Constitution spelling discord

According to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, 71 of 95.5 percent of votes counted on Saturday, in the second and final round of polling, were for the draft Constitution of Egypt. The final, official results will be known later. [The reader will please bear in mind the fact that this issue comes off the presses and appears on The Day’s website on Tuesday. – Ed.]

This referendum had two rounds. Big cities and 15 provinces took part in the first round (held December 15), with a smaller percentage of supporters. The higher percentage in the second round is explained by the fact that the voters were in the countryside where the Islamists are traditionally popular. Both rounds showed a markedly low turnout, with 30 percent visiting the polling booths in the second round.

The sharia-based draft constitution has dramatically polarized Egyptian society. Ahmed el-Zind, the chairman of the Judges’ Club, Egypt’s key association of judges, declared (December 11) that 90 percent of the club members had refused to oversee the referendum (considering that judiciary oversight was a major part of the project). That was why – to arrange for some kind of legitimate control – the referendum had two rounds.

Egypt’s main opposition, the National Salvation Front, claims the referendum was rigged, saying a number of voters were paid or given cylinders filled with natural gas – products in short supply in that country. Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Mustafa ElBaradei (former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency) told reporters that poverty and illiteracy in Egypt are especially good for trading in religion. His https://twitter.com/ElBaradei reads that after the referendum Egypt will be split in two camps, the secular and the Islamist one, that this gap will broaden, and that the foundations of the state will start crumbling away. On December 20, media reported the resignation of Secretary General of the Election Committee Zaghloul el-Balshi, allegedly for health reasons. The Egyptian opposition insists that he did not want to assume responsibility for the rigged forum outcome. Interestingly, the judges assigned to monitor the voting process at each polling station – and who boycotted the referendum – found themselves accompanied by colleagues who specialized in administrative proceedings.

Egypt’s opposition is in many ways responsible for this outcome of the referendum. They could have won in the big cities, considering that the Islamists admitted that Cairo and Alexandria opposed the draft constitution. Shortly before the referendum date, a number of opposition leaders urged their supporters to boycott it. As a result, quite a few opponents of the bill did not visit their polling stations while those who supported it did and turned out to be better organized. Had more ballots been cast against the draft constitution in the big cities – given the overall positive outcome for President Morsi – the opposition would have become considerably more influential. Well, what’s done can’t be undone.

Another factor: Egyptians have grown tired of taking part in endless political battles. Mubarak’s regime fell, but there are no changes for the better for the Egyptian in the street, just as there is no light at the end of the tunnel. The opposition is also responsible for this.

President Morsi’s opponents will keep fighting him. There are armored vehicles on Tahrir Square that are guarding the Egyptian head of state. The Egyptian military is on his side at the moment. The opposition is likely to pressure the parliamentary campaign for the next couple of months – and this won’t add to Egypt’s stability, something this country badly needs.

President Morsi is in dire straits politically. He is in charge of a country, with a population of 80 million, that cries for a better living standard and lower unemployment rate. This calls for blitz economy growth. How can this be accomplished in a country afflicted with public unrest, divided into the more liberal urban and conservative rural areas?

Egypt’s economic growth rate has been on a downward curve, from five to two percent a year, with unemployment rate reaching 12 percent (averaging 50 percent among Egyptians aged 15-24), with direct foreign inland investment rate dropping tenfold; with foreign exchange reserves dropping from 35 to 15 billion  dollars (by less than one half), and with budget deficit making up 11 percent of GDP.

Under the circumstances, foreign aid is the only remedy. IMF was expected to provide 4.8 billion dollars; EU, 5 billion; the US, 1.4 billion. IMF loans are available on rigid terms and conditions. Egypt had to cancel fuel subsidies, reduce the ineffective public sector, and increase tax rates. Needless to say, President Morsi could not accept these terms, given the domestic situation. He could have asked the rulers of the Persian Gulf for help, but they would have offered their own equally rigid terms and conditions.

Riyadhand Doha don’t give a hoot about the status of Egypt’s public sector. They will give money in return for political concessions that may well seriously reduce Egypt’s independence.

In other words, the current unstable [domestic] political situation does not allow Morsi to take economic measures that will cause public unrest, so loans and vitally important market reforms will have to wait at least for the next year. This serves to aggravate the domestic situation – which is present elsewhere in the Arab world. On December 17, media reports said that protesters hurled rocks at Tunisia’s President Moncef Marzouki and parliamentary speaker Mustapha Ben Jaafar in Sidi Bouzid, cradle of the revolution that had erupted exactly two years ago.

Morsi may well face the same ordeal.

Yevgeny Satanovsky, president, Institute of the Middle East [Russia], told Komersant that “Egypt will turn into a Sunni Iran. Despite all [previous] declarations, everything secular, all religious minorities [including] Coptic Christians will be severely suppressed.” He believes this will be followed by the collapse of the Egyptian economy. The Suez Canal is still working, adding hard cash to Egypt’s budget. Satanovsky is pessimistic: “Once Salafi guerillas start shooting at the ships passing through the canal, this business will collapse. In the end, Morsi will need a war, most likely with Israel, to destroy what has been left of the Soviet Army and finally rid himself of his internal opponents, by making them into Zionist agents.”

An old trick, pulled off repeatedly by President Gamal Abdel Nasser, with the same result: tightening the screws within your country while facing the ultimate fiasco.

Morsi is not Nasser, nor is he like Mubarak (at the beginning of his rule); here the risk is too big and victory too illusory. It is easy to start a fire but hard to extinguish it when it gets big.