After having accumulated political grievances, Egyptians have already overthrown the Authoritarian Mubarek regime by a ‘popular uprising’. By doing so, Egyptians were expecting to have ‘more democratic’ government, elected by the peoples themselves.
Then a ‘new constitution’ was/is ratified. Egyptians had elected another president thereby a change from ‘authoritarian’ to ‘theocratic’ regime. Yet, Egyptians are still unhappy about the changes. As a result, the ‘uprising’ resumed.
Now, Egyptians turned against the president whom they had elected themselves. President Morsi was ‘democratically’ elected. Yet, the ‘elected president’ has recently been removed from his position by another ‘popular revolt’ accompanied with a ‘military coup’.
Now, is it acceptable to overthrow a ‘democratically elected’ president by force? How about the democratic rights of those who gave their votes to president Morsi? Even though, removing the president might be legitimate, the action is illegal (It is against their constitution). Even the military coup makers seem to ignore the legality of the constitution.
The most important thing is, Egyptians did what they want to do, what is expected of them to exercise their democratic rights and popular sovereignty. The question is why such bold contradiction which has led to the removal of two presidents in a very short period of time? What is missing in their political dynamics?
The missing element in Egypt’s political popular uprising is organization. Egypt has been experiencing a political turmoil for the last three years or so, because their revolt was/is based on public resentment without effective leadership.
Egypt’s popular revolution faces acute challenges because the uprising lacks effective politically organized alternative party. To be successful, any revolution or uprising needs an organized party with effective leadership. In any political change, there must be strong leadership. In order to have a strong leadership, there must be effective political organization (Great leaders can also create strong political organizations). So, without organized leadership, the outcome of a popular uprising is usually uncertain, unpredictable.
This is what Egypt has been experiencing. The Egyptian popular uprising was/is so unorganized that it had/has no effective leadership. Without having a leadership, the people cannot have a clear image of where their political course is exactly heading.
When Egyptians stood against the Mubarek regime, their mode of opposition was simply amorphous (unorganized). There was no effective opposition political party during the Mubarek era. Mubarek’s authoritarian regime had not been in a position to accommodate popular opposition parties. Hence, because of the nature of the Mubarek regime, Egypt has lacked alternative party.
Accordingly, even if Egyptians ‘successfully’ toppled the Mubarek regime down, one assignment has remained unsolved: The issue of having an organized alternative leadership. As the people were calling for democracy (and democratic elections), then there came the challenge, because democracy is about election. Election is about free choices. Choices presuppose alternatives.
In Egypt, after the downfall of the Mubarek regime, there were/are no alternative political parties; no effective organized leadership. The only functioning political party was the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’. As we can understand from Egyptian political dynamics, the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ party has no popular support (That is why Egyptians turned against Morsi in one year time).
However, as there were/are no other alternative parties, Morsi (from the Muslim Brotherhood party) won the ‘presidential election’. As to me, Morsi won the ‘election’ simply because the other candidates were simple individuals who participated privately. The presidential candidates (except Morsi) had no organized political party which could help them mobilize support during the campaign.
Therefore, because of the lack of alternatives (absence organized leadership), we cannot conclude that Morsi was a ‘democratically elected’ president. If there are no alternatives, there are no options. If there are no options, there are no choices. If there are no choices, there is no proper election. If there is no proper election, there is no democracy (because election is one basic element of democracy).
So, the Egyptian’s move to overthrow Morsi is not a measure taken against democracy. But with all the political chaos, Egyptians are paying the price of not having an organized leadership that ensures effective alternative course of action which replaces the previous one and corrects previous problems. So, in political changes, we need to first secure an organized alternative political leadership.
What is being experienced by Egyptians today was also faced by Ethiopians decades ago. During the Imperial regime, students and other progressive activists demanded political change. They strongly opposed the regime. Finally, they managed to dismantle the structure of the old regime; Yet, they did not manage to have an effective control of the outcome of their revolt, because they lacked organized political leadership. Then their action resulted in creating a power vacuum.
As a result, the Derg (military) filled the vacuum, and the fate of the change had become from ‘bad’ to ‘worst’. This is what the trend of the political dynamics in Egypt indicates us too. Because of the political turmoil (in Egypt), the military seem to control the government. But the military is not a political party which can lead a government. If it is possible for the military to seize control of state power, it must reorganize itself to establish a political party. If so, Egypt will be under a military rule which may limit the chance of the democratization process. Or, if the military doesn’t intend to seize power, there still remains a power vacuum until an organized political party emerges. So, the political turmoil continues.
In short, in order to bring a political change (by force or peaceful means), there must be an organized effective leadership with a clear vision of how to manage strange consequences after the change. First, we need to have a political vision (regarding what sort of change we need). Then we need to have a clear objective of our political course. Then after stating our vision and objective, we need to clearly identify our strategy which can help us realize our vision and achieve our objective. Finally, these all must be communicated with the general public properly. This will help us manage the changes.
Then here comes the role of political leadership in changing environments. The leadership which is going to play a role of leading and managing future political changes need to come from the womb of the existing regime in order to avoid power vacuum. Before mobilizing people for political changes, we have to make sure that we have effective leadership in order to secure our destiny.
Leadership plays a key role in political changes.
It is so!!!
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