Egypt Might Postpone Elections Until November

“This will definitely come at the expense of the Brotherhood. This has been the wish of the liberal democrats in Egypt since the first day after the fall of Mubarak,” said Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “They’ve been pushing for a constitution that is not just an overhaul of the existing constitution, which is basically designed to perpetuate a oneparty system and socialist-style state. They want to create something that can withstand the social pressures from populism and Islamism, and at the same time allow for democratic, secular parties to ‘catch up’ to the Brotherhood.

“The Brotherhood is obviously now the best organized and most likely to win in the next election,” Schanzer said. “In the tug-of-war between the Islamists and ‘secular revolutionists,’ let’s say, the momentum continues to sway back and forth. We thought the Brotherhood would absolutely walk away with this, but there now appears to be a change in momentum,” he added. “It’s too early to tell whether this will benefit Israel at the end of the day, but in the long term, in terms of mitigating Islamism and dangerous populist sentiment, I think this would be a positive development.” …
 

“At the end of the day, you can’t change people’s minds about how they’re going to vote, but you can make it much more difficult for them to overtake the system by providing the checks and balances needed,” Schanzer said. “You can predict Islamist takeovers in a number of countries that have the trappings of democracy, but have poor constitutions.

“One would have thought, 10 years ago, that Turkey had a strong constitution, but it didn’t. Now you see the stranglehold the AKP [ruling party] has on Turkey. The world can learn from that and help Egypt draft a strong constitution that will protect against Islamist encroachment.

“Egypt is a cauldron right now of competing political forces,” Schanzer said. “This is a country where people have not been free to speak their mind and suggest new ways to govern the country. Now they’re finally airing these things, so voices are coming out that are highly disturbing, as well as those that are highly encouraging, and they’re all clashing against one another.”