01/14/14 – Adam Morrow – The Scott Horton Show

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Our next guest is our friend Adam Morrow, IPSNews.net for Interpress Service, who employs him.
And he writes for them from Cairo, Egypt.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Adam?
Good, Scott.
Thanks.
How are you doing?
I'm doing great.
And hey, listen.
So today's the big day of the big referendum on the new Egyptian constitution.
I guess, first of all, what can you tell us about the turnout?
Who's voting?
Who's boycotting?
What's the big deal?
And then maybe we can get into the text of the thing.
Sure.
Well, as it stands right now, we saw the first day of voting.
It'll be two days.
We'll have another day of voting tomorrow.
And until now, it's been very difficult to gauge exactly what sort of turnout we're looking at, mainly because all of the local media across the board, and much of the international media as well, has consciously, has intentionally downplayed the size of opposition to the constitution and have played up public support for the constitutional referendum.
So until now, it's difficult.
We've seen images on television channels of people lining up on queues, but people have also commented that it's nothing like the size of, or it doesn't appear, at least it doesn't appear to be like the size of the turnout that we saw for Egypt's first post-revolutionary parliamentary election, which was in late 2011.
So it was nothing mind-blowing today.
I mean, a lot of people were sort of bracing themselves for another July, for another June 30th type turnout, which if you remember, June 30th of last year were the big demonstrations calling for Morsi's ouster, in which millions of people took to the streets of Egypt.
And there was, I mean, no one could deny that there was a massive, massive, massive popular turnout last year for that.
But we didn't really see the same sort of thing this time around.
Granted, it's only been the first day of voting, and we're going to have another day of voting, and people say we might see a large turnout late tomorrow as sort of all the, like, final stragglers sort of run to the polling stations.
But up until this point, it hasn't been particularly overwhelming.
Needless to say, the pro-army media is pushing it, is showing all these images of people standing on line, all the pro-army, you know, newspapers are pumping out headlines that say, you know, Egyptians turnout in massive numbers to endorse the Constitution and General Sisi and General Sisi's roadmap for a political future and all of this sort of stuff.
But facts on the ground, the numbers weren't particularly overwhelming.
And what we can also do is we can also look at how the expatriate vote went.
And that was five days last week, during which it looks like turnout was nothing more than between 10 and 15 percent of Egypt's expatriate community, which I think you're talking about something like 600,000 registered voters who are living abroad.
And for that, we only saw between 10 and 15 percent turnout.
So up until now, it's very difficult to say, but it's certainly not huge numbers that the government was hoping for.
All right.
Now, I guess the real question is, does it matter?
Because the military is going to win this election one way or the other, aren't they?
Well, yeah.
Well, that's what everybody's saying.
And that was the main motivation for the for the Muslim Brotherhood and allied groups to boycott the vote, because there was there was definitely this assumption that, look, it's going to pass either way.
The yes is going to be it's going to you know, it's going to it's probably going to be in the 80 or 90 percent in terms of approval, regardless of what the you know, even if that is a small turnout.
So that's what the thinking was.
And right.
I think it was the right choice.
It was the right move.
But the opponents of the of the of General Tisi in general and the Constitution in particular have chosen to have chosen to boycott.
So, but yeah, there's also been increased talk.
There's also been a lot of talk recently about the likelihood of of of of of voting, especially because a lot of the people, especially because a lot of the people who are running the vote right now or controlling the polling right now are the same people that were that were, you know, doing the very same thing during the Mubarak regime, which was famous for vote rigging.
I mean, when it went on to the Mubarak regime, it was done, you know, blatantly.
It was sort of an open secret.
Everybody knew all Egyptians knew that the voting was rigged.
But but this time around, again, you've got the same you've got the same group of people who have who have, you know, who are back at the controls of, you know, who are monitoring the election, the judiciary, for example, is, you know, Egyptian judges have been tasked with with with monitoring the vote.
And they're all well known Mubarak appointees.
