Once Upon a Revolution (16 page)

“We are beginning something now,” Zyad said, as if to fend off any premature sense of achievement. “We must start working.”

These might have been the first and perhaps even the best of the secular activists to establish a political party after Mubarak. Yet it was already apparent that they would be one faction among many in a bickering, fragmented space. Notably absent was Amr Hamzawy, a good-looking young academic who had recently returned from a career abroad to teach at the American University of Cairo and Cairo University. He had spoken charismatically at the rally in Mansoura the night before. The public seemed to like him. Hamzawy found that the social democrats in the making didn't have clear answers to his questions about how to promote a genuinely liberal Egypt unyoked from military rule, so he had decided to start a one-man party of his own. Naguib Sawiris, a Christian billionaire, was also bankrolling his own more probusiness party.

Afterward, the younger founders repaired to a downtown beer garden. Basem stayed only a few minutes, while Zyad had one ear in the conversation and one on his phone. He was talking to activists in the provinces, trying to make sure that he had contacts at every major polling station.

“I think we will lose tomorrow,” he said. “But we have gathered many people to vote no. And we will build on this for the parliamentary campaign.”

It was easy to see why the revolutionaries and their liberal allies were likely to fail. Yet, in some ways, the coming referendum felt like a birth. No matter who won, the referendum was a sort of victory for the revolution; a democratic process at work after a half century of paralysis. It set forth a map that was imperfect, flawed, with devils sewn into every detail; but, as bad as it was, it was a map to somewhere. And even if the generals displayed contempt for the people of Egypt, they still had been forced to respect the people's sovereignty and to seek their approval by ballot. Undeniably, that was something good.

Saturday dawned crisp and warm, a perfect spring day. Even the outgunned liberals and their doomed “no” campaign couldn't help themselves, grinning foolishly as they gathered in front of the Kasr el-Dobara Evangelical
Church a block south of Tahrir Square. Once again they looked like a wedding party. On this day, everyone in Egypt did. The venom and rancor of the campaign dissolved briefly in the ritual of the vote, the first vote that would actually be counted. Yesterday everyone had traded toxic recriminations. The “yes” voters were undermining the revolution, in bed with the military and the
felool
, the remnants of the old regime. The “no” voters were trying to turn the country into a chaotic, perpetual Tahrir. Amending the constitution would pave the way for a military dictatorship or the ascendance of Islamic fundamentalists. Or perhaps amending the constitution was the only way to enshrine the revolution into rule of law. Today, however, for a few hours, everyone in Egypt was a democrat, expressing a free will, ready to respect the outcome no matter who won. This was the first tangible achievement of the January 25 revolution.

The streets were empty of traffic; this debut Election Day was a holiday. The founders of the newly christened Egyptian Social Democratic Party and some of their revolutionary friends had agreed to meet at nine in the morning to walk together to the polling station. They gathered an hour late. Zyad wore a tennis shirt and slacks. Professor Amr Hamzawy had turned up the collar of his polo shirt, like a frat boy, and it mirrored his wild hair. A who's who of liberal Egypt strolled down Qasr el-Ayni Street, past the parliament entrance and the cabinet of ministers—the seat of government and the site of so much past and future strife.
“Sabah al-demokratia,”
they greeted one another. “Morning of democracy.” At a primary school, already hundreds of Cairenes were in line to vote.

Many of the people in line were still afraid to give their names. Almost all of them said that the big thrill of the day was voting without knowing in advance how the election was going to turn out. The governor of Cairo province arrived with a ten-man entourage, in the arrogant style of the disbanded ruling party, of which he had been a senior member. His motorcade double-parked in front of the polling station. Wearing sunglasses, he strode past the line of voters without a word of greeting. This man certainly didn't betray any recognition that the revolution had changed anything, even regarding the aesthetic requirements of power. He behaved as if he still owned Cairo. The people, however, were done with this sort of display.

“Wait in line like everyone else!” some shouted.

“Barra! Barra!”
shouted others. “Get out!”

“Even the prime minister is waiting in line!” someone hollered. “Why are you better?”

George Ishak, a retired teacher, human rights activist, and founder of Kifaya, knew the governor from years of personal run-ins. He approached, shaking with rage. “I thought we were done with these old games,” he said.

Ignoring it all, the governor walked into the voting room, took a look, chatted briefly with the judge in charge, and exited. Only then, in the courtyard, did he deign to speak to anyone.

“I am making an inspection to ensure everything is as it should be,” the governor said.

A woman shouted, “He at least could talk to the people!”

The governor stared straight ahead. The chants of the crowd synchronized and swelled. “Get out! Get out!” they roared. The governor slipped into his car, and thunderous applause rang out as the motorcade pulled away.

On the Nile island of Manial, voters booed when the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood went to the front of the line, even though he was entitled to do so because he was older than sixty. Ahmed Shafik, the general and recently humiliated prime minister, was seen driving himself to a polling station, wearing a tracksuit. Mohamed ElBaradei went to a polling station in Moqattam with a group of supporters but was attacked by thugs who smashed his car windows.

Unlike his liberal friends, Moaz voted for the amendments. He was loath to vote the same way as the Brotherhood, but he wanted power out of the military's hands as quickly as possible. “Power is like an apple for the military,” he said. “Even if it does not suit them well, it is sweet. I am afraid of the military's power. We should make as short as possible the time that the military sits in the president's chair.”

