Five months in, Egypt's post-Mubarak politics have yet to take shape. With parliamentary elections scheduled to take place in only two months, and with Egyptians still wondering if they will vote for district representatives, national party lists, or some hybrid system, July's uncertainty has replaced February's euphoria.
It is not surprising that a system that was largely bereft of politics for decades would take a long time to generate genuine politics. What is more surprising is that the emerging issues of Egyptian politics, the economy and nationalism, would run so much at cross-purposes. Egyptians' ability to reconcile the two will be a vital test of their ability to thrive in the coming era.
The centrality of the economy to Egypt's political upheaval is well understood. Legions of unemployed young people searched for years to find their first job. Millions of government workers struggled every month to make ends meet. Meanwhile, a small elite seemed to live in a wholly different country, shopping in glitzy malls, driving fast cars, and having an ever-growing array of food and drink delivered to their homes in gated communities.
The Mubarak family was linked to the second group, and many saw them as profiting at the expense of the nation rather than building it. Further, those outside of the elite saw little prospect of themselves joining that elite without having gone to the right schools and joined the right clubs. They saw Gamal Mubarak's potential accession to his father's position as a symbol of corruption run rampant, and isolated protests on January 25 swiftly became a national movement.
While the economics of the Mubarak regime generated opposition, they did not generate a strong alternative. Mubarak's gradual turn toward a more capitalist economy bred some resistance on the Left as the poor and middle classes saw their social safety net eroding, but few on the Right urged more dramatic change. The government's goal was not to mobilize the public to support economic change, but rather to anesthetize it.
In the post-Mubarak era, the champions of a more open economy are few. The business community is tainted by its association with the Mubarak government and remains unable to articulate an alternative economic model to the one that produced immiseration and inequality, and ultimately contributed to Mubarak's demise. The military is loath to depart from the system of preferences and privileges that protected-and enriched-its most senior officers. The public call is for short-term spending that provides relief: increased government employment, subsidies, and government-financed housing.
And yet, solving Egypt's economic problems-rather than merely ameliorating them-requires substantial private-sector investment, both from Egypt and abroad. Hostility to local capital has led many Egyptian investors to send what money they can abroad, and foreign investors are waiting to see what happens in Egypt before committing additional resources there.
The outcome, then, is likely to be a lurch leftward in the Egyptian economy, as government spending increases to compensate for weak investment. Without significant foreign support, it is unlikely that such spending can be sustained.
