Going through the Maze of Presidential Elections Results 2012

The unofficial results of the Egyptian presidential elections primary (first round) could only be described as both shocking and anticlimactic for many including me, even though I have to concede it’s no big surprise (after the parliamentary elections results) that we’ll have in the runoff the Muslim Brotherhood man Morsi, AKA the spare tire since he was the backup man for their man candidate El-Shater in case he got disqualified which actually happened. But, if you were following the western media closely, you definitely were expecting Moussa, the former foreign affairs minister, to be in the runoff if not the winner of the primary. If you were following activists on Facebook or Twitter, you would have expected at least one of the revolution’s figures in the runoff. Shafik’s win at this stage was definitely a big surprise to many. I, myself, considered the nightmarish scenario of Shafik vs. Morsi in the runoff as a distasteful joke; well the joke was on me or us (if you share my views)!!

So assuming a modicum of fairness, I have tried to think about the results. The way I see it, Morsi with all the might of the brotherhood behind him managed to get only a quarter of the votes in the primary. Shafik with all the dead, the army conscripts and also some legally alive registered voters (to be fair) managed to get almost another quarter. Sabahi, the aspiring Nasserist, and Abol Fotoh, the self-proclaimed moderate Isalmist with liberal inclination, got 21 and 18% respectively. Moussa who was basking in international attention would have fared a lot better if we allowed the western media to vote, but as luck or should I say elections rules would have it, they were not allowed to do so and Moussa ended up bringing the rear of the candidates who had some potential to succeed with 11% of the votes.

What these results tell us is that no single candidate had the majority of voters backing him (whatever he/his supporters claim). The highest percentage being only a quarter of those who voted (who are already only 43% of registered voters). The difference in the vote percentage (with Moussa out of the equation) between the highest and lowest is 7%. So where are we headed to? Is Egypt going to be stuck forever in the dichotomous power struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Army? Faced with the worst case scenario, who will people choose in the runoff?

Ministry of Defense Fiasco

The Ministry of Defense demonstrations, which started by followers of Presidential hopeful Hazem Abu Ismail (whose mother acquired American nationality led to his exclusion from the race), has ended tragically yesterday. The demonstrations, which started peacefully enough with mildly aggressive rhetoric demanding the chnage of article 28 of the constitution  (that allows no challenge to the of the Elections High Committee), picked up some liberal folowers as the days went. As usual, for some unfathomable reason, agression started when unknown elements (??) began to attack the demonstrators. Demonstrators attacked back and more aggression ensued. Then, the army cracked down an demostrators yesterday. The end result: a renewal of the aggression cycle, more than 300 arrests in addition to a 100s of injuries and a number of dead.

At this point, I seriously doubt all efforts to ratinalize or analyze the events that happened. The conspiracy theories flying around assume extremely high levels of intelligence on the part of SCAF, Muslim Brotherhood and Salsfis among others while I believe that the outcome we have reached can only tell of the extreme stupidity of most of the political actors at this point. No one can unleash chaos ande then control it; this defies the nature of chaos. A number of the activists seem too happy with their newly found voice and urge others to take uncalculated steps and in certain instances even irrational ones. The call for agressive confrontation with the army is really beyond rational thinking which brings to mind Einstein saying :“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.” 

Port Said and Hope

Holding on to hopes is becoming almost impossible after what happened in Port Said. A football match turned war zone with more than 70 casualities, many of them quite young. The youngest was a fun loving eternally smiling 14 year old called "Anas" (meaning amiability in English).

Egyptians toppled Mubarak in their search for justice, dignity and a better life. A year after, none of these objectives were achieved not even partially. Egypt seems to be lost in a vortex of social, economic and political instability. Both by design and mismanagement, SCAF has nearly sucked the life out of January 25th revolution. But, Egyptians are nothing but resilient and are also known to defy all expectations; our revolution itself is the proof of this very fact. So, even after what happened in Port Said, I choose to hold on to the tiniest bit of hope once more...