The results overwhelmingly favored the generals, with 77 percent approving the amendments. Turnout was higher than in any election in Mubarak's time, which comforted the revolutionaries. But their showing did not. The “no” side won 40 percent of the vote in Cairo and a third in
Alexandria. Everywhere else, it had been completely overwhelmed. The vote had demonstrated the inability of secular and liberal forces to unify and organize. It had also shown the potency of the military and the Islamists, especially when they were collaborating. They had used the state media to campaign for the referendum, and the Islamists had employed shameless libel, spreading rumors that a “no” vote would erase existing references to Islam from the constitution.

The amendments would be the original sin of the transition. A dictatorship by committee had taken over from Mubarak, and, with a popular vote, it now had gained the stamp of legitimacy. The devil
was
in the details. By fiat, with no consultation and little thought, the generals had published a vague constitutional road map that contained the recipe for disasters for years to come. The constitutional declaration haphazardly banned some candidates based on whether their relatives had obtained second passports. It didn't set forth a balance of powers among the parliament, the president, and the assembly that would write the next constitution, setting the stage for confusion, power grabs, and a hyper-empowered bureaucracy. It didn't establish a timetable for the transition. Any lawyer who read the document saw these perils. To underscore the referendum's real significance, immediately after winning, the SCAF published the revised constitution that would henceforth govern Egypt. Its text was significantly different from that of the amendments subjected to the vote. But now the generals were confident that they could act capriciously in their own interest, and most Egyptians would still hail them as saviors of the nation.

The other kingmakers, the Muslim Brothers, were adjusting to the sunlight after decades of operating in secret. Nominally, Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie since 2010 had run the group with a small cabinet called the Guidance Council. A larger body called the
Shura
, or Consultative Council, elected by the membership, gave input on important matters. In practice, however, the supreme guide, a retired physical education professor, wasn't considered the most important man in the group; that honor was reserved for Khairat el-Shater, a self-made millionaire with thriving enterprises in technology, textiles, and construction. He was the
Brotherhood's financial wizard. He'd been sent to prison in 2007 by a military tribunal, but from his cell he had continued to run the Brotherhood's finances and his business empire. He had just been released by the SCAF a few weeks before the referendum, in March.

Ayyash arranged a meeting with el-Shater; he had good contacts with him because el-Shater had established the Brotherhood's online presence, in which Ayyash had been pivotal. The day after the referendum, I entered a quiet apartment bloc overlooking the palm-lined square beside the Belal Mosque in Nasr City. El-Shater sat on a gilded Louis XIV sofa, talking with two men. He was a bear of a man, with a huge head and body, wearing a navy blazer with gold buttons. His reading glasses sat crooked on his nose. He looked like a yacht captain or a tennis club owner. El-Shater's aides had set up a fax machine and a laptop on a small table. Two weeks out of prison, el-Shater had back-to-back meetings, all day, every day. He spoke directly about the Brotherhood's plans.

“We believe the problems facing Egypt are far bigger than us and our quest for power,” he said. The Brotherhood knew that it was the most important political factor in Egypt other than the military, and he had no doubt that eventually it would dominate. He saw no hurry: Egypt should handle its transition carefully and establish sound rules for political life, and once the military had been gracefully steered out of power, the Brotherhood could clobber its competitors. He was well aware that his organization had a horrible reputation among secular Egyptians. The Brotherhood, he said, had to tread carefully; political life had opened up, but for decades the government had terrified the public with its anti-Brotherhood propaganda. The Islamists would have to win trust. He sounded all the right notes to reassure those who feared the Brotherhood: “We must cooperate with all Egyptian people, all religions, men and women, all political parties,” el-Shater said. He wanted to persuade skeptical Egyptians and Westerners that the Brotherhood didn't want to grab power. The group, he promised, would contest only one-third of the seats in parliament, even though it was certainly organized enough to win more. And to reassure Egyptians afraid that a Brotherhood juggernaut might impose religious rule, el-Shater assured me and later on everyone else he met that the Brotherhood wouldn't run a candidate for president.

“We know people fear us, and we have to work to make a better image among them,” he said. “There was a lot of cooperation between us to topple the regime. People came together on demands, not on ideologies. After the revolution, we need to convince people to stay in the same spirit.”

He thought that the Brotherhood could lead a unified coalition to contest the parliamentary elections, which would include everyone who resisted the old regime. Such unity, of course, had never been achieved before. Even before Tahrir, in the fall of 2010, when most political opposition parties had called for a boycott of the parliamentary ballot, the Brotherhood had refused to join. El-Shater didn't seem to understand how much the liberals hated the Islamists, and how much the revolutionary Islamist youth mistrusted the Brotherhood leadership, himself included. He used some inclusive rhetoric when he talked about secular political parties, although there was no evidence as to whether he meant it. When it came to his internal critics, el-Shater sounded as authoritarian as Mubarak. Young Muslim Brothers, including Ayyash and Moaz, had publicly criticized the Brotherhood's decision to enter directly into politics. They thought the Brotherhood should concentrate on its charities and religious outreach, leaving its members free to form an assortment of different political parties that would be fully independent of the supreme guide. El-Shater dismissed the breakaway Islamists as inexperienced and impatient. “I spent twelve years in prison under Mubarak's reign,” he said. “The youth don't realize how hard we've had it. They can talk about change, but the Brotherhood as an organization will decide what it wants.”