The Egyptian President in 100 days Hossam ElShazly*

The Egyptian President in 100 Days....
                               Hossam ElShazly....

The First 100 days of the term of the first elected Egyptian President are close to an end. President Morsi, the first freely elected civilian President in the history of Egypt won the hearts & minds of more than 13 million Egyptians in the recent elections after the revolution based on the fact that he offered his people an overall project titled (ALNHDA Project). As an essential part of this project, Morsi promised to work hard on 5 critical files during his first 100 days in power; Bread Supply, Security, Waste, Garbage collection & treatment as well as Gasoline & Traffic. 

Egyptians paid a high price in blood during the 18^th days revolution emerged from the famous ‘Al-Tahrir-square’ in Cairo and extended to other countries in what’ referred to today as the ‘Arab Spring’. The dream and call was to have a free, democratic and justice Egypt.

With his first 100 days up to an end & with a lot of issues associated to his presidency campaign & election, many questions rise.

Can we say that Morsi succeeded in setting the first corner stone for the now born democracy in the Middle East?  How we can evaluate his first 100 days? How the world sees the new Egypt?  Can he succeed to take Egypt out of the current economic crisis? How the world sees this first 100 days of a Presidency-term of a former leading Muslim Brotherhood figure?

Trying to answer these questions, we will explore the first 100 days of the making of the new Egypt in an orderly scholarly & analytical approach. Looking into the performance of Morsi on three areas, the local, regional & international affairs, we will try to evaluate and comment on his 100 days in power.

Morsi on Internal Affairs

Egypt faced a real challenge when it comes to its internal affairs after the revolution, with rising unemployment, fragile economic, security crisis, institutionalize corruption and military control, the new President has his major test ready and clear. Morsi   was able to bring such a historic change when he finally ended the military rule in Egypt & set the country on the gate to its 1^st civil term. Military commanders controlled the country for decades after the July coup against the last king Farouk in 1952. This ironic step by Morsi led the world leaders to welcome the newly-born civilian democracy in the Middle East.

For many decades, western leaders were unable to trust military rulers in the Middle East as they saw them as representatives of the old bad- history when Europe suffered similar model at the time of world war two or before.  Knowing that those military Presidents brought a false a picture about their efforts to improve the rule of democracy in their areas, the world seeks 3^rd party help in international organizations to report the status of human rights & abuses in this region.

Morsi’s first cabinet headed by Hesham Qandil added to his record of achievements when confirmed its ability to create change and to operate in an environment clean of corruption and based on the integrity of those appointed cabinet members. Such values which were rare to find among politicians in Egypt for long time, particularly during Mobark term.  Generally the cabinet is doing well achieving and recording good when it comes to fighting corruption, institutional restructuring and public service. 

Integrity remains one main criterion   when it comes to appointing new ministers in Morsi’s first government. Qandil himself, the 1^st Prime minster in Morsi term reflects these values as an honest hard working head of cabinet. However the cabinet fails short when it comes to skills of transparency and effective communication. The fact that the Prime Minister & his crew are unable to share the people their plan and vision is related to the technocratic structure of the cabinet which partially embossed on Morsi by military commanders during his early days on power.  The structure of the 1^st cabinet and the appointment of the 1^st Prime Minister described as an early struggle of power between the newly elected President and the old fashioned military commanders. This resulted in a majority technocratic cabinet with 2^nd line old regime reminisces occupied few positions among cabinet members.

It takes no analysis to understand that the same standards, same group of advisers were involved in the appointment of the new governors’ team announced recently and included many unknown names and candidates raising a lot of criticism among analysts and politicians. However it’s my views that unknown- new- comers to the political field in Egypt should be seen as a good sign of change. It is one life fact that most of the known politicians during last decade in Egypt are currently either in prison, involved in a court case or outside Egypt with no intention to return back. I also see it as an important characteristic of the new ERA in Egypt where the constitution, role of law, policies & regulations should stand to defend the right for every Egyptian to plan, work and aim at occupying any higher position in the government based on the new democratic system including the President office.

  

 Is this means that the new cabinet structure and governors is perfect? The answer is absolutely NO!  It’s quite difficult to skip all the draw backs in the recruitment and appointing processes during the early stage of the formation of any new democracy. In the case of Egypt, the situation is much worse with a country walking its first steps toward a new system built on the remains of an institutionalized corrupted regime that left Egypt with a near-to-collapse economic system and with no 2^nd line of professional politicians.  Add to that the unlimited numbers of daily problems that occupies the life of Egyptians everywhere including electricity & water supply, unemployment, inflation, security and etc.

Although I am not in full agreement with the strategy of the administration in recruiting and appointing new candidates, I fully understand that ending the institution of corruption in Egypt will have its fruitful results  sooner than later,  and Turkey is one life  model stand for that.

