Algeria marked the 50th anniversary of her independence on July 5. Every Algerian city and village sustained casualties during the 8-year independence war, therefore, the agenda has been full of commemoration activities. It signifies a well-founded pride in a liberation that has come at an immense cost to the country. But until today, the ideology of the state remains a prisoner of the independence war, mute to its citizens' cultural and economic disquietudes.

The Native Berber Population

As such, Algeria's youth is increasingly divided between pride in their country's liberation and a sense of betrayal by a string of army-backed leaders who have failed to live up to the sacrifices of those who died. Meanwhile, the concept of a historically Arab Algeria that has emerged in the passing of French Algeria, has done much to marginalise Algeria's native, Berber population.

As the Arab Uprisings took root in North Africa last year, Berbers in every country in the region took advantage to advocate for their political and cultural rights. In Mali, a renewed Tuareg uprising is pushing for recognition of their identity and an independent state, while in post-rebellion Tunisia and Libya, the Berber community has mounted campaigns to secure recognition of their cultural rights and Tamazigh language.

Some of the fiercest resistance to Arab assimilation has come from Berbers in Algeria, widely credited with founding the modern Berber movement in the 1960s. The Arab Uprisings have galvanized Algerian Berbers into a renewed effort that has culminated in a number of protests. The biggest of these, saw tens of thousands take to the streets of Tizi Ouzou, the centre of a Berber revolt in Algeria, in April this year.

This begs the question – how is the Berber movement looking to redefine the governance of Algeria? And, will the revival of the Amazigh identity throughout North Africa over the past year help redefine governance in the region as it is currently taking place?

“Algerians and Muslims, but not Arabs”

I meet Ahmed Ait Bachir in a cafe in the centre of Tizi Ouzou, the capital of Kabylie. It is two weeks before the 2012 parliamentary elections and it is relatively quiet in the cradle of Berber Algeria. In his fifties, he introduces himself as “an activist for human rights, freedom of expression, and the Berber language”. Ait Bachir is a founding member of the Mouvement Autonome Kabyle (MAK), the separatist Berber movement led by folk-singer Ferhat Mehenni.

“We are Algerians and Muslims but we are not Arabs”, begins Ait Bachir. He refers to the idea of an exclusive Algerian identity that began to take shape in the 1930s when the Arabic language and Islam were proclaimed as integral to the Algerian identity by the emerging national movement in opposition to French colonial rule. "Colonization brought the genocide of our identity, of our history, of our language [and] of our traditions," President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said on Algerian television in 2006.

Under the leadership of the National Liberation Front (FLN), this concept of an indivisible Algerian identity – nationalist, Muslim, and Arab – was further consolidated. The Berber minority in Algeria, estimated at between 6 and 10 million, have always maintained a strong determination to preserve their distinctive cultural identity and language. “Efforts to force us to use Arabic are a form of Arab imperialism”, explains Ait Bachir. Although Berber became an official — but not a national — language in Algeria in 2002, the Tamazigh language is still not to be taught in public schools or in university. “Our community is traumatised – we feel like our body parts have been amputated”.

Although Ait Bachir brands the MAK “as activists for the autonomy of the region”, he stresses that the Berber problem “is a cultural problem”. According to Ait Bachir, the struggle of the MAK is one of “cultural re-vindication”. “We need to re-found the state, reconfigure the nation – define a common space with rules that bind us all”, argues Ait Bachir. For the MAK, the revision of the constitution, in order to guarantee the Berber's cultural rights, is the first step.

Over the past year, the Algerian government has been careful to connect such Berber aspirations to the broader discontent percolating in the country. As far as the regime is concerned, the election and the subsequent process of constitutional reform, initiated by President Boutefilka to quell social unrest in the country, should not be seen as opportunities for advocating more de-centralisation of any kind.

“Through repression and intimidation, and with a lack of money, it has been hard to operate”, says Ait Bachir. The recently enacted Law for Political Parties only allows competing political parties to organise meetings during the election period, and has been hurting the MAK particularly.

“The law limits our activities to social media, internet, and demonstrations. Even the Berber TV and radio stations are run by those loyal to the regime”, laments Ait Bachir.

In any case, in a country that does not allow political parties to be based on religion or regional affinity, it seems impossible for a movement like the MAK to gain political power to advance its cause. Moreover, given the strategic importance of Algeria as an oil and gas supplier and a front against terrorism, there is no hope for foreign intervention. “Foreign countries are being manipulated by the regime”, says Ait Bachir. A letter by the MAK to the UN Human Rights Council has been left unanswered since 2008.

“A Revolution Within the Revolution”

“Algeria's independence has been confiscated – we need a revolution within the revolution”, argues Ait Bachir. Several historic leaders of the FLN came from this region, including Hocine Aït Ahmed, Abane Ramdane, and Karim Belkacem. But over time, such leaders have proven to be of little worth to the Berber cause. The question now is whether the goal of such a peaceful revolution would be to revolutionise Algerian society or to actually secede from it.

Founded in 2001, the MAK has been advocating the latter, regional autonomy, a reflection of the lack of faith in the current political system to bring (cultural) justice. Although the MAK claims to be the largest Berber movement, it has been hindered by the politics of the wider cultural Berber movement. Outside this movement, the MAK's separatistposition has politically isolated them. As Webster Brooks, a former senior fellow at the University of Denver, argued: “the Berbers have very few friends”.

Secular parties in Algeria that traditionally have had ties with the Berber movement, such as the Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD) and the Socialist Forces Front (FFS), have been reluctant to promote Berber cultural rights, fearing political blowback from the Algerian electorate. To many in Algeria, the violence of the ongoing Arab Uprisings and the Islamist popular take-over in neighbouring countries is the triumph of the Algeria model with which the ideas of the MAK have little in common.

