The Presidential Election

It having been so long since I posted, I thought that the day of the Presidential Election results would be a good time, and provide a good topic (in case I’m accused from the start of being confused, this was written yesterday – the actual day of the results!). I don’t profess to know more than you could have found out from the BBC, or any other half-decent news organisation – but I do have the advantage of having followed things quite closely here, which my readers may not have. If you have, then you may find this account a little simplistic; I may even be accused of ignorance in some facts. But please give me your indulgence: this is not a painstakingly researched, intellectual account of events over the past couple of months, but simply the perspective of a vague foreigner with less than perfect Arabic.

On to the topic of today’s post: the election. For a little background, it took place, as in the French system, in two rounds, though here they have been divided by a month. Though by the time you get this, you will probably have heard the final result, I am going to go through events chronologically, as I experienced them, so allow yourselves to imagine that we are in late May. There are quite a few candidates, but most of them aren’t important and won’t get anywhere, and anyway, I don’t know their names. These are the important ones:

Mohamed Mohamed Morsi (this is not a mistake – I refer you back to an earlier post in which I explained the Egyptian system of names), the Muslim Brotherhood candidate. He was the Brotherhood’s second choice, the first having been banned, is not well-known outside of the Presidential race, and is quite uncharismatic.

Abu el-Fotouh used to be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but sat someway further towards the political centre than the leadership, was rather vocal in his opposition, and was finally expelled from the organisation when he announced he would run for President as an independent (this was in defiance of a Brotherhood decision not to field a candidate for the Presidency. Apparently, they changed their mind). In contrast to Morsi, he is very charismatic, and had a large following among the Islamist-ly inclined who weren’t affiliated to the Brotherhood. Curiously (being a relatively liberal Islamist) he also had quite a following among the Salafists, after their own candidate was also banned (more on that below). He was considered to be one of two main ‘candidates of the revolution’ – those who had been involved in the revolution itself, and were largely supported by the revolutionaries.

Another candidate in the relative centre-ground was Amro Moussa, the former Foreign Minister and head of the Arab League - he lost some support for being a former-Mubarakite (though I believe that he wasn’t too popular with Mubarak by the end).

The second ‘candidate of the revolution’ was Hamdeen Sabahi a charismatic Nasserite who is particularly popular among the youth (and bearing in mind Egypt's demographics, 'the youth' is quite a lot of people). His policies looked somewhat horrific for the economy – at their most basic, he wanted to legislate for wages to rise and prices to fall, as well as nationalising various industries and introducing new subsidies here and there (the subsidies are already a problem: The Economist noted on 19 May that if Egypt were to abolish its fuel subsidy, its 10% budget deficit would be wiped out – though I’m not sure whether they included in their calculations what happens to the economy when a large proportion of the population can no longer put petrol in their tanks, or gas in their oven).

Finally, among the main candidates, there is Ahmed Shafiq, the ‘stability candidate’. He was Mubarak’s last Prime Minister, a former Air Force general, and is thought (unsurprisingly) to be the favoured candidate of Egypt’s ‘deep state’. He is particularly popular among Christians (who persecuted by official Egypt already, fear Islamist power), the upper-middle class (who did rather well out of the former regime), and many of those who weren’t really bothered by the revolution in the first place, and feel that things have just got worse since.

If you’re wondering why I have gone into such detail on a raft of candidates most of whom didn’t even make into the second round, it is in the hope of providing some background to the tensions that followed for the second. As you probably know, only Morsi and Shafiq made it into the second round, with about 47% of the first round vote between them. Abu el-Fotouh and Moussa, who came fourth and fifth respectively, were widely thought to have a very high chance of making it through to the second round, but ultimately occupied too close a position among the field of candidates, and split the moderate vote.

Sabahi came third, but won Alex, and about 20% of the total vote. He was very quick to claim foul play, and on the night of the first round result I stumbled into three different protests by his supporters whilst walking around Alex. Other candidates also cried foul, but unlike in the parliamentary elections (in which I heard several first hand accounts of dodgy practices) there didn’t appear to be a great deal of evidence, and the electoral commission dismissed the complaints out of hand. (This is not to say that they were without basis, just that I don’t know, and am sceptical. I probably would have ordered an investigation, had I been the commission – not to do so looked suspicious in itself.) There were two key disappointing outcomes to the first round. The first was the protesting the result. I felt that, especially coming from those who had launched the revolution in order to bring about democracy, to protest the result of a democratic election (as opposed to the policies of a democratically elected leader) because one doesn’t support the winners is hypocritical. However, the second was the result, which left an unpleasant choice for many people (particularly those who had risked their lives to bring about the possibility of an election in the first place). On the one hand, a vote for Morsi was a vote for the Muslim Brotherhood – he is very much a creature of the organisation, and it is feasible that he wouldn’t ultimately be taking some of the decisions supposedly taken by the President. On the other hand, a vote for Shafiq would have been a vote for the old regime, for the army, and specifically for a man with blood on his hands. If he had won (which rather gives the game away that he didn’t), the army and the ‘deep state’ would have viewed the revolution as a brief hiatus in their natural rule – and I wouldn’t have been surprised for there not to have been a free election when the next is due. Of course, the same may be true with Morsi in the Presidential Palace – especially if the army decides that the Brotherhood is no threat to its power.

