“Remember the heroes of your army. They have restored hope in our future and protected Egypt.” This tribute to the Egyptian armed forces was paid by Nabil Sahib, chairman of the election commission when he announced official results of the referendum on Egypt’s new constitution. Votes in favour were 98.1 per cent of the 20 million voting, on a 38.6 per cent turnout.
The army and its many supporters voiced full support and the defence minister General Abdul Fatteh el-Sisi is under huge pressure now to stand as president.
The result is widely seen as a return to power by the social forces behind the previous Mubarak regime overthrown in a popular revolution three years ago. He was the army’s man, in continuity with the coup that brought Nasser to power in 1952. Since then the army, now 450,000 in number, has been the central pillar of Egypt’s government, controlling large swathes of the economy, politics and bureaucracy.
The new constitution entrenches that influence by giving the army political control over itself as well as its large budget and legally over its Islamist and other critics since the army removed the Muslim Brotherhood from power last June. If General el-Sisi becomes president as expected, the counter-revolution under way will appear complete.
That would be a mistaken conclusion. Despite the resurgence of the commercial, industrial and political groups who supported the Mubarak regime and the harsh repression of their Islamist and left-wing opponents in recent months these forces are not strong enough to roll back the democratic gains established in January 2011. Secularists and those yearning for stability who have rallied uncritically to this flawed constitution will not accept such an outcome. If presidential elections are held before parliamentary ones fears of an over-weaning military influence will be confirmed. Economic, political and bureaucratic reforms will reignite social and political conflicts. This is an understandable and important stage in Egypt’s long revolution, but not its concluding act.