CAIRO: Each mass Friday protest is like déjà vu. As thousands spent Friday in Tahrir Square and other public areas throughout Egypt, the feeling that we have made a massive U-turn back towards square one becomes more palpable. Even though the Nov. 18 protest was planned before the constitutional principles bombshell was exploded in the political arena over ten days ago, the badly-timed decision to rekindle this debate gave renewed impetus to the overall rising anti-SCAF sentiment in Egypt. There is no rhyme or reason why Cabinet, clearly at the behest of Egypt's ruling generals, would voluntarily reopen the thorny issue of constitutional principles less than three weeks before the start of a dangerously staggered three-and-a-half-month long elections period, threatening to nip the whole process in the bud. The confrontations between Islamist and non-Islamist parties (which I would refer to as liberals with reservation) that took place then, especially over the powers and role of the military, should have been enough to warn SCAF (the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) that such a divisive issue must be avoided at all costs before and during elections, that is, if SCAF was truly committed to ensuring the existence of optimum conditions to hold free and fair polls where undecided voters will not be swayed in one or the other direction based on a contrived debate over an issue that must be left to the elected MPs to settle. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, Egypt is once more in a heightened state of flux with no knowing what will happen next. The potential disaster scenarios are numerous: protesters may decide to hold a sit-in to force an immediate transition of power from SCAF to a civilian presidential council, prompting a violent forced dispersal by army soldiers; SCAF and cabinet may insist on retaining controversial articles nine and 10 of the constitutional principles charter giving the army extraordinary powers and immunity from public budget scrutiny, and hence leading political parties to boycott the elections altogether. An elections boycott would herald complete disaster as it will not only perpetuate the state of political uncertainty and hence economic stagnation and investment freeze, but will inadvertently reinforce SCAF's public perception as the last fort of stability, giving the generals yet another pretext to stay in power, or worse to impose its own rules on the nature of Egypt's future “democracy”. The tools of distraction so expertly employed by SCAF to manipulate both the street and political powers are one of many manifestations of the political monologue in which SCAF has ironically been engaged since in took power in February. SCAF's unilateral decision-making, its gross mismanagement of everything from the security vacuum, to the interim economic situation, to the sectarian issue, have proven that the sooner Egyptians move on to a political form backed by the legitimacy of elections to confront the military leadership, the better, even if these elections do not result in a balance of representation to our liking. A true commitment to the notion of a peaceful rotation of power is the only proof that that Egypt's non-violent uprising has succeeded, but legislative elections in which we musty all participate are necessary to take the first step to reach that point. Once more the ball is in SCAF's court. Will the generals do what's best for Egypt? Rania Al Malky is the Chief Editor of Daily News Egypt.