Between the second round and the result, another unpleasant twist in the drama occurred. The voting took place over two days. At the end ofthe second day the military announced that Parliament was to be dissolved (this was the result of a case in the Supreme Court which challenged the results in a third of the seats, because they were meant to be reserved for independents and were won by party candidates – it was expected that there would be by-elections in those seats, but the military appears to have taken the opportunity the judgement provided), that the constitutional assembly was dissolved, that they were assuming all legislative power, and the power to appoint a new constitutional assembly. In essence, this was a coup (though against what, it’s hard to see – they don’t appear to have done anything illegal, given the powers that they assumed after the revolution), and severely circumscribes the power of the new President. This in itself put people on edge; the tension was further exacerbated by the election results (due last Thursday) being delayed. Initially, it was announced that this was so that the Electoral Commission could address irregularities; then the army said it was to prevent civil unrest. The change of explanation prompted a gut feeling that the delay was in order to rig the vote, and the protests (which were already quite large) grew. I fear that this is essentially the end of the road for the revolution; though with Morsi as President, there will be some remaining pressure on the military to concede its powers back to the Parliament or the President – or to launch a full-fat coup.

The feeling in Cairo today was exceedingly tense. When I went out at ten this morning, things were relatively normal, though the traffic was light. When I returned to the centre of town at two, the traffic was exceedingly heavy, which (though Cairo is usually quite congested) seemed abnormal. And then, by 3pm, there were almost no cars on the street at all until the result was finally announced (after an interminable speech by the monotonous head of the Electoral Commission) when the streets exploded in relief and celebration. Morsi had won by 13 million to 12 million. Those who aren’t celebrating remain indoors. They include the staff of my hostel, who are miserable – but they would have been miserable with either result, and possibly see this as marginally preferable to the other outcome. Those I have spoken to either spoilt their ballot or did not vote in the second round. The younger of my friends in Alex were also deeply unhappy about the choice they were presented with. The older, by and large, voted for Shafiq. Both groups will be disappointed and nervous following the result.

Update: 25 June

Things today are much more relaxed, and pretty much back to normal. The prevailing sense seems to be relief. We shall see how long that lasts…

Walking Through a Riot

I write this sat waiting for breakfast in a hostel in Cairo, after four hours sleep, and at what I hope will be the end of quite a hectic couple of days. In this issue: football riots, without the football, and friends in intensive care after 17 car pile-ups (just one friend, and just one pile-up).

You may have seen in the news that on Wednesday night there were 74 people killed in football riots in Port Said. I watched affairs unfold on the television, thinking it was very sad, but isolated. When I spoke to my teacher the next day, she was full of theories about counter-revolutionary forces trying to bring down the government – I’m not convinced by that, and rather think that it was a fight between ‘ultras’ that got out of hand. The police were attacked, and reacted in the only way that they really know in public-order situations: overwhelming and violent force. My experiences on Thursday rather bore this out.

I was taking a stroll in the evening towards my local supermarket, and noticed a bit of a commotion up ahead of me, followed by a small gaggle of youths running past looking excitable. However, the supermarket is on a busy pedestrian street, and commotions are not uncommon, so I carried on walking. The next thing I noticed was shopkeepers beginning to pull down their shutters. In the spirit of honesty I shall reveal that my brain was clearly not functioning on full capacity: my reaction was simply that it was odd to be shutting up shop so early in the evening, and I carried on. The next thing that I knew was that I was surrounded by a large crowd of youths, carrying steel rods, broken bottles, machetes (and in one, rather curious case, a plastic milk-bottle crate). I was still not firing on full cylinders: I thought I’d walked into a protest, and failed to register the lack of flags and chants, and the excess of weaponry and angry looking youths. I’d also failed to register another crowd of similarly angry and armed youths facing off against them. I was enlightened when the clash started, and beat a hasty retreat into the nearest side-street, where I stood (for lack of anywhere else to go) with a small group of other bystanders who were watching events with a mixture of anger, interest, despair, and plain annoyance at their evenings being disrupted in such a way. I spent ten minutes or so a good deal closer than I would have liked to a guy on the floor viciously being beaten with metal rods, to people hacking at each other with machetes, and to a chap who, still for unknown reasons, was waving his plastic crate around with no apparent purpose – but then the riot disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, and I continued my progression to the supermarket.

