Egypt: SCAF-organised elections will not satisfy aspirations of the masses

Differentiation within the movement

The Million Man March held last Tuesday at Tahrir square in CairoThe
past ten days we have witnessed the most intense struggles between the
masses and the remnants of the old ruling cliques – the SCAF and the
Central Security Forces. Day after day hundreds of thousands have
gathered in Tahrir Square and fought with the police and the army. More
than 40 protestors have been killed and more than 4000 injured.

At the same time the Muslim Brotherhood has come out fully in
opposition to the revolution. Not only did it come out against the
demonstration on Friday, but in a move aimed at dividing the movement,
it called for a separate demonstration against "Jerusalem’s
Judaisation".

All the forces that once appeared as a united bloc are increasingly
separating out into two distinct camps, between the exploiters and the
exploited. On the one side there are the men of business, i.e. the
Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist Salafists, the Liberals and the Army
High command. On the other side you find the youth, the workers and the
poor, i.e. the working masses who made the revolution, but who do not
see any significant change.

Massive demonstration

Friday of Last ChanceDespite
all attempts to undermine it, every hour tens of thousands of
protesters streamed into Tahrir Square early Friday morning. The “Friday
of Last Chance”, as the organisers had dubbed the protest, far exceeded
the size of the “million man march” held last Tuesday. Chants of “The
people are a red line”, “Down with military rule” and “Tantawi has gone
crazy and now wants to be president” could be heard all over the square.
Besides Cairo, tens of thousands gathered in other cities across Egypt.

“I came here on Saturday to join my brothers, protest and fight those
brutal officers,” said Gamal Ali, a 24-year-old university graduate who
sold gas masks on the square, to The Guardian, “I don’t have money; I
decided to sell masks during the day and protest at night.”

“The military is killing us because we are protesting that we don’t
have jobs. I studied business and now I am a street vendor barely making
a living,” he said summing up the essence of the situation.

All layers of the masses joined in. A number of high school students,
organised a march from Giza towards the square to express their
solidarity. Also students from the American University in Cairo, who
were on strike and had occupied their campus, marched to the rally.

A strike was also called by several union bodies. But due to the fact
that no national coordinating body or even significant regional bodies
exist, such a call did not materialise. Despite this, several factories
and workers’ formations marched to the square. These are very important
steps as the working class – as was shown in February – played the
decisive role in bringing down the regime. In the end the future
development of the movement is dependent on the involvement of the
working class, but it is still early days for a class that has not had
experience in organising on a big scale for more than six decades. In
spite of all this, working class organisation is crystallizing under the
hammer blows of events.

What is clear is that workers, at least on an individual basis, had a
big presence at the rally. Although all platforms had been removed and
all political slogans banned, the spirit in the rally was one of
optimism and confidence.

The militant protestors agreed on three basic demands: the immediate
transfer of power to a civilian body; immediate trials for officers
responsible for the killing of protestors since January 25; and the
dismantling of the Central Security Forces.

The junta is shaking

About ten days into this second round of the Egyptian revolution, the
SCAF now stands increasingly isolated and its rule is losing
legitimacy. Only two weeks ago, a superficial look at the situation
would have led many to believe that the generals faced opposition only
from a tiny minority of “extremists”. Aided by the Muslim Brotherhood,
the Salafists and the liberal parties, the SCAF attempted to create the
illusion that it was at the service of the revolutionary people. But
below the surface the contradictions between the rule of the SCAF and
the aims and aspirations of the masses were piling up. Then on Saturday,
November 19, in the course of a few hours, everything changed.

The generals thought they could score an easy victory by clearing a
few thousand demonstrators from Tahrir Square. But the attack had the
opposite effect. Marx explained that sometimes a revolution needs the
whip of the counter-revolution in order to drive it forward. The attack
on Tahrir Square, instead of demoralizing the masses and strengthening
the rule of the SCAF, had the effect of radicalising the revolution and
bringing all the pent up contradictions to the surface.

All illusions were shattered and the vanguard of the movement, that a
few weeks ago had seemed isolated when they protested against the rule
of the SCAF, was now joined by broad sections of the masses that came
out to defend the revolution.

