News of Africa, Egypt. Postrevolutionary Egypt has held the first democratic presidential elections. This truly is an epochal event, for we can see the logical development of such ambiguous phenomenon as “Arabic spring”.
Eventually, it will get clear whether the entire “free world” should have celebrated revolutionary events happening in the country of pyramids about one year ago. There exist many ways for the situation to develop, but Egypt is exposed to two major ones: either backwards (conservative), or forward (liberal). It is crystal clear that in the condition of Muslim Middle East the first way will mean Islamisation of the society, and the second one – further democratization. The paradox is that this choice became possible due to reformers, who very often have no idea of what they may bring people to. As the saying goes, slit own throat…
Why to consider elections democratic?
This certainly refers to specific, so to say “local” understanding of the word, as explained by Evgeny Olkhovski, political expert of the best forex training project in Europe during 2009-2012 , but anyway…
1. For the last 29 years nothing similar has happened in Egypt.
2. Election campaign has lasted for three weeks, for the first time in the history of Egypt televised debates have been held, streets have been covered with campaigning brochures, and time on television and radio has been equally divided between the candidates.
3. Over 52 millions of Egyptians were choosing the president of their country from 13 candidates. It is notable that representatives of any political forces, including the followers of the previous forces, could take part in the elections.
4. Current leader of Egypt Supreme Council of the Armed Forces promised fair voting.
5. Moreover, the military have appealed to all political forces to acknowledge the results of the elections and undertake to hand the absolute power to the winner of the elections and the civil government that it forms. This triumphant procedure is supposed to be held by June 30.
6. Unprecedented measures have been taken in order to avoid falsification. Every voter dipped his finger into special ink that did not wash out for 48 hours (the first ballot took two days – May 23 and 24). Mobile phones have been taken away, women were supposed to show their faces to female representative of the election board, and judges guarded ballot boxes.
7. Voter turnout has been rather low (about 46% – 23.026 mln.), but this fact has not been suppressed, nor made a tragedy of.
8. Results of the first ballot have proved preliminary surveys. The second ballot of presidential elections has been entered by the representative of Islamic movement “Muslim Brotherhood”, member of Freedom and Justice party Mohamed Morsi (24.3% of votes) and former associate of ousted president of Egypt Husni Mubarak, ex-premier Ahmed Shafik (23.3% of votes).
9. Election results. It is interesting that election results have been protested against by almost all candidates, both winners and losers.
Who has higher chances to win: Islamite or representative of “the former”?
Current situation is rather ambiguous: on the one side, representative of so called “criminal force”. 15 months ago it was rebelled against by the country’s population and the West. On the other side, representative of fundamentalist radical party. If the latter becomes the head of the largest Arabic country of the world, the consequences are hard to predict. Consequently, there is no golden middle: either reaction and counterrevolution, or rolling down to Islamic radicalism on the edge of extremism. Which of these left candidates has more chances to win at the elections on June 16-17?
- quitting the race. Recalling the fact that the results of the front-runners during the first ballot have been equal, it becomes evident that at this point everything depends on electorate of losing parties. And their results have been rather high. Candidate from left opposition, veteran of Egyptian opposition, and active participant of revolution in 2011 Hamdeen Sabahi has gained 20.3% of votes. He is absolutely against the USA and Israel. His voters long for changes and are very militaristic, so they will most probably support the representative of “Muslim Brotherhood”. They are very unlikely to give their votes to Mubarak’s associate. Independent candidate from Islamites Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh has gained 17.2% of votes. His voters’ behaviour during the second ballot is also rather evident. Ex-minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt, former Secretary General of the League of Arab States Amr Moussa has gained 10.9% of total votes. His electorate seems to be represented by rather reasonable people that are against drastic change. Former premier may count on their votes. Dealing with the issue in solely arithmetic way, Mohamed Morsi has more votes.
- “Muslim Brotherhood” party is very vigorous. They strongly believe in their victory and are not going to miss it. They have several significant advantages.
