Egypt: Hobson's choice

Just as Hosni Mubarak did in his final days in power, Egypt's ruling generals have been staging a rearguard action with a series of steps that are too little, too late. On Tuesday Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi promised presidential elections would be held in June next year and that the army would leave power thereafter, but he refused to apologise for the deaths and horrific injuries his security forces had caused. Yesterday in a statement on a Facebook page, two underlings presented their "deep apologies" for the events in Tahrir Square, but insisted that the elections, due to start next week, would go ahead. After such violence, what lingers on the Egyptian street – words or the blinding gas police used? Such is the catalogue of human rights abuses that Egyptians have endured for the past nine months from a military regime that was supposed to guide the transition to democracy, few can believe generals who say that being in power is not a blessing, but a curse. After the events of this week , no one trusts them to keep their promises and let the democratic process take its course. Egypt obviously needs another authority under which it can manage the transition, but the failure of the main political parties to agree on one, let alone participate in it, has been the problem from day one. This is in contrast to Tunisia, where it can be argued that the same toxic brew existed: a decapitated regime that was reluctant to die; intense mutual suspicion; old scores left unsettled. Tunisia's political parties overcame all that and got on with the job of competing in an election and forming a coalition government. No one can now say that the new coalition government in Tunis lacks legitimacy. And yet this substance is in desperately short supply in Egypt. All now comes down to two issues: the decision by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) to stand its ground (former prime minister Kamal Ganzouri was offered the premiership); and the elections which are due to start next week. Even if they had not been preceded by a week of nationwide turmoil, with at least 35 dead and 3,000 wounded, voting is so complex that it is designed – some analysts are convinced – to fail. In elections that take place over three rounds, 166 MPs will be chosen through the individual candidates system, 332 through the party list. There will be a runoff if no individual candidate achieves 50% of the vote, and let us not forget a Nasser-era stipulation that half the parliament must consist of workers and farmers. All that is just for the lower house of parliament. By the time the upper house is chosen, the whole process will have taken four months. Is this fairness or deliberate confusion? The complexity of the ballot sheets will favour the most established and organised parties, such as the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood or the Free Egyptians party and their respective alliances, the Democratic Alliance and the Egyptian Bloc. It will marginalise progressive, secular groups which lack grassroots organisation, and some argue the minority Christian Copts could be shut out of parliament. But is lack of organisation and size a good enough argument for the secular liberal parties to call for elections to be postponed? Political groups are evenly divided on the issue. These are now the worst conditions for the first democratic elections to take place in Egypt since the fall of Mubarak. But it is a choice between two evils – no established route to democracy, or a highly flawed one with army generals hovering in the background. This was never going to be easy. An election as complicated as this, and as prone to violence, could well play into the hands of the very people in the old elite who say that Egypt is not ready to make the shift from martial law to plural democracy. But doing nothing is just as sure a recipe for chaos.