When Morsi became the president. Or Shafiq did. Or maybe neither. God this sh*t is confusing…

If you are like most of the world you are likely super confused at the twisted and tangled state of Egyptian politics – specifically elections.  And rightfully so.   Honestly we all are.  But being that I do live here and follow this train wreck and I teach politics and all I feel I am informed enough to offer some sort of an (overly simplified, slightly biased and under researched thanks to my crap internet connection) explanation. 

First a quick note on the state of the deposed Hosni Mubarak.  Mubarak was found guilty of not stopping the deaths of protesters and given a life sentence.  (This is only 25 yrs in Egypt)  No one was held responsible for giving the orders to shoot at protesters and all the heads of the police got off with no charges.  Really sad.  Mubarak was moved from the hospital he’s been in to Tora prison hospital where he spent 4 hours refusing to get off the helicopter.  Last Tuesday night state TV announced that Mubarak had died in custody.  Then 10 minutes later they announced he was mostly alive or maybe mostly dead.  Or deadish.  Or kind of alive.  So he was taken to another hospital where he has apparently miraculously recovered.  Seems to me like a plot to get him out of jail. 

Now lets take it back to parliamentary elections in January.  Egyptians vote using 2 separate ballots – one for individual candidates (candidates who are running as independents, unaffiliated with any political party) and the other as a closed party system list (voters choose a political party and based on the percentage of their overall votes they get a certain number of seats in the parliament.)  The point here is to allow individual candidates a chance to run.  Well for some reason the Elections Board decided to allow political parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and the ultra conservative-boarding on fundamentalist Salafi’s Al Nour Party to run candidates on the individual list ballot.  So when the votes all came in the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis won an overwhelming percentage of the parliament.  (They respectively hold 49% and 20% of seats, which makes 69% of seats in parliament Islamist.)  This has been a bit of a thorn in the side of a parliament, which owes its existence to a secular revolution with democratic goals.  The biggest issue I would argue has been the make up of the committee that will hopefully maybe someday write Egypt’s new constitution.  Islamists and liberals within parliament had been in a bitter battle over who exactly should be on this committee.  The Muslim Brotherhood argued that the committee should be made up of parliamentarians (not a surprise as they dominate parliament and this would ensure a constitution rooted in Islam) while liberals demanded a committee made up of outside experts – constitutional lawyers, economists, doctors, etc to ensure a constitution rooted in –get this – democracy.  So far 2 committees have been formed and liberals have walked out in protest of both.  Soooo we are left without a constitution.  Not a great environment to elect a president into.  Just to school you a bit on constitutions, a constitution is where the powers of the president are laid out.  What he/she can and cannot do.  So to elect a president with undefined powers is insane.

A few months after parliament was elected the buzz about presidential elections began.  Under Mubarak no opposition political parties had the right to exist.  Opposition candidates were barred from participating in elections and even jailed.  So there were an overwhelming number of inexperienced and unaffiliated candidates running.  The Elections Committee decided to pass legislation known as the Political Isolation Law shortly before the deadline for announcing official candidacy.  This law said that anyone who had been a high-ranking member of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party was to be excluded from presidential elections.  (ummmm Shafiq?!)

During the election there were 23 officially registered candidates.  23!  One of the problems with this is that the liberal and secular vote was split up between a few different candidates whereas the Muslim Brotherhood supporters had only one person to support.  In the end no one candidate received over 50% of votes and so the final round of elections comes down to the top 2 equally disturbing and horrible options for president that Egyptians voted for last week:  The Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate Mohammed Morsi and Mubarak’s formed Aviation Minister and Prime Minister for the last month of his presidency – Ahmed Shafiq.  What the deuce.  So people are not happy.  How does one choose from these two clowns?  The choice is between having an Islamist as president or going back to virtually the same government as Mubarak.  Both of these options effectively shit on the revolution.  Many people choose to invalidate their votes either to show resistance or simply because they wanted to be sure their ballots weren’t sold in the polling places.  (word on the street is you can buy an unused ballot for 4LE in polling stations.)  My roommate Sarah checked both candidates and wrote “Down with military rule!” on the bottom of her ballot.

But let me back up a little bit.  DAYS before the elections the Constitutional Court decided to issue verdicts on 2 cases that have been before them for months.  The first dealt with the aforementioned individual vs. party ballot system.  The court ruled that the 1/3 of seats in parliament that were to have been filled by individual candidates were filled unconstitutionally as parties were allowed to run their own candidates.  Solid legal decision but very suspect timing.  So the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) in all of it’s infinite wisdom, dissolved parliament days before the final presidential election.  At the same time the court announced a decision regarding a case involving Shafiq and the Political Isolation Law.  You see the law says that no high-ranking member under Muarak was to run in the elections, but Shafiq was his Prime Minister for Chrissake!  Anyways, unsurprisingly (since SCAF loves Shafiq and nothing in Egypt happens unless SCAF allows it to happen) the court allowed Shafiq to remain as a finalist for the presidency.  So it is under these conditions that Egyptians went to the polls to “vote” for a new president:  no parliament and no constitution.  Which basically means that SCAF is waiting to see who is president before they decide what powers he will have.  Oh yeah!  SCAF also decided that since there is no parliament, they would oversee the writing of the constitution.  Because letting the military write the most important legal document in a country is such a great idea.


Added to all this is the Constitutional Declaration that SCAF announced a day before final elections giving themselves pretty much full autonomy in matters of the military (new president will not be commander in chief nor will he have any oversight of military budget) and extensive legislative powers which seem to render any new president pretty much powerless.  

So where does that leave us?  In a clusterfuck of stupid is where.  Elections were last week and results were supposed to have been announced on Thursday.  Which they weren’t.  Initial reports are that Morsi got the most votes but both sides have claimed victory and both sides have been scolded by SCAF.  The way I see it (along with many others) is that the wait now is not about counting votes, the wait is about negotiations with SCAF.  Largely substantiated rumors claim that SCAF is negotiating with the Muslim Brotherhood.  SCAF wants them to accept certain conditions before they will “allow” Morsi to be declared president.  Things like a permanent place in the political scene, no civilian oversight of the military budget and lord knows what else.  If the Brotherhood accepts these conditions, SCAF will “allow” Morsi to be the president.  If not, they will announce a Shafiq victory.  Now this is all rumors of course but after a year of following this circus I am fairly confident that this is in fact the case.

Once again Tahrir is full of people.  Islamists who are tired of the constant battle they fight for political inclusion (they have been fighting to be allowed into the political scene for 30 yrs); revolutionaries who see this last year and a half as a total waste since we are likely to see a return to Mubarak style government with a Shafiq victory, and everyone else who just wants something, anything to happen to bring back some sort of stability to a corrupt and broken system. 

Everyone is a bit on edge uncertain of the reaction of the people if Shafiq is announced as the winner.  Silly ex-pats are whispering about stocking up on pet food, phone credits and beer in case of another revolution and Shafiq has vowed to respond to any protests with “brutal force”.  Call me naïve but I just don’t see any of that happening.  It seems to me that the majority of Egyptians are exhausted and just want it to be over.  So for now we wait....