Eighteen months after the uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak and opened a protracted power struggle between the old secular elite and rising Islamists, Egyptians are still struggling to accept the idea that Egypt’s future should be determined by democratic political contestation, rather than by the street, politicized courts, and the military. The alternative to normal politics is the continuing state of insecurity. This barely contained chaos has kept the country on edge, prevented progress toward a new political system, and contributed to worrisome economic deterioration, with foreign reserves plummeting from $36 billion in October 2010 to $15 billion in October 2012.

On a recent visit to the country, it was clear to me that Egypt is now inching closer to normal politics and that secularists will be forced to compete directly with Islamists for popular support in order to gain power or even to become a viable political opposition. But their resistance to normal politics remains high. They are finding it difficult to develop a message with broad appeal and to get organized, bringing together the different strands of a secular opposition that appears to consist largely of leaders without a structure to back them.

Marina Ottaway

SENIOR ASSOCIATE
MIDDLE EAST PROGRAM

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Since the overthrow of the Mubarak regime, secularists have tried, initially with some success, to leverage the role of the military and the courts, particularly the Supreme Constitutional Court, in order to contain the political advantage enjoyed by the undoubtedly better organized and probably more popular Islamists. Islamists won parliamentary elections decisively and, in the opinion of observers, fairly. But the Supreme Constitutional Court, in a decision that appeared as rooted in politics as it was in jurisprudence, declared the election law unconstitutional and disbanded the parliament. The military kept power firmly in its hand, until suddenly withdrawing, at least ostensibly, on August 12. Secularists also repeatedly turned to the streets to advance their cause, but so did Islamists, with neither side gaining a clear advantage.

The day is fast approaching though when secular parties will be forced to confront Islamists in a normal political process. The military has now withdrawn from open political fray, although it remains a matter of speculation how much power it still wields behind the scenes or under what conditions it might reassert an open political role for itself. The courts have become much more hesitant in issuing controversial decisions. An administrative court repeatedly postponed ruling on the legality of the Constituent Assembly before turning the decision over to the Supreme Constitutional Court on October 23, ensuring the draft constitution will be ready, and possibly approved in a referendum, before the court ever issues its ruling. And although both secularists and Islamists still turn to the streets to press their demands, protests are becoming more difficult to organize and more dangerous, with violence between secularists and Islamists becoming increasingly frequent and both sides losing out as a result.

Neither Islamists nor secular parties completely accept the primacy of the political process yet. Not surprisingly, the Muslim Brotherhood is closer to accepting normal politics than secular parties. This is not because of superior wisdom or commitment to democracy, but because the political process has so far favored them. Islamists won the elections for president and the now dissolved People’s Assembly. Secular parties scoff at these victories, dismissing them as the result of machinations on the part of “an organized minority” rather than a sign of genuine popular support. There is no doubt that in the first round of the presidential election, Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi only received about 25 percent of the vote and barely obtained a majority in the second round. But the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafi Al-Nour Party won 70 percent of the seats in the parliamentary elections—confirming the importance of organization and belying the idea that Islamists are a mere minority.

The battle for power between secularists (or liberals as they prefer to be called) and Islamists has been going on for decades in Egypt, and Islamists have always lost. But secularist political forces in the past did not win through normal politics. Rather, they enjoyed the protection of autocratic regimes that repressed Islamists but found an accommodation of sorts with secular forces—as long as they played by the rules and did not become too critical of the regime, as leftist parties sometimes did. Secularists have lost the protection of the Mubarak regime and are losing the backing of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the courts. The question is whether secularists can hold their own politically without such protection.

Dodging Normal Politics

The confrontation between Islamists and secularists after Mubarak’s fall started openly in March 2011, when the SCAF called for a referendum on a set of amended articles of the 1971 constitution. Islamists urged their followers to approve the amendments, while secularists opposed them because approval would pave the way for early elections in which the better organized Islamists would have an advantage.

This disagreement over the constitutional referendum set the tone of the battle to this day: Islamists favored a democratic process and secularists sought to annul the results of the parliamentary elections through the courts and at times stooped to direct appeals to the military to nominate an interim president from their ranks and postpone elections.

The SCAF and the Courts

Egyptians initially welcomed the takeover of governing functions by the SCAF as a stopgap measure between the collapse of the old regime and the return of a normal and hopefully more democratic political process. But as the transition stretched on for months, and the courts’ intervention threatened to prolong it indefinitely, questions arose whether the military truly saw its role as temporary or Egypt had simply traded an autocratic regime with a civilian façade for an equally autocratic military one.

