I have usually avoided writing on this blog when not in Egypt, because its value, if any, lies in the proximity to events, moods, and everyday encounters as the stuff for some preliminary anthropological theory of the revolutionary process. With the presidential elections, I now feel compelled to make an exception and try to offer some analysis from the distanced vantage point of a cozy coffee house in Europe. The election results not only determine the political future of Egypt: they also provide an amazing wealth of sociological data that could be telling about the general social dynamics in Egypt of which the revolution in Egypt is a part. In consequence, this post is more sociological than ethnographic, trying to look at some interesting societal tendencies on the basis of the statistical evidence provided by the election results.
The result, to start with, it is
nothing short of a disaster in terms of Egypt's immediate political
future. The second round of the elections on 16 and 17 June will see
a face-off of Mohammed Morsy (25% of the vote in the first round)) of
the Muslim brotherhood and Ahmad Shafiq (24,3%), Mubarak's last
prime minister. This result wasn't foreseen by most observers -
I myself gave a completely mistaken prediction in an interview on
Finnish radio on Wednesday, anticipating a lead of Amr Moussa (11,4%)
and Abouel Fotouh (17,3%) who, however, ended up 5th and
4th, beaten by the socialist Sabbahi who with an amazing
campaign and with very little money managed to gain the biggest part
of the revolutionary vote, reaching a completely unexpected third
place with 21% of the vote. Unexpected as it was for many, the result
appears to be a largely genuine expression of the voters' will, even
if it does have a margin of error due to minor rigging here and there
(which unfortunately also means that we will never know with
certainty whether Ahmad Shafiq really got more votes than Hamdeen
Sabbahi). There is still the tiny chance that the outcome of a large
number of polling stations can be contested because of irregularities
and rigging – but Shafiq is 764,000 votes ahead of Sabbahi, and it
is probably too large a gap to overcome by legal means.
As far as it comes to presidential
elections, the revolution is now over, and we enter the age of
battles of power between two powerful blocks that are fundamentally
not committed to democracy. Whoever of the two wins, there is every
reason to expect the worst from his rule. (The best of scenarios is
an ongoing and undecided power struggle between the Brotherhood and
the Military that will allow the revolutionary movement to gain
ground because neither of the two powers is strong enough to
eliminate political opposition.)
The elections might have had a
different outcome. Much of the result was due to quite specific
circumstances. The disqualification of former vice president Omar
Suleyman and the Salafi preacher Hazem Salah ended up reducing the
fragmentation of the pro-system and Islamist votes, which worked to
the advantage of Morsy and Shafiq. At the same time, the competition
between the two revolutionary candidates Sabbahi and Abouel Fotouh
fragmented the revolutionary vote, with tragic consequences (although
neither one of them would have actually been able to unite all the
votes of the two – their ideological agendas are too far apart for
that). The decision of major Salafi groups to back Abouel Fotouh
alienated a big part of his leftist and liberal supporters, which in
turn turned into Sabbahi's advantage – but not to a sufficient
degree. In the end, the result is what it is, but these elections
certainly have been one of those visible moments of contingency in
history where it is very clear that things might have just as well
gone differently. But now back to the facts:
The data from the election tells that there are interesting things going on in Egypt. Some of them, more slowly and less dramatically, are working to the advantage of the revolutionary current, and give every reason to expect that things will remain in movement in Egypt for years to come.
1. On the basis of the election results,
three political and electoral blocks of roughly equal size emerge: 1)
the old system (represented by Ahmad Shafiq and Amr Moussa),
promising cautious transformation, and standing in the tradition of
Mubarak's authoritarian neoliberalism; 2) the Islamists (represented
by Ahmad Morsy and a part of Abouel Fotouh's voters – AF was backed
by a part of the Salafis which ended up costing him a lot of support
in leftist and liberal circles), promising a religious-moral turn but
essentially committed to Mubarak's neoliberal policies; and 3) -
partly overlapping with the Islamists - the revolutionaries
(represented by the Nasserist socialist Hamdeen Sabbahi and the
liberal Islamist Abouel Fotouh), demanding a fundamental overhaul of
the political and economical system, and representing a variety of
ideological positions, including liberal, Nasserist, socialist, and
Islamist). So in terms of popular support, no groups is clearly superior to the others.