- On January 22, 2012 Islamites have already gained victory at free elections, in rather confident way. This refers to elections to Popular Assembly, in other words, to the national parliament. At that time Freedom and Justice (the party is supported by “Muslim Brotherhood”) received about 40% of parliamentary seats.
- following the expectations, independent Islamite Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh was appealing top everybody to become the “united front against corruption and pressure”. There is no need to explain who these words are referred to by the ex-candidate.
- “Muslim Brotherhood” association has appealed to all political forces of Egypt to have a dialogue in order to “save revolution”. Campaign office of Mohamed Morsi has already started having consultations with former candidates, encouraging them to form coalition against Ahmed Shafik, who supports the former regime.
- fundamentalists are very popular in the countryside. As a proof of this, several-kilometer long human chain has been organized on the eve of elections.
- 61-year old Mohamed Morsi is a rather charismatic personality. He bears the image of resilient fighter against the regime, on several occasions during the times of Mubarak current candidate No.1 has been imprisoned, where Islamites are treated very hard.
Their opponents are currently represented by order followers (Ahmed Shafik – former soldier and Commander-in-Chief of the Air Forces), followers of previous force, and those who want Egypt to become a secular state. In total such people are many.
- after the first ballot the largest democratic and youth movements of the country, including the most popular one among Egyptian youth “April 6 Democratic Front”, have appealed to Islamic candidate Morsi to quit elections.
- many observers admit that Islamites are losing former support. Anyway, they failed to repeat their triumph at parliamentary elections. After four months of parliamentary work their popularity is no longer the same.
- at this point a lot depends on behaviour of Coptic Christians, which amount to about 10% of Egyptian population. Both forces are asking them to join their teams, but Christians are more likely to join ex-premier, rather than “Muslim Brotherhood”, especially after Mohamed Morsi’s promise to introduce Shariat.
What will be the result of elections and what may happen after?
It is hard to give a certain answer to this question. It is almost impossible to define the winner at this point, as the country is too much split and unstable. The factor of electorate mobilization when there will not be “votes diffusion” any more is also worth consideration. What is more, both candidates are in very difficult conditions, as they have to do their best to attract doubtful voters by compromising, which may disappoint their radical followers. They are unlikely to have learnt to speak volumes about nothing in such a short term.
Behaviour of the military is also very important, for they will probably want to preserve their impact on the leading force. In this reference, former Premier and Commander-in-Chief of the Air Forces Ahmed Shafik has higher chances than his opponent. Taking into consideration the peppery temper of Mohamed Morsi’s followers, anything may happen after the second ballot.
The first steps of the future head of state in the sphere of foreign relations will be of major importance. If he decides to aggravate relations with Israel, which is a very popular idea in Egyptian community, the region will rapidly approach military conflict. As a result, investments will drop, one of the key branches of local economy – tourism, will decline, and blockade from the West may arise.
For the period of last year, following the revolution, Egyptian economy has suffered considerable decline, thus approaching to current crisis. If in 2010 foreign direct investments into Egypt amounted to 6.4 bln. dollars, then last year the situation was just the opposite. To be more exact, capital outflow amounted to 500 mln. dollars. Tourism reduced by one third. At this point the candidate from “Muslim Brotherhood” keeps assuring the country’s neighbours and the rest of the world that he will not bring in revolution, will not introduce Shariat too quickly, and will favour tourism and foreign investors by all possible means. Whether this comes true will be known not earlier than on June 30.
Expert: political factor has negative impact on EGPUSD
According to the experts of Masterforex-V Trading System , EGPUSD has formed correctional bearish trend in the condition of long-term bullish trend. It is also worth mentioning that if pivot MF 6.0666 is not overcome, bearish trend may continue by wave с(С); otherwise, bullish wave A of higher wave level will be formed.
Market Leader and hold a questionnaire at Forex forum for traders and investors: In your opinion, who will win at presidential elections in Egypt?
- “Muslim Brotherhood” will win;
- former general, Mubarak’s associate will win;
- elections may be wrecked.