My shopping was uneventful, until I got back towards the front of the shop and realised that the shutters had been pulled down and there was much excitement among the cashiers. And a minor clue to something going on was the sound of gunfire outside… I had the longest conversation with one of the cashiers in the shop I have ever had (they’re usually very grumpy, with good reason: it is a soulless place), in English. Apparently there were “bad men” outside, who were shooting. However, they had a “secret” back entrance (for emergencies such as this!), and I was ushered back through the supermarket with all my shopping to an inconspicuous door on a back street.

Having completely lost my bearings at this stage, I took a guess as to which direction went vaguely towards my house and set off with purpose. Before long, however, I was surrounded by my friends from before, complete with their various accoutrements (Crate-Man had disappeared somewhere; perhaps to a secure facility), and many of them covered in blood (whether their own or another’s was unclear in some cases). But this time it was apparent that the game had changed, as they were very definitely fleeing from the gunfire that was erupting on all sides, though thankfully not on my street. Although it had finally dawned on my (far too late – never choose me as your guide in a crisis) that the situation was rather serious, I had very little choice but to carry on in the direction I was going. Not quite knowing what street I was on, and given the gunfire seemed to be coming from all points of the compass (though still unseen), one direction was as good as any other, so I walked determinedly, clutching my shopping (it held the makings of a crumble – I wasn’t letting that go to waste!). I finally emerged close to my house without further incident, and resolved that I was stay home for the rest of the evening.

To bring this little story back to its origin, and the conspiracy theories about counter-revolutionaries, it must be noted that the police were nowhere in sight, and the riot looked, in its initial stages, like an organised fight between rival groups. I don’t believe this to be any more than sheer criminality, born of a country which, post-revolution, has had very weak crime-fighting capacity.

There is one aspect of this country that fits in with the rest of the Middle East, and brings me back to the dominant theme of my first Alexandrian Note: the traffic. My housemate, H, was travelling to the airport in Cairo early yesterday morning for a flight to London. I got a call from him in the early afternoon: “have you heard what happened?” (an ominous way to start any conversation). I hadn’t. H had been in the initial crash of a 17 car pile-up in thick fog on the Alex-Cairo road, where cars travel in excess of 90 mph whatever the weather, and whatever the road conditions. He was asleep in the back seat when his car was hit from behind, and had woken up a few hours later in intensive care. My other housemate and I rushed to the station, and got the first train we could to Cairo. Thankfully, the hospital had called an upper-class Egyptian friend of his shortly after he arrived, and he had reassured them about money, and made sure that he was getting proper treatment. This was particularly helpful in H’s case, as he doesn’t have insurance…

My other housemate and I arrived at the hospital at 11pm, well after visiting hours, and blagged our way in by asking to speak to his doctor. The doctor seemed very good and competent, told us all that had happened, and all that they were going to do. He was in intensive care for observation, but he was stable and lucid. He’d had a very bad concussion, and they had to wait until the swelling had gone down a bit before they could tell whether there was any more serious damage. We were then allowed in to see him – remarkably his external injuries were limited to minor cuts and bruises (his Egyptian friend had told me that the car was in pieces). I’m exceedingly lucky to still have a housemate.

I suppose there are two morals to this story. The first is that if one is in this country for long enough, one is almost guaranteed to be in a car accident. Almost everyone I know has been – major or minor. But the biggest is never, ever travel without insurance, especially in this part of the world. Nothing here works without a little currency-shaped lubrication – doctors concerned about payment will not treat, or if they do, they won’t care. If it wasn’t for H’s friend, he’d be in a very much worse situation now.

A final point of interest came on the journey back into downtown Cairo from the hospital. We went through Tahrir square, in my first time there. It looked rather like a fair: if fairs were routinely held in the middle of big roundabouts, and in which people wore surgical masks as a defence against tear gas. The traffic was being directed by protesters, while within the encampment youths sat chatting around big kettles of tea. Of course, it must be noted that this was a protest in its down stage – there were no apparent police around, and it mostly looked like young people having fun. I’m reliably informed that it’s very different at other times… Hence the surgical masks.

Final apologies for the long gap between my last post and now – and the depressing nature of this one. I will try to be more upbeat next time!