(No, I do not count the Muslim
Brotherhood to the revolutionaries. They have proven to be highly
opportunistic politicians committed to winning the political game but
not committed to fundamental systemic change. They have ridden the
wave of the revolution when it suited them, and sold the revolution
when it served their interests. There are Islamists who are with the
revolution, but the Brotherhood is not among them.)
2. Although the immediate outcome of the
elections is a defeat for the revolutionaries, the overall support of the
revolutionary fraction has grown. In the constitutional referendum,
the „No“ vote was 23%, which until now has been the best
indication we had about the overall support of a demand for a
fundamental change of the political system. In the parliamentary
elections, the vote of liberal, leftist, and revolutionary Islamist
groups together was in the same order of magnitude as the „no“
vote. In the presidential elections, in contrast, the two
revolutionary candidates Sabbahi and Abouel Fotouh gained together
nearly 40% of the vote. Partly this is due to a part of the Salafis
shifting towards the revolutionary spectrum lately, but there is more
to it: Both Abouel Fotouh and Sabbahi were able to address people at
a large scale beyond the immediate circles of revolutionary
enthusiasts. While the revolutionary block has lost the presidential
race, with Hamdeen Sabbahi it has also gained a leader who is able to
gather mass support without making concessions either to the
Islamists or to those afraid of change – a feat that seemed to be
impossible to realise after the constitutional referendum and the
parliamentary elections. Sabbahi may still become the president of Egypt - in five
or ten years' time.
3. - The election was decided in favour
of Shafiq and Morsy in the countryside and in small and medium-sized
towns where Sabbahi and Abouel Fotouh were not able to reach people
on an individual level through family and other networks the way
Morsy and Shafiq were. Especially the Muslim Brotherhood has proven
itself as a veritable election machine capable of bringing people
from their homes to the polling stations, and campaigning even inside the polling stations to persuade the undecided. However,
and this very important, they are not having their greatest success in those milieus where
they have their strongest social basis – that is, in the cities of
northern Egypt – but mainly in the countryside and in southern
Egypt. Like with Shafiq, their success in the elections relies to a significant
degree on people who vote not on the basis of established ideological
positions but of personal and clientelist relations (who knows whom,
who can help whom) and expect solutions to immediate local or
personal problems. For Shafiq, this is perfectly in line with established NDP practice, but for the Muslim Brotherhood, it is a contradiction of sorts, and shows that while their power in rural areas is great, in their original milieus they are in trouble.
Shafiq, in contrast to Morsy, also did well in Cairo which, with its proximity to the centre of power, interestingly has lots of both revolutionaries as well as hardcore supporters of the old system: Sabbahi 28,7%; Shafiq 27 %; Morsy 17%; Abouel Fotouh 16%; Moussa 11,3%.
4. - Both Morsy and
Shafiq were totally defeated in Alexandria, Egypt's second largest
city that until now was thought to be an Islamist stronghold. This is
the official result for Alexandria:
Sabbahi 34%; Abouel Fotouh 22%; Moussa
16%; Morsy 15%; Shafiq 12% (and others 1%)
This was not entirely a surprise,
because already in the constitutional referendum in March 2011
Alexandria had some of the highest „no“ votes in all Egypt, close
to 35% (both supporters of the old system as well as the Muslim
Brotherhood rallied for a „yes“ vote). Rather than being an
Islamist stronghold, Alexandria now has the revolutionary
liberal/left as its most prominent political current (in terms of
ideological position and public opinion, that is, not in terms of
organisational power. In the latter regard the Islamists are vastly
superior). This does not mean that the depiction of Alexandria as an
Islamist stronghold is false – I think that in the past, it was
true. Alexandria's position as a rapidly growing city of 4 or 5
millions somewhat out of the focus of the government's sight makes it a
structurally oppositional city that suffers from neither the conservative
inertia of the rural regions nor the vested interests and proximity
to political power of the capital. This made it the perfect site for
Islamist groups to develop and prove their political and social power
in the past decades, and it has also made it the place where
Sabbahi's revolutionary message with Nasserist undertones and
populist appeal („One of us“ was his election slogan) would be
most successful. Alexandria is a vanguard city when it comes to
social and political dynamics in Egypt. It is worth keeping an eye on
it.