On the following Sunday and Monday [November 21-21] hundreds of
thousands came out onto the streets culminating in the million man march
on Tuesday. Then again during the following days anything between
200,000 and 400.000 people came out on the streets, defying the thick
fog of potentially lethal teargas that the armed forces were using to
cover the whole area around Tahrir. The climax of the week was on
Friday, when we saw demonstrations involving between 1.5 and 2 million
people gathered in Tahrir and across the country.

None of the moves of the SCAF and the police had the desired effect.
Their violent attacks only served to radicalise the movement further,
while its concessions and steps back were seen as signs of weakness.

Thousands of people sustained injuries from tear gas, rubber bullets
and live ammunition. But this violence did not break the spirit of the
protestors. If anything, it strengthened their resolve to take their
battle against the ruling military council to a new level.

The reactions of the military rulers also reflected their sudden loss
of legitimacy. To begin with, they denied that anything significant was
happening in Tahrir Square, but as the movement developed the top brass
of the army appeared more and more isolated.

On Monday night the government of Essam Sharaf resigned – for the
second time since August – displaying the obvious weakness of the SCAF.
But the split was not due to the sudden democratic sentiments of the
Sharaf government. The pressure from below was causing cracks to appear
in the regime. The revolution was eating its way into the fragile social
base of the Junta.

Officers’ revolt

A clear indication of this was seen on Tuesday when, along with
millions of ordinary men and women, several army officers joined the
crowds in Tahrir Square wearing their military uniforms. The officers,
who were carried on the shoulders of a sea of people, publicly exposed
the real situation within the army, where it is clear that the ordinary
soldiers and lower ranking officers are not all with the SCAF. This open
and public defiance of the officers was a warning to the generals that
they could easily end up being a military high-command with no army.

Again, after Friday’s massive mobilisation the layer of officers
openly joining the anti-SCAF demonstrations rose. Captain Ahmed Shouman,
who is acquiring vast popularity amongst the revolutionary youth, was
quoted as saying that, “The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces does not
reflect the whole Egyptian army. We must be in cohesion with the
Egyptian people once again. This is the best way. We must resort to the
essence of the revolution.”

Another army officer, Major Tamer Samir Badr, told The Guardian: “I
want the people to know there are army officers who are with them, my
feelings came to a head last week when I saw people dying, and the army
gave the orders for us to just stand and watch. I’m supposed to die for
these people, not them die for me. Now I’m ready to die in the square,
and I’m not afraid of anything.”

Speaking next to an open window that looked out on to Tahrir Square,
and which Badr insisted was left open so that he could hear the crowds,
the 37-year-old claimed that many other officers had been attending the
protests secretly in civilian clothes.

“Scaf is composed of 19 generals and they are the ones who have power
in this country. But those 19 are nothing compared to the thousands of
people in the forces. I demand that the field marshal hand over power to
a civilian government immediately, and that he just leave,” he said.

“Of course this puts me in danger, but I am on the right side. I’m
with the people. If I die, I will die with a clean conscience. Either I
will get killed in the square, or get sent to a military court, then
prison.”

Major, Amr Metlwaly added: “I have been a military man for a long
time; it does not matter if we represent the Egyptian civilians or the
armed personnel. But most important of all is that we are all from
Egypt; we stand side by side with the revolutionaries and we stand in
support of the revolution.”

He condemned the killing of protesters as being part of a Western
plot to derail the revolution in Egypt. He denounced the junta’s stance
against the revolutionaries and the use of excessive force against
protesters.

These developments must be causing alarm amongst the ruling clique in
Egypt (and its masters in the US). They know the Egyptian army is made
up of different layers. These officers are very much under pressure from
ordinary rank and file soldiers who belong to the people. Egypt has a
tradition of nationalist, left leaning officers. We must not forget that
the very popular Egyptian nationalist Gamal Abdel Nasser, who swung far
to the left during his rule in the 1950’s, originally came to power
through an officer’s coup. At some point in the future, the repetition
of such developments, especially in the absence of any revolutionary
party and leadership, cannot be entirely ruled out.

