Diehl: Egypt's stolen revolution?

Jackson Diehl is deputy editorial page editor for The Washington Post, where this first appeared.

CAIRO

The peaceful, blocks-long lines outside polling stations in Cairo Monday morning were the dream of Egypt's democratic revolutionaries only a year ago. But just about everything else they foresaw after the overthrow of strongman Hosni Mubarak is looking like a mirage.

Barring an outbreak of violence, the multiple rounds of parliamentary voting that began Monday and will stretch until March could be the most free and competitive vote in Egypt in more than half a century. But the election may take the country away from, rather than toward, a liberal democracy.

Complex voting rules and the disorganization of most secular forces mean the new parliament may be dominated by Islamists and former supporters of the Mubarak regime, who were out in force at the polls Monday.

It's not clear what the victors will gain from the election. The ruling military council, headed by Mubarak's former defense minister, is seeking to retain authority over the writing of the constitution and the political system. So far it hasn't agreed to allow the new parliament to form a government or exercise any other function.

Days ago, frustrated revolutionaries returned to Tahrir Square, the revolt's birthplace, vowing to stay until the military submits to a civilian authority. More than 40 have died in clashes with riot police and troops. But the square looked relatively deserted Monday; conflicted militants had left it to vote in an election they feel has been stacked against them.

"We are truly feeling that the revolution is being stolen," one of the Tahrir leaders, Shadi Ghazali Harb, told me. He and other young secular liberals have been reduced to a somewhat desperate bet: that a "second wave" of the revolution can prevent a creeping takeover of the country by Islamists, a restoration of the old autocratic order by the military, or some toxic mix of the two.

Their cause still has substantial popular support. On Friday, hundreds of thousands packed Tahrir Square and cheered their hero, former United Nations nuclear inspector Mohamed El-Baradei, who they hope will form a government to replace the military council. They have forced one big concession: the military's promise to transfer power to a civilian president by June, rather than a year or more later.

But the liberals know they are a minority. After months of political chaos and economic deterioration, many Egyptians yearn for stability. Crime in Cairo is so pervasive that many are afraid to walk in the streets; big tourist hotels along the Nile are empty. No one I spoke to at the polls thought the generals had done a good job running the country. But nearly all said they wanted them to stay in power at least until a president is elected, rather than step down immediately as the Tahrir protesters demand.

This was true even in the upscale neighborhood of Zamalek, where a line of voters, mostly women, stretched for four blocks. All I spoke to said they were backing the main liberal coalition, the Egyptian Bloc. "We are fed up with Tahrir," a middle-aged woman named Ruwaida Eid told me. "Enough. We want to live."

In Tahrir, the organizers' theory is that revolutions are made by an active minority, not the larger masses that may turn out to vote for the Islamists or stay home. "The square represents those who are the central mass who can move the whole country," said Ghazali Harb. "This is the 12 million that can move the 80 million." That was true last January. Now -- thanks in part to the outlet provided by the elections -- the odds seem against the revolutionaries. Their best chance may be not the ouster of the military council but the promised presidential election. If a candidate sympathetic to the liberal agenda can gain momentum -- and the military is prevented from installing an agenda of its own -- Egypt could move step by step toward full-fledged democracy.

At the polls in Cairo on Monday, it certainly looked like Egyptians were eager to embrace that system. Whether they will fully enjoy it will depend on how the complex competition of the military, Islamists and secular democrats plays out in the next several months -- at the polls and in Tahrir Square.