Islamists refuse to fight for the Berber's political and cultural aspirations, under the guise of the so-called "Kabylie Myth", the narrative that Berbers are anti-Arab and anti-Islamist separatists. At the same time, according to Brooks, “the ruling elites seek to diminish or crush Berber demands in an effort to prevent them from uniting with democratic seculars and Islamists; mortified at the prospect of a majority opposition movement emerging against their authoritarian rule”.

The 2012 parliamentary elections have proved once again that rather than truly setting forth on a course of responsible and gradual reform, the regime is using the Arab Uprisings as an opportunity to solidify its own power base. The only public soul-searching that is part of this exercise is one of perpetually rediscovering the same old truisms that form Algeria's identity. That there is no common public space to defend, but that which excludes the Berber minority, is a testimony of the the Berber minority’s lack of trust in the current political system.

However, the shape of the current political landscape indicates that Algeria's ”revolution within the revolution” will not be ushered in by a separatist Berber uprising, by Western intervention, or through the ballot box. How canthe revival of the Amazigh identity throughout North Africa over the past year help redefine governance in the Middle East, particularly in Algeria, as it is currently taking place?

Breaking the Isolation

Over the past half century, a small group, better known as “le pouvoir”, has been able to monopolise power in the absence of clear checks and balances. The main strategic mistake of groups such as the MAK is that in advocating their cause, they have preferred to settle their own scores and alienate the mainstream, paving the way for the regime's divide-and-rule strategy.

In the words of Adam Shatz in an article for the Boston Globe in 2003, the question is whether the Berber movement realises that they can only achieve their goals as the embryo of Algerian democracy rather than as a growing and unappeasable separatist movement. They simply do not have enough clout on their own to force a secession. However, what goes for the Berber movements goes for all other opposition parties: Islamists and secularists alike, they must forge a common ground.

Thus, if the Berber revival is to mean anything for the plight of Berbers in Algeria, it must mean something to everyone else. This is the challenge of fighting authoritarianism – to commit

everyone to fighting for a new state in which all groups are able to express themselves and compete. It is a movement bound only by an opposition to a regime that prefers to settle its differences in a common political space with common rules rather than by making backhanded deals with the regime. This is what the regime is desperately trying to avoid.

For the Berber movement this a two-fold exercise. It must tap into the secular stream of thought of many of Algeria's opposition parties to frame its cultural rights rather than portray this as an ethnic issue. At the same time, as Brooks rightly argues: “they must become mainstream leaders in the fight for economic improvement and anti-corruption measures that fuelled the Arab Spring uprisings”. These should be the pillars of common resistance against the regime's stronghold. In Algeria's current political landscape, characterised by paralysis and apathy, this is a formidable task.

As such, breaking the isolation of the Berbers in Algeria should have a profound international dimension. Now is the time for the Berber Diaspora, particularly in France and the United States, to escalate public opinion about the historical struggle of Berbers for freedom and cultural recognition. International policy-makers are squeezed between their commitment to the values of the Arab Uprisings and their dependence on the geopolitical realities on the ground – oil and terrorism predominantly. The vision of a culturally re-vindicated Berber population leading a front for a culturally Islamic, politically secular, economically social, Algeria, will be hard for them to resist.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51勛圖’s editorial policy.

The post The Politics of Identity: A Berber Spring in Algeria? appeared first on 51勛圖.

Notwithstanding a fierce and ongoing debate on its legal and moral foundations, the last 20 years have been the age of interventionism – in Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, and most recently Iraq and Afghanistan. While the occupation of Iraq ended in December 2012, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) continues to battle in Afghanistan. But, after almost 11 years, NATO's combat mission in Afghanistan seems to be drawing to an end. At NATO's yearly summit last May in Chicago, world leaders endorsed plans to gradually and responsibly draw down its forces to complete the ISAF mission by December 31, 2014.

With NATO leaders putting an end to ISAF's combat mission and heralding the beginning of a new enduring strategic partnership, it seems timely to evaluate the success of NATO's intervention mission. Has Afghanistan merely been "one act in a five-act tragedy", a failed state with a potential for increased chaos? Or has ISAF's Counter Insurgency (COIN) strategy worked, and brought about basic security that can be maintained by Afghan security forces, with the existence of a government that can provide essential services such as healthcare and education? And, what lessons can we draw from our engagement in Afghanistan?

The Real Strategic Mistake in Afghanistan

As time passes, the US administration has increasingly shied away from setting specific "benchmarks" to be achieved before the end of the ISAF missions. However, there is a consensus among senior officials that success in Afghanistan can be defined on some level — a basic security that can be maintained by Afghan security forces, and the existence of a government that can provide essential services to the Afghan people.

Such tenable security depended principally on disrupting, disabling, and dismantling al-Qaeda in Afghanistan to prevent it from using Afghanistan and Pakistan as a base to attack the United States. The ISAF, and the US forces in Afghanistan (USFor-A) specifically, have been rather successful in achieving this. Al-Qaeda leaders have been captured and killed, its bases of operation eliminated, its financing restricted, and its ability to launch international attacks disrupted. The killing of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011 was the cherry on the cake.

At the same time, it was absolutely crucial to co-opt the Taliban into a political arrangement that would underpin a secure Afghanistan. As Michael Semple, a deputy to the European Union special representative for Afghanistan from 2004 to 2007, argued in The Guardian recently, it is this failure to squeeze the Taliban out of their Faustian alliance with al-Qaeda that has been the real strategic mistake in Afghanistan.

