Recently I warned about the traps that await Egypt and the military establishment should Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi become president. Those who agreed with and those who objected to the arguments both had a common, sensible question: If not Sisi, then who? And my answer was simply, it matters not. And here is why.
Everyone knows that the next president will face a considerable amount of serious problems: a deteriorating economy, energy crises, internal and external debts, and worst of all, a population exhausted from three years of revolution with hardly any hope and looking for a savior. Some expect him to fail, some hope he will succeed and some will work to overthrow him. It is all speculation, but one fact stands clear: No one in Egypt, not even the military establishment, can take on the responsibility alone and solve all the aforementioned problems. That is why my answer was that it matters not who.
Also, unlike the Muslim Brotherhood, none of the secular powers have an organization or party strongly rooted in society all across Egypt. Any upcoming civilian figure, ergo, will not have a sufficiently developed leadership from within his own political base to take on responsibility for the whole state, from the ministries to the governorates and the whole bureaucracy. Whether the next civilian president is a liberal, a socialist or a social democrat, all are equally short of the human resources needed to run the country on their own. And thus again, who it is matters not.
The biggest challenge, though, comes from the state institutions themselves, especially the security apparatuses, and their fresh, bitter experience with a Muslim Brother head of state. They already have no trust in the next civilian president, and are in a very defensive state, on high alert. It is rather unrealistic to expect a president with close to no knowledge about these agencies — maybe not even about the number of floors in their buildings — to be able to deal with them, head them up and direct them according to his policies. Not a chance.
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