Well, you know, even without, you know, a bunch of ballot box stuffing and that kind of thing with calls for a boycott that obviously just splits the vote between the opposition, those who don't bother participating in it at all because it's such a sham and those who go ahead and try to participate anyway in order to defeat the thing.
And so what ends up happening, I guess, then is they might as well rigged it, because then they win by such a large percentage.
They get to claim a big mandate and popular consent across the board and all of that and deny the boycott even happened.
Right.
Right.
There's also not a very big international presence.
I don't I know the Carter, you know, the Carter Center, which will often send send delegations to monitor these elections.
They were they were here for the last batch of elections, which they approved, which they did.
They gave their stamp of approval to this round.
I don't think they were allowed access to it.
I think they were were actually down.
I think they are.
I might be wrong about that.
But they're not they're not they're certainly monitoring it or observing it.
They're not going to be there in force like they were last year.
And that is kind of raised eyebrows.
And then, of course, that's chalked up.
A lot of people say, well, you know, you've got this incredible anti-Americanism now going.
So a lot of people are saying, like, you know, screw the Americans who, you know, don't don't let them observe their election.
They're they're biased towards the Muslim Brotherhood anyway.
You know, you've got this weird dynamic as well.
But it all it all points to it all points to, you know, a victory for this for this competition either way.
I think that's kind of funny and unique and, you know, maybe too obvious.
But I like the you know, it's it's there's humor that that works, that, you know, the military strategy is that, well, geez, since we're the sock puppets of the Americans, our lead narrative ought to be that the Muslim Brotherhood are the sock puppets of the Americans and just try to get out ahead of that narrative and just and just push it so hard that it seems true, like the big lie, you know.
Yeah, it was.
No, it was definitely a masterstroke by sort of by sort of claiming the anti-American card, which had been, you know, which had been, you know, the domain of the Islamists for so long.
That was that that was a stroke of genius.
And then that it worked.
I mean, hey, who knew the Egyptian people were so credulous when it comes to that kind of thing?
Well, if anything, Scott, I got to say, if anything that you know, that we you know, that we've seen over the course of the last couple of months, if you could draw a single conclusion to all of the stuff that we've seen is that is that the Egyptian people are unfortunately very, very credulous.
You know, there's a new movie and I'm afraid I didn't see the new movie, but I read a review of it and it was, in fact, a friend sent it to me saying, wow, this reminds me of your talks with Adam Morrow, because the review and I think it was actually a Council on Foreign Relations guy reviewing it in foreign policy or in foreign affairs or something like that.
But he was basically saying, yeah, these protester kids, they got so into being protester kids.
They forgot what the hell they were doing there and what it all meant and whatever.
So, for example, last June, July, when there were big calls for everyone to come out in the street to protest the Muslim Brotherhood, the question wasn't just, hey, do you like the Muslim Brotherhood or it shouldn't have been?
The question was, hey, do you feel like being a prop for the military this weekend as they use you as an excuse to overthrow the Muslim Brotherhood and cancel the last elections?
That was the question.
But instead, these kids are like, yay, come on, let's go protest some more or whatever.
Just like young American hippies, basically, you know, there was a lot of that going on.
It was a lot of like, you know, sort of hyped up kids.
Maybe some of them had missed the 18 days, hadn't really had a chance to participate in the 18 days.
So we're therefore, you know, sort of looking for a way to establish their manly credentials.
So any opportunity that arose, and this was particularly the case when Morsi was president, because there were a lot of forces that were actively trying to destabilize Egypt while he was president.
And one of the ways that was done was by constantly creating these, you know, these clashes or these protests, these demonstration type situations where often when you sort of look back at it now, you wonder, you know, was there really a credible reason for people to go out and hit the street?
And you realize that a lot of it was manipulation and stuff has come out.
Subsequently, there was a report that Morsi commissioned when he was president that didn't get released.
It basically about about some of the clashes between protesters and police in the wake of the revolution that he commissioned.
It didn't it finally saw that didn't see the light of day until recently, until several months after his ouster.