Instead, the NATO coalition has conducted a relentless campaign against the Taliban movement. It has echoed the first “prong” of what former US President George Bush articulated in his 2010 memoir Decision Points to be his discrete concept of the Bush Doctrine that informed strategy in Afghanistan: “make no distinction between terrorists and the nations that harbor them — and hold both to account."

As a result of this doctrine, evidence that the Afghan-Taliban movement was a veritable extension of al-Qaeda and thus must be fought resolutely, came to obscure the larger strategic fault lines of Afghanistan's ethno-political geography. The War on Terror has made us forgetful of Afghanistan's past. It has ignored the fact that the Taliban have been engaged in their own struggle with fellow Afghans, seeking to define the identity of the Afghan state and redress perceived power imbalances within it since the Russians left the country.

Thus, despite the Taliban's national religious liberation discourse and co-operation with al-Qaeda, however disastrous their effects, the War on Terror is hiding the real conflict within Afghanistan and a looming civil war. Yet, international efforts have done little to offer alternatives to the Taliban. The Bonn Agreement that laid out the framework for a future Afghanistan has given the Taliban no stake in the new system. For example, the agreement gave all security and police controls to the rivalling Northern Alliance.

Only recently has there been a growing realisation that any political solution must include the Taliban if it is to be successful in restoring stability and security in Afghanistan. In an article in The Telegraph, Michael Semple expressed this hope by saying: "Now that counter-terrorism has found its mark, perhaps politics will come to the fore." But the timetable for withdrawal may be fatal for Obama’s ambition to "open the door" to the Taliban. Or as Rory Stewart, a senior coalition official in Iraq, has argued: "a lighter, more political, and less but still robust militarized presence that his argument implies could facilitate a deal with the Taliban, if it [military presence] appeared semi-permanent."

"Failure is Not an Option"
Coupled to a limited political objective, the War on Terror was a rather maximalist military tactic to build a government that was able to provide the Afghan people basic service or to nation-build, euphemistically called counter-insurgency (COIN). Known as the "hearts and minds" strategy, it has come to signify a population-centric approach to defeating an insurgency by protecting the people and convincing them they are better off with their own government, backed perhaps by foreign forces, than they are with the insurgents.

The military establishment really came to believe in the promise of counter-insurgency especially after the successful surge in Iraq in 2007. However, according to Colonel Gian P. Gentile, a visiting fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, it became "such a tightly wrapped straitjacket that it prevents us from seeing alternatives, especially in a place like Afghanistan." Alternatives that echo Barack Obama's statement at West Point in 2009 suggest that "we can’t simply afford to ignore the price of these wars."

This paradigm shift should not simply be because of electoral and financial reasons; a decade’s commitment or more is often suggested for Afghanistan with war approval rates on an all-time low. It should take place because decision-makers realise that Afghanistan's size and the region's many safe-havens, especially Pakistan, make a so-called enclave approach of capturing, holding and securing territory, and moving gradually out from the secured enclaves, doomed to fail.

Moreover, an effective counter-insurgency relies, in large measure, on a competent and legitimate host country government. The Hamid Karzai government hardly qualifies as such; Afghanistan's GDP is composed mainly of bribes and drugs trade, and the Afghan National Army (ANA) is based solely upon the forces of the old Northern Alliance.

As such, the coalition has, in the words of Stewart, again fallen into the trap of increase or withdraw. Either "they want to dramatically increase troops and expenditure, defeat the Taliban, and leave. Or they just want to leave," as Stewart proclaims. What Stewart rightly argues is that "instead of pursuing an Afghan policy for existential reasons, and doing "whatever it takes" and "whatever it costs", we should accept that there is a limit on what we can do. And we don’t have a moral obligation to do what we cannot do."

Two Lessons for Future Interventions
Looking back on over a decade of foreign intervention in Afghanistan, two conclusions can be drawn. First, while the counter-terrorism strategy has been a policy success, it has further marginalised any prospects of political reconciliation in Afghanistan after more than three decades of (civil) war and has not addressed the real threat to regional stability, namely Pakistan. Second, COIN or nation-building has failed to support a government capable of delivering essential services, has discredited the national government as a weak and integral vehicle of Western interests, and ruined the public's appetite for viable forms of support to the Afghan government, such as those that will be stipulated in the partnership agreements to be signed with Afghanistan in the coming period.

In the end, as Gerard Knaus argued in his book Can Intervention Work?, the questions for the future are: Can we intervene in foreign countries and do good? Can we stop wars and genocides and get rid of evil dictators? Can we then build modern, democratic states that thrive in our wake?

The Afghanistan experience provides us with two lessons that need to be taken into account when we answer this question.

The first is that intervention must serve a political solution that goes beyond a narrow international security objective. Intervention should not just addresses horizontal, universal struggles (oppression versus freedom) but should provide a way out of vertical, historical struggles to do with a country's specific ethno-political geography. Secondly, while expanding the political objectives of intervention, policy-makers need to decrease military operational objectives. Intervention can only be successful if it consists of an international presence that would merely be a small if necessary part of a larger national political strategy.

It is this mismatch of political and military operational objectives that has mired NATO's strategy in Afghanistan over the past decade. Both objectives need to be firmly adjusted to one another and in the words of Stewart, once again, be based upon the realisation that "if we can resist the slogan that failure is an option we shall discover — in Egypt, in Syria, in Libya, and anywhere else we go in the world — that if we can often do much less than we pretend, we can do much more than we fear."

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51勛圖’s editorial policy.

The post NATO in Afghanistan: Can Intervention Work? appeared first on 51勛圖.

