Egypt’s Islamists get their man

Egypt’s military grudgingly confirmed Mohammed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood as the winner of the country’s first free presidential election, ushering in what is likely to be an uneasy—and potentially violent—power struggle between the Islamists and the ruling generals. Mursi, who won 51.7 percent of the vote in a runoff against former Gen. Ahmed Shafik, promised to be “a president for all Egyptians,” Muslims and Christians alike. Yet true power in Egypt still resides with the junta. After a court dissolved the Islamist-controlled parliament earlier this month, the military seized the power to make laws, set budgets, and oversee the writing of a new constitution. The Brotherhood has vowed to continue protesting in Cairo’s Tahrir Square until the junta hands back power. “The military council is trying to distract us with the news of Mursi’s win,” said Brotherhood supporter Samir Shaaban.

Egypt has “embarked on a full-scale test of the much-vaunted ‘Turkish model’ of Muslim democracy,” said David Ignatius in WashingtonPost.com. Turkey became a regional superpower thanks to a political system that balances democratically elected leaders with a strong army “prepared to act as a guarantor of a stable, Western-leaning secular state.” Egypt’s military now needs to retreat to its proper role—“protecting the state and the constitution, in extremis, but otherwise letting civilians run the show.”

You’re deluded if you think Egypt will turn out like Turkey, said Con Coughlin in The Daily Telegraph (U.K.). If anything, it’s the next Iran. The activists who toppled former dictator Hosni Mubarak risked their lives for a “Western-style, secular, and democratic system of government.” Mursi’s election, like the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979, could serve as “the thin end of the wedge” for religious extremists, who won’t stop until they have “a full-blown Islamist state.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

But Mursi can’t afford to push an Islamist agenda, said Michael Schuman in Time.com. Many ordinary Egyptians became disenchanted with the Brotherhood when it used its parliamentary majority to boost its own power rather than revive the crippled economy. If Mursi now fails to create new jobs and raise incomes, “the disaffected and disappointed youth of the nation could turn on their elected leaders,” and Egypt could descend into civil war and chaos.