New government, old tricks

In any case the open opposition of a layer of officers to the SCAF
exposes its weakness. In an attempt to win back some of the lost
territory Tantawi appointed Kamal Ganzouri as new prime minister.
Ganzouri served as prime minister from 1996 to 1999 under Mubarak, but
later on distanced himself from him. Clearly the military were trying to
use him to dupe the masses once more, but this blatant manoeuvre did
not work. As the news was reaching Tahrir’s million man march on
Tuesday, the crowds chanted, “Illegitimate, illegitimate!"

One protester Mohammed el-Fayoumi, 29, summed it up for The Guardian,
“Not only was he prime minister under Mubarak, but also part of the old
regime for a total of 18 years. Why did we have a revolution then?”
Another protester in the square, 45 year old Fatma Ramadan, told
Bloomberg: “He was the one who oversaw the privatization of companies
and fired workers; he has many problems.”

It is clear to all parties, that Ganzouri is nothing but the puppet
of the SCAF. Appointing him resembles Mubarak’s dismissal of the cabinet
of Ahmed Nazif in the last days of January. Many of the actions of
Tantawi in fact resemble the actions of Mubarak in his last days. He has
appeared on TV on several occasions, making promises and concessions
mixed with threats of chaos and terrible repercussions.

As for the concessions, they are seen to be too little, too late and
as for the threats; they only serve to further radicalize the movement
at the present. A recent poll shows that 43% of Egyptians believe their
country’s military rulers are working to slow down or reverse the gains
of the Tahrir Square uprising. The poll was conducted before the events
of last week.

Any regime needs a social base to consolidate its rule. The SCAF,
however, has not even begun to consolidate its rule, and it is already
losing the slim social base it had. It is clear that the fall of the
SCAF is merely a question of when and how.

The Muslim Brotherhood

The most important ally of the SCAF in the last nine months has been
the Muslim Brotherhood. The organisation, that was the loyal
“opposition” during the Mubarak era, has remained loyal to its role of
being the second line of defence for capitalism in Egypt.

In January and February, the party refused to publicly support the
revolution which de facto meant support for Mubarak. A vast layer of the
youth of the organisation, however, broke away and joined the
revolution in Tahrir Square, openly defying the party leadership.

After the revolution this behaviour of the leadership of the Muslim
Brotherhood has continued. They have been firm defenders of the SCAF,
constantly calling for “patience” and “restraint” on the part of the
revolutionary masses who have protested against the rule of the Junta.
In return the Junta has drawn up the electoral rules in such a way that
the Muslim Brotherhood and the old remnants of Mubarak’s NDP are assured
a majority of the seats. As under Mubarak’s regime, the Brotherhood’s
leadership will remain silent as long as the party is allowed access to
the corrupt corridors of parliament and the state apparatus.

This has been clearly exposed in the last week. Whereas the
Brotherhood, under immense pressure from below, had to call a
demonstration on Friday, 18^th November, it had no intention
of following up on it. Over that weekend, where the army was violently
attacking protesters, injuring thousands and killing tens, the
Brotherhood publicly distanced itself from the revolutionary masses,
going so far as to even discourage its members from participating.

Again on Tuesday of last week, as more than a million took to the
streets, the Brotherhood discouraged its members from going to the
rally. Instead it said that its members should focus on the
parliamentary elections, which in the eyes of the revolutionary masses
no longer had any legitimacy. And finally on Friday the party was
exposed as a fully counter-revolutionary force, as it called for a
separate demonstration in a deliberate attempt to divide the movement –
an attempt that if it had been successful could have had fatal
consequences for the masses in Tahrir Square.

The Brotherhood has now lost all authority with the revolutionaries.
An indication of this was seen in the fact that Mohamed el Beltagi,
secretary-general of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party,
was carried out of the square by his assistants on Monday last week
after being attacked by protesters.

The Guardian correctly observed: “The leadership of the Muslim
Brotherhood has declared against the protests. This has been a very bad
move. They’re perceived to have sided with SCAF against the people.
They’ve caused a split within their own ranks: some members of the
Brotherhood have disobeyed orders and obeyed their consciences and
joined the protests. But the Brotherhood can no longer claim that the
numbers in the streets are due to the Islamists – the numbers we’ve been
seeing in the streets of Egypt since Saturday night [November 19] are
mostly without the Brotherhood.”