Located on the heights of Algiers, Martyrs Memorial stands tall over the city. Fashioned in the shape of three standing palm leaves, its concrete structure is a historical testament to Algeria's struggle for independence and unity. Next to the memorial is a lush forest with restaurants and a shopping centre, complementary tributes to Algeria's (economic) progress since. Taken together, they form the image of Algeria that its regime likes to project to the outside world — a beacon of freedom, stability, and progress when other countries are facing uprisings.

In reality, the first Muslim state to embark on a transition to democracy in the early 1990's is facing problems similar to those in other Arab countries – authoritarian and arbitrary rule, social injustice, and a restless and disenfranchised youth. No amount of revenue from oil exports has been able to hide the growing discontent. With its socio-economic climate deteriorating and unrest spreading through the streets in early 2011, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika seized the 2012 legislative elections as an opportunity for reform. He announced a revision of the constitution and an improvement of regulations on political parties, elections, and associations. Although members of the Algerian opposition and civil society criticized the president, political parties were cautiously optimistic that new legal provisions would guarantee a fairer, more credible, and more transparent election, and that the regime was serious about the gradual political reform that will help avert an Algerian Arab Spring.

The recent elections resulted in a splintered parliament dominated by the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), the party that has ruled Algeria ever since its independence in 1962, and have left little hope for such reform. Call it apathy, or call it paralysis. The fact remains that the grave consequences of Algeria's first free elections in 1991 are engraved in the public’s memory. To many in Algeria, the violence of the ongoing Arab uprisings and the Islamist popular take-over is the triumph of the Algeria model. But the political elite (the opposition included) are all children of the “black decade”, the decade of civil war between Islamists and the military in the 1990s, whose brutality the country has desperately been trying to forget but has politically never been able to.

The Same Message, the Same Apathy

The regime's discourse of “responsible and gradual reform” has resonated less and less with the Algerian electorate over the last decade. The disinterest of citizens in the most recent electoral process, was reflected in an insipid campaign period and low turnout on election day, and has once again confirmed that Algeria's political class is largely unable to mobilise the electorate. In the wake of a crisis, it is not uncommon for a society to soul-search for new national identity. It is uncommon, however, for a society that has settled on such an identity a long time ago, to have its politicians conduct this exercise in perpetuum as a matter of urgency. At such a time, the state should rather be re-inventing itself to face a looming socio-economic crisis.

Rather than relying on an outdated narrative to justify its misplaced legitimacy as the heir to Algeria’s post-colonial, post-fundamentalist destiny, the challenge for the regime is to develop a discourse that addresses this crisis. In the words of a young man in one of Algiers' quartiers populaires: “We hear a message that emphasises our history and rallies around an idea of national unity, and warns for the threat of fundamentalism. All of these things are no longer an issue in Algeria. People want to know what they will do for their brother who has no job, for their parents who need medical care, [and] for their children who cannot find an apartment“.

At the same time, opposition parties have failed to rally voters around a new discourse. This is despite the fact that more parties have been competing in the 2012 legislative elections than ever before. In their defence, new parties were given hardly any time to prepare for the elections by the Ministry of Interior. In addition, they seem to suffer from a lack of expertise and resources to reach out to constituents.

Paralysis

Despite carrying a message of change and an (implicit) recognition of citizens' concerns, the opposition parties are battling a negative perception of parliament among voters. Particularly the youth feel that “parliament is just for raising hands”, and “that there is no real political will for change”. The boycott movement organized by the opposition party Rassemblement pour la Culture et la Démocratie(RCD) plays on such feelings but has not garnered the support necessary for making a serious impact either on the turnout or the legitimacy of a next parliament. In the mean time, the FLN and the Rassemblement National Démocratique (RND) have mobilised their base with overwhelming success.

With the FLN and the RND commanding a majority in parliament, they will most likely back constitutional reform that will further solidify the role of the elite. “We prefer a presidential system like in the United States or a semi-presidential system like in France” a member of parliament for the FLN confided in me. This does not necessarily mean that politics in Algeria will be undemocratic as many opposition parties argue. However, free and fair elections do not guarantee a democracy and neither does a parliamentary system. What is important, as political scientist Kaare Strøm has argued, is that “the choice between parliamentary and presidential government involves a choice of mechanisms designed to induce politicians to act in the public interest". In Algeria such a set of mechanisms has never developed, and in the absence of clear checks and balances, a small group, better known as “le pouvoir,” has been able to monopolise power.

Autocrats Will Never be Democrats

With the next elections scheduled for 2014, the question remains: if the radical change in discourse and government practice will not be ushered in by a revolution, through the ballot box, or by Western intervention (oil and regional stability being the main reasons), how will it come about? Traditionally, the replacement of one generation by another with new experiences and attitudes has led to socio-political change. In a speech two days before the elections, President Bouteflika said that the time of his generation had come.

In a recent article published by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, Dr. Abdel Nasser Jassi outlines two scenarios that could follow: a reformist/non-revolutionary scenario that would involve the transition of political authority from the generation of the revolution to the older, second generation of Algeria. Or a second scenario, “in which we would have a transition from the first, to the young third generation which might become an alternative for the first in the event of its failure or if the first generation refuses to hand over the torch”. Jassi rightfully argues that the timing will dictate the ensuing scenario: “The longer the effectuation of political transition in Algeria lasts” the more likely a second scenario will become. “That would mean the third generation, a generation of youth and social movements, would take initiative and usurp [the] power of the first generation”, causing a rupture that many in Algeria want to avoid.

So far, political parties have betted on le pouvoir’s “political wisdom of age”. But the real political wisdom is that autocrats will never be democrats. Except for the words of an ailing president, none of the off-media political discourse indicates an imminent hand over of the torch. In the meantime, Algeria is living in its own matrix: A world in which reality is simulated in order to control and subdue mankind. We must dearly hope its citizens will not have to be woken up as roughly as in the movie.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51勛圖’s editorial policy.

