Egypt, Arab Spring and new politics

Lessons about the changing context of politics

Only after a year into presidency, the government of Egypt’s first elected President Mohamed Morsi has been brought down by a popular uprising and the use of military power. In the last two years, other Arab countries including Egypt have gone through a transition, popularly referred to as the ‘Arab Spring’. Current Egyptian uprising and the Arab Spring offer valuable lessons about the changing context of politics and the need for adopting a new kind of politics to respond to the emerging challenges.

The factors that drove Egyptian uprising, leading to the fall of Morsi include: i) an increasingly youthful population, ii) a strong urbanised/educated middle class, iii) the revolution of electronic and social media, iv) the poor management of economy, v) an exclusionary and domineering politics, vi) and religious engineering of a liberalised population.

The Egyptian population is growingly young, where those between 18-29 years of age are 25 percent of the population. Indeed a much younger lot of boys and girls have been at the forefront both in 2011 and during current uprising. In short those between the ages of 12-35 are roughly half of the total population. A large percentage of this youth is educated and urbanised, thus more aware about its rights and duties of the leaders. In the aftermath of 2011 revolution, the expectations of Egyptians soared to unprecedented levels; including the desire for jobs, dignity, justice and participation. Since people came out of a 60-year dictatorial rule, they now wanted their demands to be fulfilled very swiftly. They were not willing to wait any longer. They had zero tolerance for old style non-responsive and dictatorial politics. The people had started mass protests against the rule of military council before the presidential elections of 2012, which forced the generals to relinquish power.

In this background, Mohamed Morsi took power in June 2012. When he became president, Egyptian economy was in bad shape. Hosni Mubarak had built the Egyptian economy around agriculture, remittances, the American aid and most importantly tourism. The tourism sector provided jobs to about 30 percent of employed Egyptians. It contributed about 12 percent of the GDP. The 2011 revolution, continued mass protests against military rule, worsening security situation, and uprisings in other Arab countries, harmed tourism most severely leading to increased unemployment and poverty.

Coming from an intellectually de-capacitated Muslim Brotherhood, President Morsi lacked a vision and agenda for economic revitalisation. He also failed to build a strong economic team. Both the president and prime minister were trained as engineers, and thus lacked an understanding of modern economy and the working of global economic system. Therefore, the president’s camp failed to draw an economic plan for a post-revolution Egypt. The failure in revitalising the economy greatly added to the woes of an already impatient and impoverished population.

As if that wasn’t enough to offend his detractors, President Morsi adopted a ‘domineering, confrontational and exclusionary’ style of politics. Instead of formulating a consensus based first-ever democratic constitution, he bulldozed its drafting and approval with the help of Islamists, while completely excluding the liberals, the Christians and women from the process. At the institutional level, president picked up confrontation with the judiciary on the dissolving of constituent assembly and suspension of constitution. He went on to snub the military by retiring senior generals. He removed various governors of the old era, many of whom belonged to a military background, and brought in sympathisers of his Muslim Brotherhood.

Lastly, the president became a conduit for social engineering on behalf of his party, to introduce Islamisation in line with the Brotherhood brand. This was reflected in the constitution, the appointment of an Islamist as culture minister, the removal of prominent officials of cultural institutions, the appointment of a governor with links to terrorism against tourists, the increased marginalisation of Christians and the emergence of social vigilantes who admonished women of the etiquettes of social behaviour.

A population that is young, urbanised, educated, unemployed, aspirant of participation, and broadly liberal in its outlook, took offence to what the newly elected president offered. The electronic and social media served as educator and connector to bring a frustrated people together to challenge the authority of a strong-headed president. The members of ‘tamarrad’ (rebel) movement widely relied upon the use of social media to mobilise masses for June 30 demonstrations against Morsi.

On 30 June, the aspirations of a mass uprising, coalesced with the interests of a subdued but powerful military thus leading to the ouster of an ineffective but stubborn president.

Many of these elements were also the drivers behind the unleashing of events of Arab Spring in 2011; especially the youth bulge, an aspirant urban/middle class, the electronic and social media, and an exclusionary and non-responsive politics.

The changing demography, social mobility, and technological developments indicate that youth, urbanisation/education and electronic/social media would drive the social, political and economic changes in future, not only in Arab States, but in many other countries of Asia, Africa and South America, where societies are going through rapid transformation in these three aspects of life. This change, if not managed well, could lead to sudden social crises, reversing economic gains and causing political turmoil. Another factor that is already at play and will become more influential is the climate change and its implications in the form of increased disasters, water and food shortages, environmental losses and disease/epidemics.

If rulers and politicians want to prevent chaotic political transformations, social conflicts and economic devastations, they need to adopt a new politics. This new politics would revolve around four key elements.

Informed: The new politics has to be an informed politics. The current generation of politicians in many countries is living in their own ivory towers, being completely aloof from the societies they rule. They make decisions based upon whims and wishes. The politicians of future can’t remain ignorant of trends and processes in their societies, if they want to avoid the fate of Gaddafi, Gilani, Mubarak, Moris, Abdallah Saleh and Assad. Their policies will need to be informed by robust analysis of social, economic, technological, environmental and political trends and processes at home and abroad. In the absence of such analysis, their policies will face the risk of being irrelevant at best or counterproductive at worst.

Intelligent: The new politics is not for the dumb and naïve. The new politics requires politicians who can understand the complex challenges of modern society, identify smart solutions and apply them swiftly. The new politics needs politicians who don’t cherish the luxuries of public office, but enjoy the pleasures of public service. The age of parochial, archaic and egoistic politics is over.

Proactive: The new politics needs leadership which is not reactive like the current rulers in many countries, but one that is proactive, a leadership that thinks before the challenges become crises, a leadership that implements plans before the catastrophe strikes and a leadership that does not look the other way, while society suffers.

Inclusive: The new politics has to be inclusive. It will be non-sectarian and non-partisan as far as rights and needs of the people are concerned; be they women, religious and ethnic minorities or other identity groups. The new politics will be compromising when it comes to dealing with political dissent and institutional mandates. It will not dominate but accommodate. It will not fight, but partner. It will not excel in institutional rivalries rather it will rely upon mutual complementarities to better serve the needs of people.

Transparent: The new politics has to be transparent, when it comes to the spending of public funds. It will keep the constituency informed of government income, the spending and where it has been spent. The new politics will build trust with its citizenry by showing that the public money is spent in a fair, judicious and apolitical manner for the benefit of electorate, not for the luxuries of ruling elite.

In conclusion, the lessons learnt from the Arab Spring strongly urge for a strategic shift in traditional politics across the globe. The challenges current societies are facing are enormous, while the grace period available for corrective action is limited. If leaders and politicians don’t change quickly and if a new breed of politicians who understands new politics doesn’t emerge, many more countries may face devastating social uprisings and political crises within the next few years, like the countries of Arab region have faced since 2011.

The writer, a social critic and development professional working with international institutions since 1998, works for United Nations Development Programme and is currently based in Cairo. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author’s and do not represent the position of the UNDP. He can be contacted at: [email protected]