It was only like maybe two or three weeks ago, maybe a month ago.
Gazeta finally released a leaked copy of it, and it explicitly stated that the that the security services were intended to, what's the word, to provoke the revolutionaries, that they were there to provoke them, that they wanted a response.
They were trying to draw them out.
They were trying to draw them into conflict and and violent clashes and that sort of thing.
And again, and we realize now this was all with the express intent of of of the stable of doing two things of a of alienating the Egyptian people from the idea of the revolution.
That's a that's a big thing.
That's that's that's that idea.
That dynamic has played a really, really big role in Egypt.
After the revolution is this this idea that we're definitely forces at work, that that we're trying very hard to make to basically make the Egyptian people fed up with the instability.
They wanted to constantly cause crises and chaos to the point where the average Egyptian would be like, you know what the hell with this January twenty five revolution business.
It was it was better under Mubarak when things were more when things when everything was stable.
You know, after one year, two years of this incessant instability and chaos, a lot of people were sort of saying a lot of people who were who had been happy to see Mubarak go and thought he was corrupt.
A lot of those same people.
And this is like much of the silent majority and sort of come around and say, you know, something that wasn't worth it.
You know, after two years of this, it wasn't worth it.
We want things to go back to how they were.
And I think that was a big that was one of the big strategies that the counterrevolution used.
And one of the reasons why you will get a substantial turnout on this referendum, you know, you are going to get millions of people are going to are going to approve it, are going to vote yes for it.
And I would say the vast majority of those are average Egyptians who have, you know, who have just seen all the all the all the chaos and have just been like, look, we want a Mubarak like figure again back to reimpose order to pass draconian legislation, not banning street protests and to just basically make things make make put things back to normal, back to pre January 25th, you know, reality.
Yeah.
All right.
Now, so what about this new constitution?
Oh, you know what?
We don't even have time.
We're about to have to take a break here in a minute.
So I'll tell you what, when we get back from this break, Adam, I want to ask you about what's in the constitution, the form of the government as compared to the last one.
Sure.
And then, of course, the trial balloons are already leaking.
There was a whole contest going on on Twitter there for people coming up with puns about CC running for president.
Oh, I didn't see that coming.
Stuff like that.
Anyway, we'll be right back with Adam Morrow from Interpret Service, IPS News dot net live on the phone from Cairo right after this.
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All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show.
The Scott Horton Show.
I'm talking with Adam Morrow from Interpret Service.
That's IPS News dot net, and he's a reporter living in Cairo.
We're talking about the referendum on the new Constitution today.
And I don't know.
I mean, is this thing just cut and dry?
Basically just a fig leaf for the new again military dictatorship of Egypt.
Adam, or is there more to it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
And I don't think it's people it's not a new constitution.
Also, people need to understand that it's actually an amended version of Morsi's constitution, because if you remember under Morsi, he he also they did they also did a constitutional law, a constituent assembly of 100 members, I think, and and endorsed a constitution last year, which was also put before a referendum and passed with a 63 and a half percent approval rating, I think.
And what we're seeing now being what's being voted on now is is an amended version of that, which actually doesn't it's not that different.
There are there are I think there are only 20 or something changes or something like that between the two constitutions.
But there have definitely been the power of the army has definitely been expanded.
And I know the I think the the the defense minister is on top of the position of the defense minister becomes basically immune from any kind of oversight whatsoever, including that of the president for for like an eight year period or something like that.
It's quite it's quite remarkable.
Yeah, I saw it in McClatchy.
They said that.
Man, I see I highlighted it in yellow, but it went away somehow, but it was something about position.
Cece's position being enshrined.
Yeah, here it is.
It enshrines LCC's place at the top of the military, forbidding his dismissal by anyone other than the country's top military command.
So you can have your little president and your your little parliament and do your game for TV, but he's going to be the dictator from now on.
And then he's saying he's going to run for president anyway.
We think about that.
They've been listened to.