The post Autocrats Will Never Be Democrats appeared first on 51勛圖.

Since its revolution, Egypt's steps towards democracy have been unravelling into those of a whirling dervish at times. Nevertheless, Egyptians are set to vote for a new president and complete the transition to civilian rule. After the disqualification of a number of high-profile candidates by the Higher Presidential Elections Commission in April, only a handful of viable candidates have remained – Amr Moussa, a secular-leaning former diplomat; Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a former senior Muslim Brotherhood leader; Ahmed Shafiq, Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister; Mohamed Morsy, chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood; and Hamdeen Sabahi, a revolutionary Nasserite candidate.

More than anything the presidential race has once again exposed the deeply partisan nature of Egyptian politics. Egypt's soul-searching over the past year has been marked by a wide array of forces — Islamists revolutionaries, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), and Copts — trying to shape the future of the new Egypt to their own making. What has been uncommon and markedly different from other societies searching for a new national identity is that this power struggle has taken place in a constitutional void with the potential to undermine Egypt's democratic transition.

With candidates vying for an ill-defined but crucial position, and with political illiteracy high among voters, it is imperative that voters ignore political demagogy in choosing who should be Egypt's next president. Unfortunately, old-fashioned speculation, conspiracy, and political know-how have dominated the presidential campaigns. The Muslim Brotherhood is speculated to desire a monopoly over power, so the military is plotting a silent popular take-over, and so the liberals will make Egypt into a secular bastion of US interests. And all of this with the revolutionaries standing by watching their revolution being stolen from them. In reality, three issues merit the consideration of voters wishing to see a successful transition to democracy – the re-organisation of the state, the reconfiguration of Egypt's social contract, and the preservation of the revolutionary spirit.

Filling the Constitutional Void

Egyptian citizens face the unusual task of voting for a president whose powers and relationship to other government bodies remain vague. One of the first priorities after the transition to civilian rule will be to break the impasse between the Islamists and the liberals over a new constitution. And although the organisation of the state and particularly the role of the president are unclear for the moment, voters will expect the president to guide the country through this re-organisation. Two issues will prove to be instrumental if he is to be successful in this task.

The place of religion in the political order is arguably the most contentious issue in post-Mubarak Egypt. In Egypt's post-revolutionary landscape, the president will have to address the concern of liberals and Copts on one hand, and firmly protect equal citizenship and religious freedom. On the other hand, to satisfy the demands of Islamist groups, the newly elected president will have to bridge the dichotomy between Islam as the religion of the state and the religion of its people. Although all contenders have pledged to protect fundamental freedoms and equal citizenship, Aboul Fotouh, as a moderate Islamist, might be particularly fit to develop and harness a “conciliatory discourse”. In a recent television interview he sketched its contours: “Some people think that you can force people to pray or punish them for not praying. Forcing people against their individual rights create a hypocrit[ical] person.”

Secondly, the debate on a new constitution will further lay bare an existing disagreement over the role of different branches of government and the army. More liberal factions, unlike Islamists, prefer a French-inspired, mixed presidential-parliamentary system that would create a strong executive check to a parliament dominated by Islamists. Marina Ottaway and Nathan J. Brown of the Brookings Institute have warned that such a system could risk a Turkish model where the military, backed by other key institutions and secular political parties, acts against Islamist movements. With this example and Egypt's own history in mind, a president with lesser executive powers would make a lot of sense and will likely be the compromise on which Egypt will have to settle.

What is relevant for voters in these elections however, is not the exact configuration of such a system but its basic premise – that for the remainder of his term Egypt's next president will be a power broker between the military and a civilian government. This will require him to provide balance against either force while at the same time maintain good relations with both. Former Foreign Minister Moussa fits this description well. He would be an acceptable choice to both the military and parliament and could rely on his statesman-like stature to bridge differences between both. At the same time, he would be able, even with limited powers, to galvanize enough support to keep either force in check. While Moussa's perceived pre-disposition towards the military has been raised as a concern, other contenders such as Shafiq, Morsy, and Sabahi seem either too biased to act as an intermediary, or too inexperienced to form the politically expedient coalitions necessary to act as a power-broker without the kind of Mubarak-esque presidential power. Aboul Fotouh is a dark horse – he certainly has credibility and seniority but he has remained rather ambivalent about his exact relation to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Real Solutions for Real Problems

As rightly pointed out by Clifford Young and Julia Clarke recently in a Reuters article, “most of the analysis has focused on the political actors involved (…) as well as individual political players”. In contrast, they argue, “little attention has been paid to the most important actor of all – public opinion”.

Whether a good leader will rule by popular consent or by his expertise, “real problems need real solutions”. “Most important problem questions” are often a good indicator of real problems. Such questions have consistently ranked jobs, public safety, and corruption at the top of the list of citizens' concerns.

In essence, such voter demands reflect what the Egyptian revolution has been all about – “bread, freedom, and dignity”. Particularly among the youth there is a strong conviction that the government must become more responsive to the needs of the people. They want to feel like a part of a social contract and are committed to holding the government to its promises. This re-configuration of Egypt's social contract would at least entail a strategy to tackle Egypt's structural economic problems – the government's strong hold on the commanding heights of the economy, a semi-rentier economy confined to a small number of entrepreneurs, and a faltering education system. Preferably it would also include a reform of justice and law enforcement.

