CAIRO \u2013 Everything about Egypt\u2019s revolution has been unexpected, and the first-round results in the country\u2019s first-ever competitive presidential election are no different. The rise of former President Hosni Mubarak\u2019s last prime minister, General Ahmad Shafiq, who will enter the presidential runoff alongside the Muslim Brothers (MB) candidate Mohamed Morsi, has raised eyebrows across the political spectrum. So did the meteoric rise of the Nasserist candidate Hamdin Sabbahi to third place, and the fourth-place finish of Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, who was backed by liberals and hardline Salafi Islamists alike.<\/p>\n
Egypt\u2019s voters overwhelmingly chose the revolution over the old regime, and shattered the myth that the push for change is an urban, middle-class, Cairo-based phenomenon: the eight revolutionary candidates received more than 16.4 million votes. But their failure to unite on a single platform directly benefited Shafiq, who unexpectedly won 5.9 million votes (assuming no election-rigging).<\/p>\n
Shafiq\u2019s success shocked many revolutionaries. \u201cHe is a murderer. His place is in jail, not on top of Egypt after the revolution,\u201d said one activist. Indeed, Shafiq has been linked to multiple cases of corruption and repression, including the \u201cbattle of the camels\u201d on February 2, 2011, when Mubarak\u2019s henchmen attacked Tahrir Square, killing and wounding protesters.<\/p>\n
The rise of Shafiq is explainable in some areas, but raised eyebrows in others. In Upper Egypt, \u201cmore than 60% of Copts voted for him,\u201d a source close to the Coptic Orthodox Church said, and in Coptic-majority areas, the pro-Shafiq vote exceeded 95%, because he was widely perceived as a bulwark against Islamism.<\/p>\n
Moreover, many state employees (around 5.1 million of them eligible to vote) and their families supported Shafiq, owing either to direct instructions from their bosses, or to the perceived threat of creeping MB influence on government bureaucracies. And Shafiq received financing and support from Mubarak\u2019s National Democratic Party (NDP), as well as from business and security interests that benefited from the status quo<\/em>.<\/p>\n But this was not enough to explain Morsi\u2019s defeat in the MB\u2019s traditional strongholds. In Sharqiya, a bastion of hardcore MB support with 3.5 million voters, Shafiq defeated Morsi by more than 90,000 votes. In Gharbiya governorate, another MB stronghold, he beat Morsi by more than 200,000 votes.<\/p>\n I compared the results with the MB\u2019s performance in the parliamentary elections earlier this year, and found that the Brothers lost between 25% and 48% of their support in the Nile Delta (depending on the area), where 40% of Egyptians live. Assuming no foul play, Shafiq received around two million votes from four Delta governorates: Sharqiya, Gharbiya, Munufiya, and Daqahliyya.<\/p>\n Egypt\u2019s Islamists \u2013 the strongest political force on the ground, and the most repressed under Mubarak \u2013 have serious stakes in this election. But, rather than uniting to improve their chances, their popular support was split among three candidates, two of whom \u2013 Morsi and Aboul Fotouh \u2013 placed among the four front-runners.<\/p>\n Salafi support for Aboul Fotouh, a moderate former MB leader, proved to be a double-edged sword, because it repelled many liberals and socialists who would have voted for him otherwise. Most revolutionaries who did not want an Islamist-dominated Egypt were alienated as well. Their votes went to Hamadi Sabbahi, from the left-leaning Nasserist camp, who surprised observers by winning 5.4 million votes.<\/p>\n If anything, the first-round results revealed the power of the non-Islamist revolutionary bloc, as well as Egyptians\u2019 willingness to punish Islamists for their weak job performance in the parliament. Indeed, six out of ten Egyptians voted for Islamists in the parliamentary elections. That dropped to four in ten in the presidential election.<\/p>\n Morsi, who finished first, with six million votes, had the MB\u2019s disciplined, dedicated, and experienced machine fully behind him. That meant a sophisticated election campaign that penetrated deeply into Egyptian society, urban and rural, and in which women played a key role. \u201cThis is where they beat the Salafis. Their women are experienced, outgoing, gutsy, and trained to be convincing and charismatic,\u201d a Salafi activist who supported Aboul Fotouh told me. \u201cSalafi women are shy, introverts. They can\u2019t compete for votes with the MB ladies.\u201d<\/p>\n The MB must now try to persuade the 10.7 million voters who supported Aboul Fotoh and Sabbahi to back Morsi in the runoff against Shafiq. The MB probably needs to reserve the vice presidency for a non-Islamist like Sabbahi. Likewise, Aboul Fotoh, or perhaps the Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, will need to be appointed as Prime Minister. Moreover, the MB will most likely have to offer some concessions to guarantee balanced representation of Islamists and non-Islamists in the assembly that the parliament is to choose to draft a new constitution.<\/p>\n Whoever wins Egypt\u2019s presidency will face severe obstacles in challenging the status quo<\/em>, owing to the dominance of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). The president\u2019s mandate was outlined by a constitutional declaration in March 2011, but the SCAF has said that a more detailed one would be forthcoming after the election. That could mean weakening the president\u2019s powers and reserving some domains for the army \u2013 at least until a new constitution is adopted.<\/p>\n What remains certain is that no democratic transition can be complete without elected representatives exercising meaningful control over the security services and the armed forces. That will be the Egyptian revolution\u2019s ultimate test, and the most critical challenge for any president who does not embody a return to the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-15905","opinion","type-opinion","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/opinion\/15905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/opinion"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/opinion"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}