Page 2 of
2 Is
Egypt's Morsi eyeing an AKP
revolution? By Richard Javad
Heydarian
His rise to power has been
anything but straightforward. To assuage his
secularist detractors' fears with the prospects of
an Islamist hegemony - brought about by the MB's
anticipated ascendancy in both the legislative and
the executive branches, ahead of the formation of
the post-revolutionary democratic constitution -
he distanced himself from the MB and tried to
present himself as a political maverick, to no
avail.
A great proportion of voting
secularists and minority groups either supported
the liberal candidates, or backed Shafik for his
purportedly strong background on governance and
security, as the country slipped into chaos and
turmoil. During the run-off elections, less than
half of the population voted, with Morsi barely
passing the 51% margin.
So his mandate has been anything but
"overwhelming".
He simultaneously had to
contend with the junta, which not only supported
his main rival, Ahmad Shafik, but also launched
its own "pre-emptive" coup against the prospective
victory of the Islamist candidate: the SCAF coaxed
the (sympathetic) constitutional court to dismiss
the MB-dominated legislature, on the grounds that
its formation was unconstitutional, while
decreeing the constriction of the president's
power on key issues of budget, internal security,
and national defense as well as foreign policy.
Things got even trickier when the
electoral commission dragged its feet on
announcing the winner of the run-off elections,
precipitating a flurry of speculation on the
possibility of SCAF manipulating the outcome.
Eventually, Morsi claimed the presidency, a
position greatly diminished by the junta's
pre-emptive legal maneuvers.
Having a
limited mandate, diminished powers, an
unsympathetic constitutional court, bereft of
allies in the (dissolved) legislature, and facing
a rejuvenated and powerful junta, Morsi was
expected to keep a low profile and avoid
confrontation, perhaps until he built a critical
mass of support within the state and the broader
population.
His position was similar to
that of Turkey's first Islamist prime minister,
Necmettin Erbakan, back in 1996, who constantly
faced tremendous pressure - until his ouster in
1997 - by the powerful military to keep the
essential elements of the Turkish state intact.
But to almost everyone's surprise, and just
fresh into his presidency, Morsi has not only
outmaneuvered the SCAF chieftains, but he has also
re-concentrated both legislative and executive
power in his own hands - bringing him worryingly
close to the status of former presidents such as
Mubarak.
Much to the concern of highly
critical secularist and minority groups, Morsi has
put the MB in a strong position to also influence
the configuration of the country's new
constitution - with wide repercussions for the
nature of the post-revolutionary political system.
Erdogan redux? Just like their
Egyptian counterparts, the Turkish Islamists had
to contend with decades of fierce repression by an
ultra-secular order, anchored on the pervasive
power and influence of the "deep state": a complex
network of military and para-military elements,
which have employed a combination of political
intimidation, legal disqualification, and armed
coups to protect the secular character of the
Turkish republic against perceived
anti-secular/Turkish elements, ranging from the
Kurds to the Islamist groups and political
parties.
After decades of carefully
expanding their societal influence, the Islamists
were able to gradually penetrate mainstream
opposition political parties.
In the
1980s, during the so-called era of
"Turkish-Islamist Synthesis", the military regime
co-opted the Islamists groups to counter the
growing influence of the secular left: especially
Marxist and separatist groups among the Kurdish
populace.
This era provided an opening for
the Islamists to transform into serious electoral
actors by the 1990s. Despite the dissolution of
leading Islamic parties such as Erbakan's Welfare
Party by the constitutional court, the pragmatic
and politically astute Islamists were able to
capitalize on constant failure of leading secular
parties such as Republican People's Party to
arrest Turkey's downward spiral of economic and
political uncertainty.
In 2002, the
re-constituted AKP (rising from the ashes of
previous disbanded Islamist political parties) was
able to dominate the elections. Riding on an
impressive record of economic revival, growing
social pluralism, and political freedom, the AKP
further consolidated its position in the 2007
elections. By 2008, after narrowly escaping
dissolution by the constitutional court, it went
on the offensive: through the "Ergenekon Trial" -
implicating prominent individuals from the
military and other sectors in coup plots - it
began cracking down on the so-called "deep state".
This was followed up by the 2010
referendum, which introduced sweeping political
reforms, targeting the judiciary as well as the
constitutional provisions on political freedom,
pluralism, and due process. The referendum allowed
the AKP to significantly limit the room for
military interference in government affairs and
its dominance in security-related operations (ie,
war against dissidents and separatists).
By July 2011, the AKP's charismatic
leader, Erdogan, consolidated his rule over the
military when all chiefs of the Turkish military
resigned in protest at the government's
imprisonment of a growing number of prominent
military figures in relation to the Ergenekon
trial. Erdogan also has growing control over the
appointments of top military officials and the
configuration of the army's highest echelons.
What AKP achieved was a distinct form of
revolution, what could be termed "refolution":
revolutionizing a political system through
progressive application of consequential political
reform by peaceful means.
With the "deep
state" almost irreversibly out of the picture,
people are raising concerns with the increasingly
"autocratic" tendencies of the current leadership,
especially its use of "conspiracies" and "plots"
to intimidate all forms of opposition and/or
imprison all those who resist.
With Morsi
temporarily pushing the military back and
re-concentrating executive and legislative power
in his own hands, many are asking whether he will
be tempted to more unilaterally shape the destiny
of post-revolutionary Egypt. After all, unlike
Turkey, Morsi is not presiding over a country that
seeks to join the liberal-democratic European
Union - a great source of deterrence against a
full Islamist take-over in Turkey. Meanwhile, it
is also possible that the ancien regime will
strike back as the new president chips away at the
military's broad range of privileges and powers.
But, no one can deny that Morsi has
probably achieved - or in the process of - what
the revolution itself failed to do: dislodge the
military regime in favor of a civilian one.
Whether it will be a democratic and liberal one is
the bigger question.
Richard Javad
Heydarian is a Philippines-based foreign
affairs analyst specializing on Iran and
international security.
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