Given the urgency and severity of these problems Egypt faces, the programs of all candidates are rather light on detailing how to tackle Egypt's working class problems. Candidates such as Aboul Fotouh, Morsy, and Sabahi, might be more suited to deliver on security sector reform since they have never been part of the government apparatus. However, none of the candidates provide the kind of real economic programmes that take distinct steps to empower Egypt's economy. As Angus Blair, founder of the Signet Institute, a Cairo-based think tank, told CNBC in a recent interview: “Former regime associates will continue on the same path, Islamists would take the liberal path with an Islamic flavor, while leftists would have to face the reality of funding their promises”.

Doomed to Fail?

Egypt's new president will battle for power in a political arena that will threaten Egypt's first steps toward civilian rule. At the same time, according to Thomas Demmelhuber, a political science professor at the University of Hildesheim Foundation, voters demand "a socio-economic revolution dividend". Egypt's fragmented political landscape of many (vested) interests, and the looming threat of national insolvency will make this a very hard task. Yet, the expectations of a new president and a new era of civilian rule are sky-high. Many commentators have recognized this and argued that whoever wins the presidency will therefore be doomed to fail in his mission.

What Egypt needs is a charismatic leader, “the one that emerges by definition at a time of crisis or national yearning, and perhaps a vacuum in that nation’s institutions”, as New York Times correspondent Kate Zernike put it eloquently many years ago. A president that will give hope to a new generation, and fight to make sure that the ideals of the revolution for which so many have died, will be reflected in each of Egypt's steps toward democracy. A leader that, in the words of Robert Caro in his biography of Lyndon Johnson, “restores their confidence by his confidence”… But also a leader that on the basis of that charisma can manage expectations and buy time.

Although none of the current candidates might have this “X-factor”, independents such as Aboul Fotouh and Sabahi have proven links with this new generation and have a strong revolutionary record. Amr Moussa and Ahmed Shafiq do not have those revolutionary credentials having been part of the former regime and not having taken part in the revolution. Morsy's role as leader of the Muslim Brotherhood that allied itself with the revolution and the military at the same time, makes him less credible for such a role.

And the Winner is….
Drawing up the balance sheet on these issues gives Aboul Fotouh a narrow edge over Moussa and to a lesser extent over Sabahi. Though Moussa has the seniority and credibility to act as Egypt's new power broker, Aboul Fotouh is able to bind opposing groups – liberals and Islamists – to a discourse that transcends the old battle lines of "Islamist" or "liberal" and that would protect civil liberties. Although Aboul Fotouh is the most outspoken of all candidates on government spending and health care, in the absence of what Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institute has called “a real discussion on economic recovery, security-sector reform, or how to fight income inequality”, it is hard to say how his plans will be different from the approaches that have failed in tackling Egypt's problems so far.

This is not an endorsement of Aboul Fotouh. It is a reminder to Egyptians that relying on political demagogy has led Egypt astray many times in the past year and will fuel further growing polarisation and fears. To avoid an “”, Egyptians should pay attention to the issues that will determine the course of the country in the coming years instead.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51勛圖’s editorial policy.

The post Who Should be Egypt’s Next President? appeared first on 51勛圖.

Egypt's ruling generals have agreed to sign a deal with the IMF for a loan worth $3.2bn to alleviate the country’s financial crisis. The series of measures required by the deal, though, may at best do little to help the country’s development challenges beyond restoring macro-economic stability. At worst, they will be counter-productive to the country's real development challenges.

As the clouds of revolutionary dust seem to settle and democratic transition is nearing its electoral end, Egypt is reawakening – to a financial crisis. In the last two years, the Egyptian pound has lost nearly 10% of its value and the country’s foreign exchange reserves have fallen by more than half. According to Egypt's Ministry of Finance, the fiscal deficit this year will likely widen to 11.7%, and could result in a downgrade of Egypt's credit rating. In an acknowledgement of Egypt's dire financial situation, Finance Minister Mumtaz Al-Said has said his country needs $11bn in external funding over the next two years.

After months of wrangling over the terms, Egypt's ruling generals have agreed to sign a deal with the International Monetary Fund in June for a loan worth $3.2bn, a step that is crucial to pave the way for further funding. In an appeal to the UN Security Council, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been leading the charge for that, asking the international community for “strong support for the IMF to quickly conclude an economic reform and stabilisation programme with Egypt.”

Although a deal will take weeks rather than days to conclude international financial intervention seems inevitable by now. Egypt simply can not afford not to take the deal. While such an economic aid programme would certainly help alleviate Egypt's fiscal and monetary difficulties, it would come with IMF mandated reforms and austerity measures. The impact of IMF's growth remedies on Egypt's faltering education system, its still highly regulated private sector, and stiffened labour market, has been rather ambiguous in the past. Can another decade of private-led growth strategies tackle Egypt's pressing structural economic problems?

“Egypt's development challenges”

In a way, according to the Commission on Growth and Development led by Nobel laureate Mike Spence, “Egypt has done remarkably well in maintaining political stability with a moderate economic growth.” Over the last three and a half decades, Egypt had a number of growth spurts making it the world's 40^th largest economy today.

At the same time the Commission states that Egypt's development has been mediocre “compared with the higher performers in Asia, and given its favourable good initial conditions.” Despite the economic potential of its exports, its position as a centre of transport, and a series of structural reforms aimed to help it towards a more market-oriented economy, Egypt has never overcome its impediments or achieved the kind of self-propelled growth that many of its “peers” have.

Notwithstanding the global food crisis of 2008, the subsequent global economic crisis, and last year's revolution, several constraints ultimately anchor Egypt’s current economic stagnation.