After much uncertainty about the transition process, Egypt appeared to be making clear progress in early 2012. By the end of February both houses of parliament were inaugurated and in March they had elected a 100-member Constituent Assembly, as required by the SCAF’s 2011 constitutional declaration. But the parliament was dominated by Islamists and not surprisingly the majority of Constituent Assembly members were also Islamists. The appalled secularists turned to the courts. The courts undid the result of elections in a sweeping set of decisions that has been likened to a judicial coup. This reversed progress toward normal politics, leading the SCAF to reassert its control and leaving many Egyptians fearful that the military wanted to remain in power.

In April, a first decision by a lower-level administrative court declared the Constituent Assembly illegal because of its composition, including the presence of members of parliament. This postponed the writing of the constitution. A new Constituent Assembly was formed on June 8 after much negotiating among political forces, but the legality of that body was again called into question because parliament had elected some of its own members to the assembly. Politically, the standing of the new Constituent Assembly was also undermined by a Supreme Constitutional Court decision that on June 14 declared the parliamentary election law to be unconstitutional, leading to the dissolution of the lower house of parliament on June 16 (the upper house continues to meet with court cases challenging its legality still undecided). The second Constituent Assembly was not dissolved by the ruling, but it was left in limbo with dozens of court cases asking for its dissolution pending in front of administrative courts.

Initially, it appeared that the courts had dealt secularists and the SCAF a major victory. Indeed, the SCAF moved so quickly to reassert its own position as to raise questions about its stated commitment to surrender executive power to the president once he was elected. With the presidential election run-off scheduled for June 16 and 17, the SCAF on June 17 issued an addendum to its 2011 constitutional declaration. This essentially strengthened its own power vis-à-vis the soon to be elected president, particularly concerning all things military, and confirmed that it would continue to exercise legislative power until the election of a new parliament. The SCAF, it seemed, wanted to make sure that if Mohamed Morsi won the run-off over Ahmed Shafiq, a stalwart of the old regime, the president’s power would be curbed.

Then the unexpected happened. Morsi won the elections by a narrow margin and the SCAF accepted the victory after much speculation that it would declare Shafiq the winner instead. And on June 30, Morsi was inaugurated as president to the consternation of many Egyptians.

Even more unexpectedly, only a month later on August 12, the transfer of power from the SCAF to the elected president was completed. First, President Morsi announced the retirement of the head of the SCAF and minister of defense, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi. He was replaced by another career officer, General Abdel Fatah Said El Sissy, in a maneuver that had clearly been agreed with the military in advance as it generated no complaints. On the same day, Morsi nullified the SCAF’s June 17 addendum to the constitutional declaration, thus reacquiring full presidential powers. He also took on legislative authority until the election of the new parliament, as well as the authority to appoint a new Constituent Assembly if the current one fails. The SCAF accepted both the new appointments and the loss of exclusive control on all things military.

The SCAF and the military have not weighed in on political issues since that time. The military’s official line is that its withdrawal from politics is complete and permanent, since it only intervened to save the country from chaos in the transitional period. There is no doubt that the military’s attention is presently focused on the difficult task of re-establishing security in the Sinai Peninsula. It is impossible to say at this point what, if anything, could cause the military to flex its political muscle again. But the military is back in its barracks, bringing the secular parties one step closer to needing to stand up to Islamists on their own and only by political means.

Parallel to the military’s withdrawal from politics has been a growing unwillingness of the courts to take on decisions with major political implications. The administrative court, after postponing the decision on the fate of the Constituent Assembly several times, ruled on October 23 that it did not have jurisdiction on the case, because the composition of the assembly had been decided by a law voted on by the parliament before it was dissolved and later signed by President Morsi. This meant that only the Supreme Constitutional Court could rule on the constitutionality of the law establishing the assembly, although other aspects of the case might revert to administrative court afterwards. Since a ruling by the Supreme Constitutional Court is bound to take time and the Constituent Assembly has announced that it is close to completing the draft of the constitution, there is a definite possibility that the constitution will have been submitted to a referendum before a decision has been issued. This will make it difficult for the court to undo.

The withdrawal of the judiciary from the political fray is not complete yet, although the courts appear more reluctant to take on issues with far-reaching political implications than they did in the early summer. On the same day as the administrative court decided that it could not rule on the Constituent Assembly, the prosecutor general called for an investigation into President Morsi’s election on suspicion of fraud. Yet, the writing is clearly on the wall that the military and the courts are no longer willing or able to halt the return to normal politics indefinitely.