It was just a few weeks ago that the eyes of the world were glued to the mass demonstrations taking place in Tahrir Square in Cairo. With the dramatic fall of Mubarak and a few of his closest associates the eyes of the world have moved on to other events with the implication that perhaps the Egyptians would live happily ever after. The story is a bit more complicated than that.
The group Eyes on Egypt and the Region supports liveblogs on the events in North Africa and the Middle East under the title of Witnessing Revolution. We also develop and present background and analysis on the region. Eyes on Egypt and the Region Background Resources provides links to several recent diaries about the history and background of the Gulf States.
The present liveblog can be found Here.
The government of Egypt is presently under the control of a body which calls itself the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. This is essentially a continuation of the military establishment that has been running the country since the 1950s. The Supreme Council is a body that was nominally in existence when Mubarak was still in control and he passed power to it with his departure. The present members were the top military commanders in the Mubarak regime.
Upon taking control the council made some general pledges about moving toward a democratic form of government. They dissolved the existing parliament and suspended the existing constitution. They appointed a committee of jurist to draft a referendum of constitutional revisions and have scheduled a vote on that referendum for March 19th. There is a promise that parliamentary elections and later presidential elections will be held following this election.
I have been unable to find clear and specific information as to exactly what the text of the referendum will be. This appears to have been a hurry up process that is leading to much confusion.
Milestone Referendum in Egypt Just Days Away
Also, and far more important, is that the referendum floats in a sea of confusion: the military has suspended the Constitution to rule, yet is asking the public to approve the reworking of bits of it.
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which is running Egypt, announced a simple up or down vote on about 10 amendments. Many of them, unveiled on Feb. 25 by a special 11-member constitutional committee, come across as a reaction to the long years under President Hosni Mubarak.
The president would be limited to two terms of four years each. Extending the emergency laws, in place for 30 years, would require a public referendum after six months. The president could not have a foreign wife. (Suzanne Mubarak is half Welsh, but because the provision limited the presidency to men by default, it lost the support of feminists.)
One of the major issues is the right to form political parties. Under Mubarak they were prohibited. The Muslim Brotherhood was the only coherent opposition to the regime. They were able to win seats in parliament by running as independents. There is concern among emerging political groups who participated in the revolutionary uprisings that a rushed process will deprive them of the opportunity to compete on an equal footing with remnants of the Mubarak regime and the Muslim Brotherhood. These groups include the youth movement and the feminist movement.
Egypt faces bumpy ride towards democracy
Just take a drive down some of the main avenues in central Cairo and you can see one of the biggest problems facing Egypt's new military administration.
The economy is more or less at a standstill, and so is the civil service.
Outside almost every government building at one time or another in the last few days has been a crowd of disgruntled employees.
Grievances that people were forced to swallow during the repressive Mubarak years are pouring out.
Badly paid rank-and-file staff want more money. Often, they are also burning with resentment about bosses they say have enriched themselves.
The military council has a very hot potato on its hands and they appear in a rush to try to move the country to some kind of arrangements that will create political and economic stability. Unfortunately a society that has lived under autocratic rule has little institutional experience to draw on in creating democratic institutions. What they seem to be attempting to do is to put patches on the existing constitution to make it possible to hold elections that will be broadly perceived as free and fair.
There are critics of the referendum who are campaigning for a no vote in Saturday's election. They contend that the old constitution should be scraped entirely and a new one drawn up from scratch by a drafting group that is more widely representative of diverse political factions. Should they prevail and the referendum is defeated, no one is clear as to what would happen next. The military could then turn to the use of force to deal with the paralyzing strikes.