Three constraints lie at the root of this stagnation and are correctly identified in the Commission's report. First, the government's strong hold on the commanding heights of the economy, second, a semi-rentier economy confined to a small number of entrepreneurs, and third, a faltering education system. Dealing with these constraints remains key to Egypt’s economic growth and Egypt's democratic transition certainly provides an opportunity for change. How will the newest IMF arrangement, and a wider financial intervention, contribute to this?

“Another lost decade?”

If past success is any indicator for future earnings, not that much. Since Egypt first agreed to a series of IMF arrangements in 1991, international financial institutions have aimed to tackle Egypt's development challenge through structural reforms meant to move Egypt to a more market-oriented economy. Although these macro-economic and sectoral reforms have driven growth and increased foreign direct investment, their fruits have failed to trickle down to the broader population. Today, an estimated 51% of Egyptians live below the poverty line of $2 a day.

The efforts of donors have been undermined by unforeseen global crises and an authoritarian regime with a vested economic interest. These factors have slowed the reforms that international financial institutions deemed necessary to open up the Egyptian economy. Although details of the new arrangement have not yet been released by both parties, a new economic aid programme will will inevitably have the same fundamentals as past packages.

It will impose a monetary policy that will direct Egypt's Central Bank to devalue its currency so as to stabilize falling foreign exchange reserves. A stimulus package will also include austerity measures aimed at narrowing the rocketing government deficit. Lastly, a new deal between international financial institutions and Egypt will comprise a legislative agenda aimed to open various sectors of the economy to (foreign) direct investment. The shorter term macro-economic effects of these measures will most likely be positive: a return to a stable monetary and fiscal position and an increase in foreign direct investment that should off-set a slump in domestic economic growth. However, these measures could hamper Egypt's long-term development.

Likely austerity measures will put severe pressure on the public sector, squeezing out investment in social programmes such as education. At the same time, its monetary targets will increase the competitiveness of Egypt's export-oriented economy but, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO), such macro-economic policies are traditionally completely divorced from employment policies. In fact, Egypt has never had a systematic labour market strategy and without one it will not foster the class of entrepreneurs able to break the small inner circle of its semi-rentier economy.

Lastly, the success of the IMF's monetary policy requires massive re-investment of FDI profits back into the economy to stimulate growth. Given Egypt's long and fragile democratic transition this may be wishful thinking. As is the idea that in Egypt's new regime albeit not authoritarian is void of any vested economic interests. The ruling military generals who control large parts of the economy will vehemently oppose legislative economic liberalization. This is why the regime declined a first IMF package – they wanted the money but not mandatory reforms. However, even under a civilian regime it remains to be seen whether Egypt's notoriously inefficient bureaucracy can implement and enforce business legislation against powerful vested interests.

“The forgotten revolution”

Aside from such institutional interests a series of new international financial arrangements will have severe popular repercussions that might prove to be political dynamite in Egypt's current revolutionary climate. A recent poll conducted by the International Peace Institute found that 76% of Egyptians want state control amid this economic trouble. They want state control to protect jobs, reverse privatization and maintain subsidies instead of free markets and foreign investment-driven job creation.

Already, unofficial unemployment figures run as high as 20-30%. With a million young people entering the labour force every year, a marginalized and highly regulated private sector incapable of absorbing the growing ranks of educated youth, and an international stimulus package that will depeen Egypt's labour crisis, this is bound to lead to new social unrest.

A repeat of Egypt's 1977 bread crisis, often called the forgotten revolution, and the riots that ensued is a likely gloom and doom scenario of each international financial institution. Back then, the uprising ended with the deployment of the army and reinstatement of subsidies. But times have changed – and it is hard to believe there will be any easy solutions will satisfy the myriad of demands and interests – certainly not with Egypt's looming political power struggle.

Egypt's revolution started as a youth protest demanding more political freedom, an end to corruption, and higher living standards. The protesters’ demands intuitively summed up the development challenge of Egypt propagated for many years by respected international academics. Now that the people of Egypt have set forth on their quest for freedom, the moment has come to decisively tackle Egypt's structural economic problems. International financial intervention is inevitable in the early years of this transition. But the resulting monetary and fiscal stability will not break the cycle of poverty for most Egyptians.

To make an economic aid programme of this kind work a more concerted effort of international institutions (the IMF and the ILO in this case) and the Egyptian government is necessary. However, a sound macro-economic policy without a solid employment policy and a more diligent implementation and enforcement of business legislation will have dangerous consequences in the current political climate. It seems we learn from from history only that we do not learn from history.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51勛圖’s editorial policy.

The post Egypt’s Development Challenge: Another Lost Decade? appeared first on 51勛圖.

Securing an overwhelming victory in Egypt’s recent parliamentary elections, the first genuine elections since 1952, the Muslim Brotherhood has attested to its long-standing reputation as the largest, best organized, and most disciplined movement in Egypt. With a clear mandate from voters, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) will without a doubt seek a strong role in Egypt’s legislative bodies. What is less clear is what the consequences of this new political reality will be. The Muslim Brotherhood has never held political power in its long history. Moreover, being banned under the former regime, the organisation has spent most of the last decades underground. To what end will and can the Muslim Brotherhood use its newly gained political power?

Opinions on the political intentions of the Muslim Brotherhood inside and outside Egypt are divided. There are those commentators that perceive the Brotherhood as a moderate political force, stressing the centrist position it has taken after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, and a force for good, pointing to its record of providing social services for Egypt’s population. Other observers hold a markedly different view and regard the organisation as the emblem of Islamic tyranny, underlining its anti-Western and anti-secular rhetoric, and drawing parallels between its political platform and that of Iran’s theocracy. A number of considerations deserve attention in this debate if we are to ponder the Muslim Brotherhood’s role in the coming years.

