Brotherhood tightens grip on power
WITH the passage of a divisive constitution, Egypt’s Islamist leadership has secured its tightest grip on power since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster nearly two years ago and laid the foundation for legislation to create a more religious state.
The opposition’s response — a vow to keep fighting the charter and the program of President Muhammad Mursi — ensured that the turmoil of the past two years will not end as many, especially the tens of millions of poor craving stability, had fervently hoped.
“The referendum is not the end game. It is only a battle in this long struggle for the future of Egypt,” the opposition National Salvation Front said in a strongly worded statement on Sunday.
“We will not allow a change to the identity of Egypt or the return of the age of tyranny,” added the front.
Critics say the new constitution does not sufficiently protect the rights of women and minority groups and empowers clerics by giving them a say over legislation. Some articles were also seen as tailored to get rid of Islamists’ enemies and undermine the freedom of labor unions.
Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s most powerful political organization in the post-Mubarak era, claimed early Sunday that the charter it had backed was approved in the two-stage vote with a 64 percent “yes” vote overall. Once the official result is out, Mursi is expected to call for a new election of Parliament’s lawmaking lower house within two months.
And if all of the elections since Mubarak’s February 2011 ouster are any predictor, Islamists will again emerge dominant. In the last parliamentary vote in late 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies won about 70 percent of seats.
If Islamists win the overwhelming majority again, there is nothing to stop their lawmakers from legislating in support of their longtime goal of turning Egypt into an Islamic state.
The Islamists could also move early to pass laws restricting vibrant and outspoken privately owned media organizations that have flourished since the uprising and reported critically on Mursi and the Brotherhood.
Egypt analyst Michael W. Hanna said, however, that enduring political tensions will make it difficult for the Islamists to push ahead with any major or sensitive legislation.
“There will be a huge domestic backlash to any unpopular legislation, especially when it comes to the economy or the media,” said Hanna of New York’s Century Foundation.
Until the lower house is elected and seated, Parliament’s upper chamber, the Shoura Council, will temporarily assume legislative powers and may give priority to more pressing issues.
After the opposition brought hundreds of thousands of protesters to the streets in the past four weeks, including tens of thousands outside Mursi’s presidential palace in Cairo, the Shoura Council is expected to hurriedly debate and vote on a legislation that would place tight restrictions on the right to demonstrate.
More serious challenges to Mursi’s leadership may lie ahead. The millions who voted “yes” for the constitution are hoping for stability, jobs and business opportunities that may be slow in coming.
The president will soon have to introduce painful economic reforms to salvage a deal with the International Monetary Fund for a $ 4.8 billion loan that was delayed at Egypt’s request because of the political turmoil of the past month. A glimpse of what may be in store on that front emerged Sunday after Prime Minister Hesham Knadil met with the Cabinet’s economic team.
“The current financial and economic situation is in grave danger,” said Cabinet spokesman Alaa El-Hadidy. “Leaving things the way they are is not something we can afford to do,” he said, hinting at the necessity of structural reforms. These will include price and tax hikes as well as lifting subsidies on fuel. Mursi recently rescinded a package of price and tax hikes hours after he decreed them, saying he did not want to burden poor Egyptians with a higher cost of living. But economists say it is only a question of time before the package is re-introduced.
With foreign currency reserves around half of what they were two years ago and tourism revenues hard hit by resurgent political turmoil, the economy has been in a free-fall for months. Deepening the nation’s economic plight is the seemingly endless series of strikes and demands for salary increases and better benefits.
Price hikes, warn many analysts, could prove to be the last straw for the nearly half of Egypt’s 85 million people who live around the poverty line of surviving on $2 a day.
Many Egyptians want to see Mursi’s government moving aggressively to tackle the nation’s pressing problems such as security and reviving the vital tourism sector.
“We want factories to work again so we can find jobs here instead of traveling abroad to find work,” said Mohammed Sweilam, a metal worker who spent seven years working in a Gulf state. “When stability prevails, I will consider coming home to stay. Let us give the Brotherhood a chance. We owe them this,” he said as he waited in line on Saturday to cast his vote in the town of El-Saf in Cairo’s neighboring Giza province.
Another pressing issue for the new legislators may be the anti-Islamist editorial policy of the independent media, particularly privately owned TV networks whose political talk shows are watched nightly by millions and shape public perceptions.
Already, Mursi’s allies have been filing numerous complaints against media celebrities who criticize or mock the president and the Brotherhood, including hosts of satirical shows and newspaper columnists. Several of them are on trial or being investigated on charges of “insulting” the president or undermining national security. Since Mursi took office nearly six months ago, Brotherhood members or sympathizers have been named editors of most of the roughly 50 state-owned publications. The powerful information minister is a prominent Brotherhood leader.
A recent court ruling also shut down a TV network whose owner is a harsh critic of Mursi.
The constitutional crisis has re-energized and united the once-fractured opposition, turning it into a force to be reckoned with in the fight over Egypt’s future. In a sign of its newly found strength, the National Salvation Front, the main opposition group, on Sunday scornfully rejected a Brotherhood invitation for dialogue.
The opposition has dismissed the constitution as the fruition of an illegitimate process.
The low turnout for the referendum — 32 percent of the more than 51 million eligible voters, or 20 percent of Egypt’s 85 million people, according to unofficial results — has shown the limitations Islamists face.