5. - The support of the revolutionary
fraction is heavily concentrated to cities, but not necessarily to
the middle classes. Both in Cairo as well as in Alexandria, Sabbahi
also gained a lot of votes in working-class areas. Structurally
speaking, there seems to be a relationship between urbanisation and
progressive politics that goes beyond the middle-class theory of
democratisation. This puts the future government of either Morsy or
Shafiq in front of a dilemma: To maintain power, they rely on a
constituency that is often rural and poor. If the future government's
economical and social policies are successful, this will lead to the
growth of milieus that structurally favour progressive, anti-system
politics, and sooner or later the future government will face new
unrest – and stronger opposition. If its policies are unsuccesful,
however, it will face new unrest much sooner.
6. - The revolutionary candidates were
generally very weak in in rural areas, with one very interesting
exception: Kafr El Sheikh, a largely rural province in the northern
Nile Delta. Otherwise, the Nile Delta region was generally dominated
by Shafiq (mostly first) and Morsy (mostly second), except in
provinces with high degree of urbanisation like Daqahliya (which has
two big cities, Mahalla and Mansoura) where Sabbahi came second
behind Shafiq with a very narrow margin. In Kafr El Sheikh, however, he
gained an overwhelming victory with a stunning 62% of the vote. Kafr El Sheikh
is Sabbahi's home region, which is one reason for his success but not
the whole story – Morsy did not win in his home region, and Abouel
Fotouh was positively defeated in his. More importantly, Kafr El
Sheikh has a history of leftist activism in the 1970's and 80's and
although the old socialist networks had become inactive in the past
two decades, they still could be reactivated for Sabbahi's campaign.
In the village in northeastern Kafr El Sheikh where I do much of my
fieldwork, those networks made it possible that in late April, the
village was suddenly plastered by Sabbahi posters. At first, this was
thanks to just six Nasserist families, but the spark soon spread also
to the non-Nasserist village revolutionaries (who had formed
themselves in spring of 2011 but had little practical success and
played no role in the parliamentary elections), and many of them
joined the Sabbahi campaign. The same happened in villages and towns
throughout the province, with quite some effect as the results from
Kafr El Sheikh show:
Sabbahi
62%; Morsy 17%; Abouel Fotouh 9 %; Shafiq 8%; Moussa 4%
Morsy and Shafiq won because their
campaigns were able to link into family and clientelistic networks.
The revolutionary candidates were successful either in cities where
people are more likely to vote on the basis of ideology than
networks, or in places where they could rely on pre-existing
networks. While voting on the basis of ideology is likely to increase
in the coming years (on the condition that there are free elections,
that is), the revolutionary current can only reach majorities if it
can rely on both ideology and networks. This means that if the
revolutionary current does not want to wait for demographic change to
solve the issue in their favour in 10 to 20 years, their most
formidable task is to build those networks, and I'm not sure whether
they are up to it.
7. - Yesterday evening the story
started to spread that the Christian vote, influenced by the Coptic
Orthodox Church that is very close to the old system, was
instrumental for Shafiq making it to the second place. However, the
most important base for Shafiq's succcess were not the Upper (i.e.
southern) Egyptian provinces with their large Christian populations.
