August 19, 2011
By Colston Reid
The Fund for Peace Commentary

“The people want to change the regime.” It was the chant which started in Tunisia and quickly spread across the Arab World. But nowhere did these words resonate more strongly than in Egypt where angry protesters remained stoic in the face of increasingly brutal repression by government forces loyal to President Hosni Mubarak. For 18 days President Mubarak clung to the last vestiges of power before fading into history, not as a celebrated hero like Anwar al Sadat or Gamal Abdel Nasser before him, but as an impotent despot out of touch with the changing face of his nation.

Egypt has known no other leader for nearly thirty years. It then comes as no surprise that February’s protests, which led to Mubarak’s ouster, where fueled in large part by Egypt’s youth. Unemployed and disenfranchised these well-educated twenty-somethings were constantly reminded of the Egypt their grandparents knew: wealthy, strong, and the ideological cornerstone of the Arab World. The Egypt they know today is far different: poor, repressive and corrupt.

Coming in a mediocre 45th on the Fund for Peace’s 2011 Failed States Index, the indicators for revolt have been present for some time. With a Group Grievance score of 8.3, Egypt can be lumped into the same category as Iran, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo in terms of its proclivity for vengeance seeking, disenfranchised groups. The list of complaints against Mubarak illuminates this unusually high score for a nation lauded in the region for its stability: police brutality, rampant corruption, rigged elections and income inequality that leaves nearly half the population living on under $2 a day.[1] It is within this context that the universal rallying cry for the Arab Spring takes on deeper meaning for Egyptians. When protesters chanted that “the people want to change the regime,” they were not just calling for the end of Mubarak; they were demanding the end to Egypt as they knew it.

Sadly, the revolution billed as Egypt’s rebirth could give rise to little more than another semi-autocratic regime controlled by power elites. Praised for its ability to mobilize thousands of Egyptian youth, the movement responsible for ousting Mubarak is finding it difficult to translate their civil uprising into effective civilian leadership. With the Egyptian military in control of critical constitutional reforms as well as establishing an infrastructure for free and fair elections it appears the Egyptian people may again be sidelined in the fight for their country’s future.[2] From the start the protesters lacked the detail of vision, organizational capacity, and circumstances required to ensure a true democratic transition in Egypt. First, their movement did not possess a clear agenda; second, its leadership did not come from within the political establishment; and finally, no single event served as the revolution’s catalyst that could resonate in the public’s consciousness.

For all the violence that took place, Egypt’s was a democratic revolution. It was a strong movement that demanded the ouster of an incumbent authoritarian regime to be replaced by a democratic government.[3] The demands of the Egyptian protesters fit this mold. First and foremost they insisted on the ouster of Mubarak; a clear goal that provided the movement with direction. Secondary demands included a restructuring of the Egyptian constitution to mandate presidential term limits and the free and fair election of a new president and parliament.[4] To date, protesters have only seen the ouster of Mubarak, and the loss of momentum has caused the movement to flounder.

The movement’s agenda continues to lack a clear vision. Comprised of many elements of Egyptian society, without a shared hatred of Mubarak to rally around, the movement has begun to splinter. There is no single agreed upon list of demands among various party members, activists and individuals. Without central leadership, the military has had no qualms about responding with force against these protests, ongoing now for six months and having become but a nuisance. The protesters’ mistake, observers explain, is their attempt to keep the revolution alive instead of playing the long game of politics. Their focus should be on party building, not ongoing demonstrations.[5]

Egyptian protesters feel it incumbent upon themselves to maintain pressure on the military. However, pressure does not equate to direction. Aside from ambiguous calls for democracy and transparency echoing through Tahrir Square, the protesters have provided the military, which currently controls the interim government, no blueprint for the direction in which they would like to see their nation steered. This is due to a disconnect between democracy protesters and the political establishment. While the names and faces may have changed, those controlling Egypt’s government remain relics of the Mubarak’s administration, as he had enormous influence over the officers that now make up Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. The judiciary, which turned a blind eye to election tampering again and again, remains largely intact. And the technocrats which now hold ceremonial cabinet positions are themselves holdovers from the old regime. With an FSI score of 8.0, the level of factionalized elitism in Egypt is akin to countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia; nations known for a political system predicated on wealth and cronyism.

The protesters, by contrast, are largely comprised of youth activists and outlawed political parties which have little experience navigating the murky waters of the Egyptian political system. Without a leader from within the political establishment to champion their cause, Egyptian revolutionaries will likely remain on the fringes of their nation’s polity.

As evidenced by democracy movements born out of the end of the Cold War, the most successful opposition groups are ones which can focus their energy and resources behind a single leader that comes from within the political establishment; a person that represents the demands of the movement that can also navigate the political system. For instance, in 2001 Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma’s dismissal of then Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko created in him a formidable opposition leader three years later upon the outbreak of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. Yushchenko, slighted by the political establishment, yet intimately familiar with its nuances, was able to utilize popular dissent toward the sitting government to propel himself to power.[6] Egyptian democracy activists have no such champion to filter their concerns through a single voice. Without true leadership these protests will continue to resemble more of a mob than a movement.

Equally disadvantageous for protesters was the lack of political immediacy from which their actions flowed. As the second government to topple in the revolutionary wave that spread across the Middle East and North Africa, Egyptian protesters are struggling for a way to maintain the legitimacy of their movement six months after Mubarak’s departure. It is now commonly felt, even among protesters, that the movement is losing momentum.[7] As much as democracy movements need a single leader to rally around, so too do they need a single event. Traditionally, democracy movements that are successful tend to occur in the wake of a blatantly falsified election. This election gives democracy protesters a single event to rally around which serves as a backdrop for airing larger grievances. The movement has a finite beginning, the falsified election, and end point with the election of opposition leadership.[8]

Egypt’s democracy movement is open-ended. Beginning on the heels of the Tunisian uprising, Egypt’s uprising had no single event to serve as a catalyst for protesters to rally around. All they have is the promise of parliamentary and presidential elections, which have yet to take place. Democracy movements are most successful when they are reactionary. They use a single, universally accepted injustice as a mechanism for fueling public outrage. The preventative nature of the ongoing protests in Egypt will only be tolerated for so long before these activists begin to lose the confidence not only of the political elite, but also ordinary Egyptians who, more than anything else, just want a return to normalcy.

Democracy advocates who today remain camped out in Tahrir Square must acknowledge that there is more to democracy than simple public dissent. While they have a clear obligation to protest the heavy handed, Mubarak-like, tactics of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, protests that lack leadership or political participation will tend to fall on deaf ears. Their only goal was an Egypt without Hosni Mubarak. But for true democratic reform, that by itself may not be enough.

Endnotes

Image: Stock