On Wednesday, the first day of voting in Egypt’s presidential election, queues stretched away from many voting stations, as electors stood in line patiently to cast their ballot. A reporter asked a woman in a Cairo suburb how long she had been waiting. She replied: “All my life.”
With its first free presidential election, Egypt has crossed a threshold and the revolution has come of age. It seems clear that voters have turned out in significant numbers to make their choice of president from the 13 candidates. What has also been striking has been the level-headed approach that many voters have shown, should their chosen candidate not win.
Time and again, journalists who asked people how they would react to the outcome, were told that regardless of who won, they would support the choice of the majority of Egyptians.
They also said that the country’s first freely-elected president would have to listen to the people and could no longer assume dictatorial powers. And repeatedly electors stressed that from now on, the armed forces would have to be subject to the president, not the other way around.
This last point of course remains to be seen. If, as seems likely, there is no clear winner from the two days of voting that ended yesterday, there will be a run-off between the two front runners. One of the first jobs of the new president will be to establish his authority over the army. There are many who believe that the army will insist that it retains a political role, because, like the Turkish military, it sees itself as guardian of the constitution.
Yet the moderate Islamic government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has now effectively broken Turkey’s Kemalist model for military intervention. The military has been confined to barracks and top commanders are on trial for planning a coup. Indeed Turkey is the democratic model most cited by revolutionaries throughout the Arab Spring.
How quietly Egypt’s army will relinquish its power and influence and concentrate purely on the business of soldiering, is only one of the very serious challenges facing Egypt’s new leader. The economy is in tatters. The disruption of the revolution hit every sector from manufacturing to tourism. Even among farmers, who by and large kept their heads down during the uprising and got on with their fields, there have been losses because distribution arrangements were upset by the demonstrations.
Unemployment, especially among young people is high, wages are low, even for well-qualified graduates and companies lack the capital or retained earnings to make big new investments.
For years, Hosni Mubarak and before him Anwar Sadat kept the lid on popular discontent through a web of subsidies on essential items.
Most outstanding was the subsidy on bread, which according to one economist meant that the price the public pay does not even cover the cost of the water used by the bakers.
Thirty years ago, when Sadat tried to raise the bread price, there were riots and he had to fire his prime minister. Yet Egypt cannot afford to continue subsidizing bread and LPG. Realistic pricing must be introduced, whether in one painful leap or phased in over time.
Egyptians would be happier living without subsidies if there were decently paid work around. A further challenge for the new president will be creating jobs. Infrastructure development, primed with overseas aid, will help. However, the new man should be looking to encourage the private sector to recruit, via a system of tax incentives and apprentice schemes. What must not happen is for yet more pointless jobs to be found for young people in the already bloated and hugely bureaucratic civil service.
It might be wondered why anyone would be brave enough to seek such a daunting task as leading Egypt at this immensely challenging time. Voter disappointment is inevitable, because democracy itself does not guarantee wise or effective government. And no politician can please everyone.
Nevertheless Egypt’s new president, whoever he is, will have been a historic mandate to bring about profound change. Egyptians will perhaps never be so prepared to endure the tough consequences of economic re-balancing as now. The new man must not fritter away this unique opportunity.
Editorial: Egypt’s presidential election