Unfortunately, some on the left who claim to be Marxists, instead of
appealing to the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood on class lines, they
collaborated with its capitalist leadership, thus giving them
anti-imperialist and revolutionary credentials. In doing this they only
helped to sow illusions in the Muslim Brotherhood and create confusion
amongst a layer of youth. In doing so, they have also damaged their own
reputation and also created confusion as to what the position of genuine
Marxists on this question is. Genuine Marxists are opposed to Islamic
fundamentalism and explain that it plays a reactionary role. It attempts
to portray itself as “revolutionary” while in reality it defends the
status quo, the privileged and the rich at the expense of the working
mass. This is now becoming clear to the revolutionary wing of the mass
movement in Egypt.

Need for a workers’ alternative

Egypt elections – Illustration: Carlos LatuffIf
one thing has characterized the Egyptian revolution, in relation to
other revolutions, it is the crisis of all established political
currents and their lack of authority. The reason for this is clear. None
of the big political forces today represent any real break with the
past. They are all “liberals”, i.e. bourgeois political forces, some of
whom are trying to exploit their position of semi-opposition during the
Mubarak era. The truth is that they were not genuinely against the
Mubarak regime, but it was the regime that could not tolerate them, as
it could not tolerate any form of opposition that might provide a
channel to the growing anger of the masses. In fact many of them, just
like the Muslim Brotherhood, made secret deals with the regime. They are
essentially all bourgeois parties and are thus organically incapable of
representing the revolution. That is why the masses correctly do not
trust them.

“All they care about is elections and seats in parliament,” said
Mohamed Zinhom, a 28-year-old mechanic who was shot in the arm last
Sunday [November 20] to Ahram Online. “They abandoned us and went to
hold talks with our killers. How can I trust them?” Another activist
said: “The political forces are the reason we’re in this mess in the
first place. They’re all working for their own interests and don’t care
about the general welfare.”

At the same time the left organisations, apart from those who were
not already associated with the old regime, like the Taggammu party,
have either isolated themselves through sectarian methods as mentioned
above, or like the Communist Party of Egypt, focussed all their
political campaigns against “islamism” and “islamisation”. Instead of
putting forward social demands and exposing the bourgeois nature of the
Brotherhood and the other Islamic parties, they have decisively aligned
themselves with the liberal “secularists” and are seen by the masses
more as “anti-Muslim” in general than anti-Muslim Brotherhood.

In fact, in one way or another, they all fall into the reformist
camp, which means they try to address the problems of society from
within the confines of the capitalist system. However, to think that any
significant reforms are achievable under the present conditions of
capitalist crisis is sheer utopia. The only real and sustainable
alternative to the present society is socialism, where the economy and
the state power are directly under the control of the masses.

Thus, not daring to say what is true, all the parties, in the final analysis,
end up moving in the same direction, i.e. the defence of the status
quo. Thus, the level of trust in the established political forces is so
low that the activists at Tahrir Square have banned all party-political
propaganda, leaflets, uniforms and speeches.

But this move will not solve anything. Standing in the way of the revolution are not political ideas in general, but the political ideas of the established parties. The main weakness of the revolution up until now has been precisely the lack of a genuinely revolutionary leadership.

Until now, on a national scale the movement has been under the
influence of liberal leaders, one more cowardly than the other. What
needs to be done is not for the revolution to oppose parties per se, but
to build its own party, based on the revolutionary workers and youth.
This must be the main task of all honest revolutionaries.

What lies ahead?

Nine months after the beginning of the Egyptian revolution it is
clear for most Egyptians that the fundamental problems have not been
solved. Unemployment and poverty far from being solved are rising
towards historical levels, at the same time it is clear that the state
apparatus is still under the control of the counter-revolution that has
no intention of granting the masses any significant democratic rights.

The SCAF, who has the backing of US imperialism and the old ruling
clique, is manoeuvring to stay in power, but it has lost all legitimacy.
The elections are taking place, but the parliament that will emerge
from such elections will not have the authority the present regime would
wish it to have. The problem is what is to take its place?