The CC for presidency has been going back and forth for ever since the coup, ever since the coup.
They've been and you you definitely get the sense that these are repeated.
I think you said it earlier.
These are repeated trial balloons where they're trying they're trying to get a sense of just what kind of reaction they would get to that.
Personally, I think it's the height of stupidity in it.
And I mean, unless they unless unless these guys actually want a civil war, which isn't entirely out of the question, but you're basically taking the most divisive guy in the country.
You know, you're you're basically taking a guy that, yeah, sure, several million people like love him now and idolize him now, but several million other people and possibly even more than that, possibly like tens of million people actually see as a cold blooded murderer.
You know, and a lot of you know, a good portion of that actually, like, you know, holding daily demonstrations, calling for vengeance against this guy, you know, calling for this guy's execution.
So, I mean, you couldn't pick really.
I mean, honestly, you could not pick a more dangerous or divisive or potentially, you know, destructive person for the role of president.
I mean, if the army wanted a front man, they should, you know, they could they got plenty of other people that, you know, they could plenty of other people they could choose.
But CC of all people just seems almost calculated, like they want it that they're just trying to alienate their Islamist constituents even further and drive them to the point of some kind of, you know, some kind of some kind of physical war.
I mean, that's on a related note, Ahmed Shafiq, if you remember, Ahmed Shafiq, who was Mubarak's last prime minister and who who who narrowly lost to to Morsi last year, has apparently just come back to Egypt from the Gulf.
He's been in Abu Dhabi ever since, ever since he lost the election.
Actually, he's been in Abu Dhabi.
The rumor has it that he's back in Egypt now.
So, so, so there's also speculation that he might actually if he doesn't stand, then you have Ahmed Shafiq being the sort of the military's candidate.
And now, so is it expected that the new parliament will be, what, basically the same as before, only now no Muslim Brotherhood members will be allowed to be elected under any circumstances?
But other than that, I mean, the same parliament, like, you know, the same parliament before, but no Islamist.
The Islamists were 75 percent of the last parliament, a parliament which remained in place from early 2012 to, I think, lasted for about five or six months.
Actually, right in the middle of this hotly contested presidential election last year, the army suddenly issued the order to to dissolve the parliament based on this obscure sort of judicial technicality about the election.
So, so the idea that you would have the same parliament like last time only no Islamist, I mean, it's like this is the big question.
If there are no Islamists who are the only ones who really managed to command any sort of wide, you know, wide ranging public support, if they're not there, who is the electorate expected to vote for?
You know, you've got you got all these like liberal parties and leftist parties and stuff like that, but they they really they don't they command very little in the way of popular support.
So so the question is, I mean, you might you might, you know, you'll probably get is you'll probably get a resurgence of the National Democratic Party.
I think you're probably going to see a lot of those guys who were sidelined, you know, and sort of driven and driven into hiding after the revolution.
I think you're going to see a lot of those guys come back into the light.
You're going to see a lot of parties.
If not, if not a straight up reanimation of the National Democratic Party, you're certainly going to have parties that are just going to be stopped.
With with, you know, with with former members of Mubarak's National Democratic Party.
So that's, you know, that's probably what Egyptians Egyptians are going to be expected to choose between.
So, again, we talked about this last time, the idea of trying to eliminate a political current that accounted for 75 percent of the last parliamentary election to try to eliminate them entirely from the political scene is going to be a very tall order.
I mean, I mean, I don't think it really can be done the way it looks now is at the very least, at the very least, even if they do manage to continue the military backed government does manage to follow this roadmap that it's called for, which includes constitutional referendum and then parliamentary and presidential elections.
Even if they do manage to do that, you're still going to have, you know, a low to medium intensity, you know, something that's something that's sort of in between, you know, a demonstrations, perpetual demonstrations and and like a low level insurgency.
You're going to you're going to have this going on for the foreseeable future, you know, unless they unless they really come down hard and, you know, unless they start killing tens of thousands of people, you know, there's no other way they're going to be able to stop the opposition, the Islamist opposition that's that's that's has a street presence on a daily basis until now.
