Revolution may be the art of the impossible, but politics is the art of the possible. Many of Egypt's revolutionaries are disappointed with the country's new cabinet. Muslim Brothers make disparaging comparisons between “their” prime minister, Hesham Kandil, barely 50, and Hazem el-Beblawi, the newly appointed premier, who is 77 years old. The Brothers, trying to find allies among Egypt's revolutionary youth, note how the “coup” is resurrecting figures from the Mubarak era and style of government, but even that audience turns a deaf ear to their grumbling.
The revolutionaries, meanwhile, had wanted to see Mohamed ElBaradei as prime minister, and they criticize the appointment of Kamal al-Ganzouri, former prime minister under President Hosni Mubarak as well as the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, as top aide to the interim president. They are shocked to see as minister of local development one Adel Labib, former inspector at the State Security Police, the old secret service apparatus. The country's youth look with suspicion upon the new finance minister, Ahmed Galal, former head of the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies and member of Gamal Mubarak’s neo-liberal economic team. In addition, the Salafist Al Nour Party has angered them with its earlier objection to proposals to appoint ElBaradei as prime minister and its current complaints that too many government members belong to the secular National Salvation Front. The revolutionaries may not like many of the things they see, but they will close one eye, at least for now, and focus on other priorities.
Al Nour described the new cabinet as “repeating mistakes of the previous [Muslim Brotherhood] government.” It was understood that the new government would be primarily comprised of technocrats, rather than politicians. Egypt the Strong, the party headed by Abdel Monem Aboul Futouh, a former Brotherhood leader who placed fourth in the 2012 presidential race, criticized the inclusion of foloul, Mubarak era officials, and argued that it would lead to more division and failure.
Perhaps it is a promising sign that the revolutionaries, secularists, Salafists and Muslim Brothers are all somewhat dissatisfied. Governing, after all, is the art of compromise, and the new cabinet is exactly that. For the first time in Egypt’s recent history, a cabinet has been formed to speak to the broadest spectrum of the country's political forces, even including Islamists reluctant to participate in the political process. The intent was that each party be able to identify someone in the cabinet to whom its members could relate to or think of as being on their side. For example, Vice President ElBaradei and Minister of Higher Education Hossam Eissa belong to the revolutionary camp. The selection of Ganzouri and Labib will please the foloul. Minister of Labor Kamal Eita was one of the leaders of the independent unions’ movement.
The Muslim Brothers rejected several offers to be included in the new government, and this may prove to be a mistake of historic proportions. They are seeking European mediation to find a “safe exit” from their impasse, their leaders hostages of their own design. In the big picture, what was supposed to be a technocratic government, ended up being staffed with partisans, mainly liberals and socialists, who are, it is hoped, technically competent in their fields. Many of the political figures had to resign from their parties or suspend their partisan activities to join the government.
The new cabinet will have to deal with the challenge of managing contradictory and opposing agendas. For instance, the liberal economist and World Bank veteran Ahmed Galal will be pressed to satisfy a public mood demanding strong social justice policies and an International Monetary Fund requiring a reduction in the budget deficit amounting to some 15% of the country’s gross domestic product.
The new government came about as the result of a protest movement led by Tamarod (Rebel) youth, yet it is dominated by figures who are relatively and in actuality considerably older. As some Egyptians explain, however, things have gotten so bad that they cannot afford at the moment to take more risks. Egyptians need a government of experts familiar with and ready to deal with the complexities of governing a country such as theirs and who have proven track records of success working under pressure.
Many foreign observers who thought the June 30 protests were motivated by fuel shortages and worsening economic conditions will be surprised to learn of the low expectations that Egyptians have for this government. Its most important task, for most Egyptians, is the preservation of the Egyptian state and defense of Egypt's identity.
Mazhar Shahin, a preacher at the Omar Makram Mosque who led many Friday prayers during the Tahrir protests beginning in January 2011, warned on his television talk show that the new government must review the appointments of hundreds of preachers in the Ministry of Religious Affairs, noting that many of them were politically motivated and aimed at infusing the Egyptian religious establishment with the Muslim Brotherhood's extremist ideology, which differs significantly from the moderate teachings of al-Azhar. The new government may also want to review the changes that the Brothers hastily affected at the Ministry of Education and alterations to the official curricula.
The markets reacted favorably to the appointment of a government. Al-Masry al-Youm, Egypt’s leading daily newspaper, celebrated the failure of an alleged Brotherhood plot to storm cabinet headquarters and disrupt the new government with pro-Morsi protests. Now that the government has been sworn in, the next order of business is to move ahead with the transition road map.
On July 17, Mostafa Hegazi, political adviser to the interim president, announced the sequence of the transition, beginning with a dialogue “led by youth” about the constitution, fine-tuning of a draft and then ratification. This would be followed by parliamentary elections and then balloting for a president. Hegazi predicted that “laying the foundations of Egypt’s modern state” will be completed in nine months, which seems like a tight schedule and a bit overly ambitious. The first transition took 18 months to bring Egyptians back around to the pre-revolution options of choosing between two candidates, Ahmed Shafiq, representing the Mubarak regime, and Morsi representing the Muslim Brothers.
Surely Egyptians' experience in managing transitions has helped them learn what not to do. Accepting compromise, including working with foloul and cooperating with the army and even the police, appears to represent lessons learned. Will these lessons benefit Egyptians in the transition this time around and help usher in a modern state at the end?
The July 22 cover of Time features a crowd shot of Egyptian protesters with one-half labeled “The World’s Best Protesters” and the other half “The World’s Worst Democrats.” Time and many other Western media outlets apparently have not yet grasped the concept of “crowd democracy” behind Egypt’s revolution. The Muslim Brotherhood might have deep pockets, superior election machinery and the advantages of being a secretive organization that controls businesses, unions, charities, militias and religious institutions, but Egyptians seem determined to get what they had originally sought — bread, freedom, social justice, dignity and a true democracy — even if it risks civil war and requires a "do-over." They want a democracy governed by the people, not by a wealthy authoritarian organization with powerful friends. This is what Egyptians hope to achieve by restarting the transition.
