arrogantly, let alone erroneously, about being a "representative of the majority". Many of the articles in the new constitution will be the subject of sharp divisions among the political elites and the different political forces. Issues like the nature of the new political system and the status of Islamic Sharia law, for example, are likely to divide opinion, and Mursi, in particular, has a specific interpretation of Sharia and its implementation that is a major element of his electoral platform. Shafik, on the other hand, has wider decisional latitude since he has no electoral commitments to any group or voting bloc, a fact that will enable him to enjoy more freedom regarding the composition of the constituent assembly and its deliberations on the new constitution, particularly its most explosive parts. Yet, Shafik, despite his not having binding electoral commitments, won't be entirely free from the lobbying of the Islamist forces in their pursuit of the Islamisation of the constitution. THE MILITARY IN TRANSITION: Another issue that the new president will need to address will be the status of the military, decisions on which have been deliberately deferred. The reasons for this are numerous, but decisions will clearly need to be taken by the new president. Of the candidates, Shafik might appear to be the better placed, since his military background may help him to smooth out the military transition better than the other candidate. On the other hand, one of former frontrunners in the elections recently moderated his stand, demanding a "fair exit" for the SCAF, instead of a "safe exit", and thought by many to mean a call for the military to withdraw from power. This has happened in most transitional experiences elsewhere in the world, with commentator Yezid Sayigh saying that the military's withdrawal has tended to occur simply and quickly. Yet, these experiences have also shown that in democratic transitions elsewhere the military has tended to retain certain "reserve domains," and Egypt should not be considered as an exception to this. The issue of the status and position of the military in the new republic will likely be one that takes a long time to settle, notably given the current substandard security conditions. It is in the light of the latter, in fact, that the military needs to remain close to the political scene for the foreseeable future. When choosing between the two candidates in the second round of the elections, one should ponder the short- and long-term implications of such a choice in terms of the future prospects of the military in the new republic. This cannot only be stipulated in the new constitution. Rather, the discovery of the military's ideal position will depend on an evolutionary process of mutual understanding and trade-offs. The so-called Turkish approach to the issue favoured by the FJP has meant that the Party has made a mantra of repeating the Turkish Freedom and Development Party's approach to Turkey's staunchly secular military and judiciary institutions in an Egyptian context with a totally different historical and political tradition. ECONOMIC PROSPECTS: Against the background of the country's currently appalling economic situation, the two candidates look less impressive in identifying novel approaches to the crisis. Misinformation has been the rule for many of their platforms, including the so-called Renaissance Project of the Muslim Brotherhood. In their tour of many world capitals in the aftermath of their landslide victory in the parliamentary elections, FJP representatives made a presentation at Chatham House in London on the party's project. According to commentators, Claire Spencer, head of the Middle East programme at Chatham House, questioned the reliability of statistics put forward by the FJP representatives, who admitted their dubious character. "This dependence on flawed statistics for their economic policy lent a rather doubtful air to discussions, drawing into question the FJP's ability to enact real, positive reform," commentators said. If this has been the case with Egypt's leading party, what can one say about the others? The economic context of the post-SCAF period continues to look gloomy, while the remedies offered by the two candidates, who are filled with seemingly unfounded confidence in their approaches, do not match grim economic and social realities. Once again, it is important to build national consensus in order to develop and implement a solid stabilisation programme, and not to come up with a soap-opera type story of a hundred days of economic recovery. Judgments on the candidates' abilities to deal with the current economic crisis should be central to the choice of which one in fact is chosen. According to US commentators Juan J Linz and Alfred Stepan, authors of Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, an institutionalised economy and a functioning state bureaucracy are necessary conditions for new democracies to go through transformation and consolidation. In post-revolutionary Egypt, these two conditions require that the next president should have past experience of managing change within the Egyptian bureaucracy, as well as in the economy. That post-revolutionary Egypt needs a new transitional period has been evident for some time, in the light of the current situation in nearly all domains. Few steps have been successfully accomplished, while others have impeded further moves and have even threatened to reverse the limited progress achieved. Sabotaging the national consensus to achieve narrowly parochial ends has been a means endorsed by many political forces, for example. The Islamists have been pivotal to the current state of political polarisation. Yet, paradoxically, consensus is one of the major pillars of Islamic culture, and it is one that has been reflected in Islamic political thinking and jurisprudence. However, the Islamist forces and their candidate have spared few efforts in excluding other forces from the decision-making process. A paradigm shift should now be encouraged, and if this does not take place people should not talk about the alternation of power. Not all the political forces are capable of undergoing such a shift, a fact that has to be considered when deciding on whom to chose. In voting for a particular candidate in an election people usually choose the best option based on a list of subjective and objective criteria. In the coming run-off elections, people may chose the only available option, or the best available, a fate that reflects a flawed transitional phase and inevitable polarisation. The writer is a political analyst.