���Multiple Manifestations of Political Islam���

Since the military, in June 2011, lifted the ban on the Muslim Brotherhood that ousted President Hosni Mubarak had imposed, the organisation has been forced to revisit the relationship between its ideological religious foundation and its political programme. Different views on a platform for its Freedom and Justice Party and the relationship with the group���s other bodies have surfaced since then, exposing the movement’s internal fault lines.

Inspired by experiences of other Islamist parties in the region, some members have advocated a functional separation between the FJP and the Muslim Brotherhood, with the former focused mainly on political participation and the latter on religious and social activism. More importantly, the Muslim Brotherhood has been struggling on how it will render its emphasis on implementation of the Shari’a into a political program.

In an interview with the Egyptian newspaper Al Masri Al Youm, Ibrahim al-Houdaiby, a grandson of the Brotherhood’s late Supreme Guide Ma’amon al-Houdaiby, ���foresees that as threats of systematic crackdown, which had long forced the group to sideline conflicting ideological differences in the name of cohesion, are diminishing, internal disputes will lead to the disintegration of the group into many parties that will bear ���multiple manifestations��� of political Islam���.

So far, the establishment of Muslim Brotherhood offspring parties such as the Wasat Party and the Renaissance Platform, that have spilled over from its internal factionalisations, have had a limited effect on the organisation’s cohesion. However, the Brotherhood’s generational and ideological fault lines are proof that the organisation is far from the monolith many outsiders perceive it to be.

Power by Default

Thus far, the FJP has received a clear mandate from the people to seek a strong role in Egypt’s new legislative body. However, the prospects of political liberalization that followed Mubarak���s ouster have imposed tremendous pressure on the Muslim Brotherhood���s new party by intensifying the competition. The question now is to what extent will they be able to keep the broad support of the people of Egypt? And, to what extent are other (Islamist) parties able to form a coherent alternative to the FJP?

The Muslim Brotherhood’s traditionally hard-line leadership has implicitly acknowledged this. In a recently published article on the website Asharq Alwasat entitled: ���Egypt’s Freedom and Justice Party: our vision for the future���, the spokesman of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Mursi, argued that the FJP’s programme for the next parliamentary cycle will be based on a firm economic orientation. This course certainly indicates that the Muslim Brotherhood is intent on being responsive to the changing needs of the people. But their current political direction should be seen as a pragmatic choice rather than a sign of wavering dogmatism.

So far, none of the other political parties have been able to form a coherent alternative that has resounded with Egypt’s electorate. Many other Islamist parties, except the El-Noor Party, have been suffering from the Muslim Brotherhood’s popular image as the arch nemesis of the former regime the people so desperately have tried to get rid of. Meanwhile, liberal parties are faced with a negative public image and internal divisions that have held them from playing a significant role so far. But with a serious fiscal deficit, quickly diminishing foreign currency reserves, pressure on the currency,and further fiscal constraints looming with the IMF considering Egypt’s request for aid, the Muslim Brotherhood faces a formidable challenge in meeting Egypt’s structural economic problems.

A Moderate Axis in the Middle East

The role of the international community not only deserves attention from an economic point of view. Politically, the new role of the Muslim Brotherhood will be cause for worry on the part of the US and Israel who have regarded Egypt as strategically important and a traditional ally of the West in the region. They will have to deal with a government that regardless of its make up will be more critical of the West’s policies in the region. Just as Egypt over the years has had to deal with opposing and domestically unpopular policies of democratically elected governments in the West, so too will these countries have to adapt to a more equal relationship.

In dealing with a more assertive Egypt, the United States’ military aid will be of some strategic leverage. But as Paul Pillar, a 28-year veteran of the CIA said in article in the Washington Post: ���The problem is not that an Egyptian party reflects those views; the problem is with the occupiers and colonizers, and with the groundless idea that support for occupation and colonization could be the basis for some kind of moderate axis in the Middle East.��� In any case, the Muslim Brotherhood will find itself in a squeeze here, having to balance the financial considerations – not in the least of the country’s powerful military – and public opinion that favours a much more pronounced anti-Western policy.

Power, Politics, and Social Change

Many have called Egypt’s uprising and current transition to democracy the dawn of a new Arab awakening. Whether the country’s new political direction will transform Egypt’s society remains to be seen regardless of the role of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt is a country with strong kinship and tribal ties in which the top-down approaches of any government are likely to fail specifically when they are executed by a largely ineffective bureaucracy.

Having to assume the role of power broker, micro managing both its own policies and a wide variety of political groups, the Muslim Brotherhood will have to prioritize. This will undoubtedly open a range of opportunities for civil society to influence the process of modernisation in Egypt. However, this will largely depend on reform of the current law governing NGOs that places such organisations under the (financial) supervision of the Ministry of International Co-operation.

Political Moderation – the Lesser of Two Evils?

With these considerations in mind, the FJP will assert itself in the coming years on economic issues ��� the demographic youth bulge, a faltering education system, a weak social safety net, and unequal distribution of growth. This will not automatically result in the modern Islamic state the West might hope for. Egypt’s political life will remain an expression of its religious identity and all parties will have to tie themselves firmly to its socially conservative fabric in order to gain the vote of the electorate. But with a looming manifestation of different forms of political Islam, and the checks-and-balances provided by the international community, civil society, and the military, the FJP will be forced to walk the path of political moderation for the time being. The Muslim Brotherhood will be Egypt’s shepherd for the coming years, but there is more than one wolf on the look out, and keeping the flock together and moving will be hard enough as it is.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51勛圖���s editorial policy.

The post The Muslim Brotherhood: Egypt’s Shepherd or a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing? appeared first on 51勛圖.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51勛圖’s editorial policy.

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