In a counter-move to the appointment of Ganzouri, the activists in
Tahrir Square on Friday organised a sort of election with prominent
politicians as candidates. On the basis of this they presented an
alternative “Government of National Salvation”. Heading this government
was Mohamad El-Baradei. This would inicate that, among the activists
“government” is already seen as being far more legitimate than any
official body.

Mohammad El-Baradei at the World Economic Forum 2008 – photo: Kimse (talk)The
fact, however, is that El Baradei, rather than being the favourite of
the revolutionaries was merely seen as the least useless among the
politicians that people can vote for. In fact when El Baradei tried to
enter Tahrir Square earlier on the same day he met such resistance that
he had to be escorted out again. The situation amongst even his own
supporters is not much better. A few weeks back his campaign faced
collective resignations of campaign staff in ten of the provinces, and
amongst these was Cairo itself. The staff was protesting against the
bureaucratic manner in which the campaign was being conducted.

This does not come as a surprise. El Baradei was groomed in the
corridors of the UN and the so-called “international community”.
Accustomed to reaching deals in the comfort of top class hotels and
plush convention halls, he is by nature distrustful of the masses and
clearly feels uncomfortable in their presence. His cowardice was shown
in the run-up to last year’s parliamentary campaign, in which he could
have used the occasion to gather a layer of activists around him on at
least a genuinely democratic programme. However, due to his distrustful
and weak nature, and due to the fact that his aim was clearly to channel
the growing mass opposition down the road of bourgeois compromise, he
failed miserably and subsequently ended up disappearing from the scene
for several months.

The fact is that this time – having clearly seen the revolutionary
potential of the masses to overthrow the whole regime and the rich who
back it – he will be even more inclined to betray the masses than
before. He will most likely attempt to portray himself as the “true”
representative of the people for a short period before exposing himself
as yet another lapdog of the rulers and call for “unity” behind some
kind of “transitional” (read bourgeois) regime.

It is not possible to foresee in advance all the details of how the
situation will unfold. A revolution is an infinitely complex process,
with all kinds of possible temporary aberrations, figures who appear and
disappear as each is put to the test. What we can conclude, however, is the following.

The balance of forces is overwhelmingly in favour of the masses that
are confident and undefeated. At the same time the regime is weak,
lacking legitimacy and in a deep crisis. However, in spite of this it
still controls the state and the commanding heights of the economy
remain in the hands of the ruling bourgeois elite. The main obstacle
facing the movement is to be found in the lack of a clear leadership of
the revolution that is capable of leading it to take power and
expropriate the old rulers. Due to this lack of revolutionary
leadership, the movement will inevitably take a series of detours as it
tries all the available options. In the process the movement will learn
and move to a higher level.

The elections that were improvised on Friday’s march can play the
role of propaganda tool, but can in no way provide a way out of the
situation. What is required are real elections of committees in the
workplaces, in the neighbourhoods, with representatives being elected
from the bottom up across the whole country, coming together as a
genuine representative body of the revolutionary people. To cleanse
Egypt of all the muck from the old regime, to provide the masses with a
genuine democratic expression what is required is a Revolutionary
Constituent Assembly, and such a body can only be elected under the
supervision of the above described committees.

The elections organised by the SCAF have already lost much of their
legitimacy. The most advanced wing of the movement has correctly called
for a boycott. But a boycott where people just stay home in and of
itself is not enough. The question is: what is the alternative? Millions
of people will vote in these elections as they see them as the only way
of expressing their desire for change. The parties on offer, however,
cannot provide that change. Furthermore, the SCAF and the Muslim
Brotherhood will use all the means at their disposal to make sure they
get the result they want. There are already reports of vote-rigging and
violation of the electoral rules.

The fact is that because there is no alternative, the elections will
produce a parliament, albeit unrepresentative of the revolutionary
aspirations of the masses, and from this a government will be formed.
Sooner or later a new clash will take place between the masses and this
government.

What is needed is a body the represents the masses – a parliament of
the revolution. This should be based on revolutionary committees in
every workplace, neighbourhood and barracks. Only such a parliament
would enjoy a real revolutionary legitimacy and would have the right to
lead revolutionary Egypt.