Revolution in the Arab World - Observation of a lost soul Blog

foreign policy • revolution in the arab world • winners, losers
since 1952, in fact the political role for the military has been restricted for a
generation. And there is no sign that the junta wants to change that for long.
It is order, not power that they seem to seek. When the generals suspended
the constitution, most opposition elements saw that as a positive step because
it made possible far-reaching change, and I think that was a correct
political judgment. (The suspension led to odd headlines in international
press referring to Egypt as now being under martial law. But Egypt has been
under martial law with only brief interruptions since 1939. It was not the
generals who placed Egypt under martial law; that step was taken by King
Farouk.)
But if the suspension of the constitution allowed the possibility of fundamental
change, it did not require it. Indeed, the transition as defined by
Egypt’s junta seems both extremely rushed and very limited. The generals
have made no move to share power and made only limited attempts to
consult. They have appointed a committee to amend the constitution—and
promptly limited its mandate to six articles and the time frame of its work
to 10 days. The junta has thus ruled out fundamental political change—at
least for now.
The ambiguous nature of the junta’s commitment to change is perfectly
illustrated by the committee it appointed. All of the members have technical
expertise, and only one is identified with a particular political tendency.
Some of the members are judges very closely identified with the old regime.
But the committee is headed by Tariq al-Bishri, a major figure in Egyptian
public life. It also includes some figures who are known for their critical
and oppositional stances. The articles slated for amendment are largely connected
with Egypt’s electoral system.
The main exception is one of enormous symbolic but limited practical
importance. Article 179, a product of the authoritarian 2007 constitutional
amendments, was part of a process of entrenching the supposedly extraordinary
measures of Egypt’s state of emergency into the constitutional text
itself. Repealing article 179 will arrest that process but it will not end either
the state of emergency or the emergency law that made it possible; indeed,
the legal basis for Egyptian emergency measures was laid by the British even
before the country became independent. Authoritarianism in Egypt has
deep legal roots, and the committee will not be able to weed much of that
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