On one hand, it is of major importance to analyze the performance of President Morsi and his administration in the view of the total picture of moving toward a new just, free and democratic Egypt. On the other hand, it is clear that President Morsi succeeded to have a good record on security, gasoline, institutional restructuring, electricity& water supply and the initiative of the bread project. The last 100 days also witnessed a real positive mutation in the performance of the Egyptian stock market, the international grading of the banking sector, in addition to the kick-off several giant projects directly related unemployment rate and the social standards including the Samsung new factory and the giant international logistic project in the Suez-Canal region.

Morsi on Regional and International Affairs

Morsi performance recorded several amazing achievements on regional and international level as well .

 

Regionally,  he was able to get Egypt back to its leading position within the African and Arabic countries, He dealt with the water problem in a good way, he initiated the strategic role of Egypt in Africa as well as brings Egypt to its chair within the Arab nations leading the initiative for tackling the Syrian problem, strengthen the Egypt-Gulf relations, and opened a door for productive dialogue with Iran. He attracted huge investments from Qatar and Saudi Arabia to kick-off his developmental plans, when brings Sudan historic relations back to its normal status.  He maintained close relations with the Arab-Spring countries and developed very close aligned relationship with Turkey. Within his 1^st 100 days, Morsi was able to send a message that Egypt will have a major role in the making of the new face of the Arab & African regions.

Internationally, Morsi maintained the strategic relations with United States at the critical time of the American elections when opened a new door for very productive and supportive relations with China. He developed stable and strong economic links with the EU and Japan and dealt professionally with the recent film crisis in the Middle East.  He also laid the ground for important business ties with Italy, when introducing Egypt as strong & important player in international affairs via his recent speech in the United Nations.

Morsi’s ability to continuously surprising the world with his outstanding performance will remain an opened question for analysts and scholars. How he is able to do this at the time he is facing every type of confrontation back home in Egypt. How he is able to bring such performance; being the victim of a new political system that took him away from his party and his life-long aligned group as he had to resign from the Freedom & Justice party and from the Muslim Brotherhood immediately after being elected. It is the fact that he was denied access to his life-made network of people and institutions; nevertheless he acted very well with fewer resources in hand. 

It is the life fact that well known established democracies face unlimited challenges when trying to balance the picture between the internal and international affairs and Obama status is one very good example. Moving very well toward his 2^nd term in Presidency, he was not able to bring even 50% achievements of his first term promised program. The Turkish change Icon Erdogan publically stated that Morsi was able to achieve in months what Turkey achieved in Years.

Recently, another important question emerged with the confrontation in Al-Tahrir -square last week following the announcement of news media that Morsi is replacing the General Attorney of Egypt; one of the close allies to Mobark regime and his removal remains one of the main requests by people during after the Egyptian revolution. This situation brings us back to the deficiency Morsi’s administration is suffering when it comes to their ability to manage the process of creating an effective & dynamic change and managing the direction and the outcomes  of the process. This recent dilemma is a direct result of the inability of the President office to deal with the destructive criticism and the former regime devil plans to destabilize Egypt.

However, it is real fact that most critics pointed at Morsi and his staff is originated from ‘stereotyping and pre-positioning’ status by his opponent based either on his former Muslim brotherhood link or based on political stand that aims at personal benefits away from the country interest. The majority of these current critics are not based on any logical, scholar analysis or evaluation that requires fair & just stand in addition to the continuous search for contrary evidence.  It is my argument that with the maturation of the democratic system in Egypt this type of criticism will come to an end and will be replaced by constructive and analytical one that offer solutions, spread awareness and support differences in opinion.

It is also my understanding that the current administration should have a major role in the creation, support and maintenance of this type of constructive criticism for the sake of building a real and healthy democratic society in Egypt. The need for transparency, effective communication and knowledge transfer is imminent to have the people as essential part of the change taking place currently in the country. The world is looking forward for the emerging of the new free and democratic Egypt to carry its responsibility in making the new history of humanity and in acting as a gate for democracy for the Arab and the Middle East region.

*Dr. Hossam ElShazly is the former Presidential Candidate of Egypt 2012, the Political analyst and the International Expert in Change management and member of the governing board at the Supreme Committee of Political Forces (SCPF) in Egypt. He is the current President of the International Operation at the Cambridge Philosophy Institute Consulting in Switzerland and Senior Strategist with the CPI Consulting Group. He is the former Special Advisor to Vice Rector at the University of Hail in Saudi Arabia, the former Assistant dean for Strategic Planning & Development , and the founder of the Strategic Planning & Development Center at the UoH. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine in UK, Fellow of the Academy of Marketing Science at the University of Miami (AMS), MCIM of the Chartered institute of Marketing UK, and the former Professor of Strategic Planning & Change Management at the CPI Corporate Center, HTW, HTF, CMSD Switzerland. His area of research and writing focuses on change management, political analysis, community development & strategic planning. Dr. ElShazly acted as Senior Economic & Political consultant for Royal figures & Governmental bodies as well as international institutions in Europe & Middle East. He can be reached via email at: helshazly70@gmail.com