Many Egyptians have not
yet sobered from the ecstasy of finally getting a civilian president,
for the first time in the history of the 60-year-old republic.
But only a few days after the
announcement of Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate Mohamed
Morsy’s victory, signs point to a less-than-perfect picture, in which
the old regime’s rules still persist.
Despite the showdown between
the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and the Brotherhood in the
months preceding the election, Morsy’s victory reveals a new phase of
political arrangements between the two. For one, they have already come
to a decision on how to split control over government institutions, said
Essam Haddad, a Morsy aide.
According to Haddad, an
initial agreement entails that the army will maintain control over its
budget and internal affairs but will not intervene in the assembly
charged with drafting the country’s new constitution.
An anonymous source told
Al-Masry Al-Youm that the Brotherhood will be in charge of the
ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs but will be required to keep
away from the Defense, Interior and Justice ministries.
The amicable agreement between
the military council and the Brotherhood would confine the Islamist
group’s authority to these institutions, and safeguard the SCAF from
being sidelined by a non-allied president.
“We are indeed in negotiations with the military council,” said Sobhi Saleh, a leading Brotherhood figure.
However, the arrangement
plants a ticking time bomb that could jeopardize Morsy’s presidency,
once he and his group seek to expand their powers.
Bahey el-Din Hassan, director
of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, said the two sides had
clearly come to an agreement.
“Morsy’s victory is not just
based on getting the majority of votes, but also on a power-sharing
agreement that took place with the SCAF, in which the military will
maintain its control over the national security ministries and
institutions, including defense, police, intelligence and justice,”
Hassan said.
But Morsy may have had few
other options. “At least for now, Morsy has little choice but to agree
to these conditions or he might lose everything, especially with the
existence of the supplementary constitutional declaration,” Hassan said.
Only a few days before the
election, the ruling military council added an addendum to the
Constitutional Declaration that has governed Egypt since March 2011. The
declaration limits the powers of the president and adds to those of the
military council, with respect to the state budget,
constitution-writing assembly and the ability to declare war, for which
the president must first obtain approval from the military council. The
document also takes away from Morsy the title of commander-in-chief of
the armed forces.
But a power-sharing agreement
with the military would be a de facto continuation of the old regime
which, since 1952, has seen a clear split between so-called service and
sovereign ministries. Sovereign ministries are usually related to
national security, and they are the ones the Brotherhood is expected to
cede.
Morsy and his group have
changed their rhetoric toward the SCAF since his victory and after
vehement criticism over the last few weeks. In his first national
address on Sunday, Morsy thanked the armed forces for their efforts
during the transition. Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the head of the
military council, met with Morsy on Tuesday and said the military would
stand with the incoming president.
“Morsy and his campaign are
pragmatic. They don’t want a showdown at this moment — it’s not part of
their makeup. They want gradual change and they want to be true to the
revolution at the same time,” said Maha Azzam, an associate fellow with
the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House and an
expert on Islamist groups in Egypt.
Security
Since winning the election,
Morsy has been making the rounds of government institutions, looking to
iron out differences and shore up his presidency by building working
partnerships with government institutions that may have been loath to
the idea of working under an Islamist.
On Monday, he met with the
High Council of Police to discuss public security and assure senior
officials that he would not take revenge against them for past
transgressions against his fellow Brothers. He shook hands with a member
of the High Council of Police, once his jailer in 2006.
Morsy, a longtime leading
Brotherhood figure, was twice imprisoned for participating in protests,
first over judiciary independence in 2006, and on 28 January last year,
during the 18-day uprising.
The Brotherhood itself spent
the majority of its 84-year existence as a banned group, subject to an
array of security clampdowns and mass arrests by a police force that was
taught to treat the group with suspicion and often resorted to brutal
tactics to suppress its members. The desire for revenge is not
inconceivable for some.
Yet the Brotherhood and its
Freedom and Justice Party have been displaying a strong tendency toward
political pragmatism instead of dogmatic ideology, observers said.
“There’s a general agreement
in the FJP and the Morsy campaign to open a new page with all groups and
institutions. We understand why some may have a misconception of us,
our history and our work on the ground, and we will work on changing
that,” Ali Batteekh, another leading Brotherhood figure and a former MP,
told Egypt Independent.
But while no significant
clashes are expected to ensue between Morsy and the security apparatus,
obtaining full control over it would require an element of purging.
“He will have to get rid of
some of the Interior Ministry figureheads to get a better grip on the
police,” said Mohamed Mahfouz, a former police officer and a founding
member of the Honorable Police Officers Coalition. Mahfouz believes
garnering loyalty from the rest of the police will not pose a
significant problem.
“The Police Academy teaches
obedience to power. Even if you put a monkey on the throne, they would
obey him,” said Mahfouz. He said cadets in the Police Academy were also
taught to look at all political groups with disdain, not just the
Brotherhood.
Media
Other institutions, such as
the state media, have traditionally been anti-Brotherhood. Yet their
modus operandi is to pay allegiance to whoever is in power, a fact
demonstrated by how quickly they changed their long reverence to Hosni
Mubarak once the ruling military council took his position in February
2011.
Today, questions still loom
over whether the state-owned media is ideologically opposed to Islamists
in a way that could entail a Mubarak-style grip over them.
“There was a vicious media
campaign to tarnish the image of Islamists. They played a big part in
political polarization in the recent period by propagating the failure
of the Brotherhood in Parliament,” said Shahira Amin, a state TV
presenter.
State media has been under the
control of the military authorities, which will seek to maintain it,
Amin said. “The state media loyalty will probably remain to the SCAF.
It’s in their interest to maintain the status quo, which might
jeopardize Morsy’s presidency,” she added.
The future
While the current word is on
Morsy ceding “sovereign” powers to the ruling generals, this doesn’t
necessarily reflect the ultimate ambitions of the Brotherhood, said
Mohamed Menza, an associate professor of political science at the
American University in Cairo.
“They have been [splitting
power] in their favor since before the election,” said Menza, referring
to what he said was negotiations by the Brotherhood to secure a quota
for its members in the police force.
Menza said the SCAF would not
relinquish its control over these institutions, and that if Morsy and
the Brotherhood attempted to control them, the council would use its
control of the Defense and Interior ministries to suppress them.
“If Morsy ruled with the goal
of maximizing the Brotherhood’s members in state institutions, and not
seeking genuine reform based on meritocracy and democratic principles,
it would lead to the failure of his Renaissance Project and the end of
the Brotherhood,” he added, referring to Morsy’s electoral platform.
For others, like the
Brotherhood’s Batteekh, controlling government institutions is not the
main priority. “I think our main issue is the process of bringing
forward a new Parliament or settling a new constitution. I see that as
the biggest impediment to Morsy having a successful presidency,” he
said.
