The Egyptian House of Cards Continues to Collapse
- April 26th, 2012
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Yet again, the Egyptian military continues to prove me wrong: it has demonstrated once more that it has no interest in democracy, just when we all thought it could not get any worse. This week, just after refusing to allow several candidates to run in the upcoming presidential elections, the SCAF decided to reject applications by pro-democracy NGOs that wanted to operate in Egypt. The applications became much more relevant in the wake of the military’s crackdown on many of those same NGOs in late December.
The obvious question to raise is why the SCAF made such a decision: did they fear continued foreign (read as: American) involvement in the Egyptian democratic transition? This would be persuasive before one looks at the type of groups that the SCAF rejected. These were not anti-corruption groups. These were not “purge the military” groups. These groups were barely pro-democratic. Most of the groups were hoping to monitor the presidential election next month. This “foreign intervention” amounts to ensuring that there are ballots at voting stations and that voting occurs without intimidation by any political groups.
Egypt’s military led transition to democracy is bordering on laughable. The SCAF has, to its credit, used the international perception of its ineptness to its advantage, and now holds all the cards in Egypt, which (to continue the metaphor) the military is using to stack the deck against democracy. The ruling council is now in a position where it can likely ride out the storm and wait for all the other parties to fold. All in all, the only casino left in Egypt is run by the military, and just like they say in Vegas, the house always wins.
Patrick