And even we talked last time we talked about how there was some escalation.
We've seen some escalations in those protests.
Those demonstrations were slowly turning into, although still committed to, you know, to peaceful protest.
We were starting to see police police cars and police vehicles getting torched on a daily basis, which is still going on.
You're starting to see a lot of demonstrations today.
Today, I don't think we mentioned at least 11 people were killed countrywide when when security forces broke up, you know, moved in to break up anti anti-referendum and pro boycott demonstrations that were being held around the country.
So so, yeah, there's no in the foreseeable future, at least, I mean, absent, you know, unbelievable repression.
Egypt is definitely looking at a period of instability from, you know, for the for the short to midterm, at the very least.
Well, it makes a little bit of sense in a way from the military dictatorship's point of view, if they can, you know, marginalize and radicalize all the Islamists, then that becomes the sort of self-perpetuating excuse for excluding them.
You know what I mean?
And I think that was the plan from the very beginning.
And people have noticed that the behavior of the army after they sidelined Morsi, I mean, they immediately rounded up and arrested all of these guys who are all like elected officials and stuff.
They immediately rounded them up and arrested them.
And not only that, but they they really crack down on on these on these resultant pro Morsi protests, which anybody would have been able to protect if you're going to do this, if you're going to, you know, if you're going to if you're going to oust a democratically elected president has only been in office for one year and represent and represent the country's first ever democratically elected leader.
Of course, you're going to have an enormous you know, there's going to be an enormous popular backlash.
It might not be violent, but at the very least, with Egypt's post revolutionary, you know, in Egypt's post revolutionary, you know, sort of fervor, you're at the very least you're going to get huge, huge demonstrations and protests, which is exactly what which is exactly what we saw.
Yeah, it's too bad because it seems like a good strategy could also be especially post coup.
Obviously, the military has won not just this round, but they basically won the war here.
So why not go ahead and incorporate the conservative old men of the Islamists, allow them to be in the parliament, allow them to participate in the government in a minority with a minority stake, not with their own president and their own supermajority like it was for a year and a half there.
And then, you know, that way to sort of let the pressure out.
I mean, I guess it makes sense for them to do it one way or the other.
And they seem to be picking the hard way by trying to turn it into a damn civil war party.
What you just described was the Salafist NOR party, which is the single Islamist party that still that still remains in existence.
Well, why?
Because it because it it signed on to the coup when when they had the military coup, the the the NOR party endorsed it.
It was the one Islamist party that endorsed that endorsed the coup and and sent sent representatives to the to the constituent assembly to help draft the constitution.
These guys, though, I mean, they've lost from what I can tell, they've lost, you know, unbelievable popularity.
They're seen largely in Islamist circles as like the ultimate betrayers, you know, the ultimate betrayers that they that they basically joined the coup against democratically elected Islamist president.
I had this terrible feeling, Adam, that it's so important that we cover this in as much detail as we can now, because in the near distant future, the near distant, the near future, the midterm future, we'll be looking back at right at this time as the context of the horrible developments that will be going on then that remember how it didn't have to be this way, but they made it this way.
I hope that's not the case.
But I do I have to say I do have the feeling that there will come a time in the not too distant future when we do look back at this at the present now and say to ourselves, you know, and say, we never we never knew how bad it was going to get.
I hope it I hope it doesn't come to anything like that.
And also to the credit of the Islam of the Islamist opposition, they have remained they have remained they have remained peaceful for the for the for the for the most part.
Right.
Yeah, very important point to make the groups doing the fighting in the Sinai, they were already there.
And that's not the Muslim Brotherhood, right?
Exactly.
Exactly.
All right.
Hey, we got to go.
I'm sorry we're out of time.
Thanks very much for your time as always, Adam.
Sure.
My pleasure.
Take care, Scott.
All right.
That's Adam Morrow, IPS News dot net reporting from Cairo.
See you tomorrow.
Thanks.
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