Shafiq did well there but Morsy was the winner in most of Upper
Egypt, and Shafiq got his most votes (in terms of absolute numbers)
in the Nile Delta, most overwhelmingly so in the central Delta
province of Sharqiya that has no remarkable Christian population:
Shafiq 33,5%; Morsy 27,5%; Moussa 16 %; Sabbahi 12 %; Abouel Fotouh
11 %).
(the source of these calculations is
this: http://tab3.me/Inside#.T7_4V8XvpUY - preliminary results but largely congruent with official final results)
(See also this overview, based on the official final results: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentMulti/42975/Multimedia.aspx )
(See also this overview, based on the official final results: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentMulti/42975/Multimedia.aspx )
To conclude, my expectation
is that both Shafiq or Morsy will be really bad for Egypt, but that
they may not be able to be quite as bad as they would like to. Shafiq
will mean the consolidation of the military rule that has wrecked
Egypt. Morsy is now trying to mobilise the revolutionary vote for
him, and some (like the novelist Alaa El Aswany) are going along with
that. But everything that the Brotherhood has done in the past year
and so indicates that as soon as they gain power, they will drop,
marginalise, and - if necessary - recklessly repress their former
allies. However, the social and political landscape of Egypt as the
outcome of the election shows it, indicates that no new leader will
be able to gain the hegemonic and unquestioned position which Mubarak
once had (before his authority
began to crumble around 2005). Especially in the major cities, the future president will face a
largely oppositional population, and it will be a tough job to govern
Egypt in the coming years.
At the same time, there is no question
that these elections have been the most serious and most irreversible
defeat for the revolution since it began. There may not be another
chance for the revolutionaries to gain power in free elections – I
see no reason why either Shafiq or Morsy would have any interest to
ever have free elections again unless they are forced to. The path of
a peaceful revolution has come to a temporary end, and wrestling
power back from either Morsy or Shafiq will likely require more than
good campaigning.
Nevertheless, both Alexandria and Kafr
El Sheikh (and Port Said, by the way, where Sabbahi also was first)
provide crucial lections of how the revolutionaries can do it right.
The path to power may begin in protests on the squares, but it must
pass through the networks of people's ordinary lives and worlds. In
at least three provinces in Egypt, the supporters of the revolution have found solutions to this problem. They offer lessons to be studied and learned from that may help
to turn this defeat into future victories.
Thanks a lot for this explanation! This sort of introduction makes me really want to go to Egypt and talk with revolutionaries of all kind about how to organize politics right!
ReplyDeleteOn the Coptic vote, the analysis is right but their bloc is capable of swinging things. If the numbers for Shafiq flipped to Sabbahi the outcome would have been different. I gauge that most Copts made up their minds before Sabbahi became relevant, and thus it was not simply a choice for the 'old regime' but a choice against the Islamists. I wonder if Copts would do it over again if they had the chance.
ReplyDeleteI think the Coptic vote has more likely been spread between Shafiq, Sabbahi, and Moussa - but of course, with such narrow difference, votes like those of the tourism-dependent and largely Christian population of Luxor afraid of both Islamists and revolution may have made a contribution. But right now it seems that the decisive vote for Shafiq may have come from Police officiers and soldiers (not allowed to vote by Egyptian electoral law), dead voters, and multiple entries of the same name in electoral lists - that is, fraud, just big enough for the few percents Shafiq is ahead of Sabbahi. If that is the case (and I think it is), then it is very likely that the military will pull a similar trick on Morsy, too...
ReplyDeleteRe #5: when you say 'working class areas', do you mean, at least in part, 'SHA'BI' or informal settlements such as the neighbourhoods in Imbaba in North Giza?
ReplyDeleteYes, informal settlements such as Imbaba in Giza and Dar El Salam in Cairo, which both had Sabbahi as clear winner (according to the preliminary results I saw). In Alexandria, Sabbahi dominated in almost all districts, and where he didn't, Abouel Fotouh was first.
DeleteHowever, we must add that the district of Imbaba is much bigger than just the informal settlements, and includes different class milieus. But the informal settlements are the most populous part.
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