All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton and our next guest is Adam Morrow on the line from Cairo, Egypt.
He's a reporter for Interpress Service.
That's IPSnews.net.
Welcome back to the show, Adam.
How are you?
Good, Scott.
Thanks.
How are you doing?
I'm doing pretty good.
So break it down.
What's going on in Egypt today?
Well, let's see.
We had the first round of parliamentary polls.
The first post-Mubarak parliamentary polls were held on Monday and Tuesday, and we're just starting to get some of the preliminary results of the polling in today.
And by most indications, it looks like it's going to be a, I won't say a landslide, but it looks like the Islamist parties will definitely be dominating the upcoming parliament.
And does that just mean the Muslim Brotherhood or somebody else too?
No, no, not necessarily.
It's chiefly the Muslim Brotherhood, which is extreme, although it's been technically outlawed, was technically outlawed under the Mubarak regime.
And for a couple of decades before that, the 1950s, certainly is the most established and well-known of the Middle Eastern Islamist groups.
But there's also been a host of new parties, Islamist-oriented parties that were licensed in the wake of the revolution.
A lot of Islamist parties that had been applying for party license for some of them more than a decade under the Mubarak regime, who finally, after the revolution and after some new legislation that basically liberalized the whole multi-party system, we've seen a burst of new parties, both Islamist and liberal and leftist, as well as certain parties that are comprised mostly of members of the former regime.
So it's sort of a hodgepodge of different political orientations.
But from all accounts, from what I'm hearing today, from all the governorates in which first-round elections were held, the Islamists have done very well.
And it could actually turn into a...
Some people are predicting 80%, others a little bit less than that.
We're not going to know precise figures until mid-January, but from all these, like I said, these preliminary indications, the next, the incoming parliament will be heavily, heavily influenced by the Islamist trend.
And now, what about the...
I guess it was mostly the young people and the, you know, kind of so-called Facebook generation, at least type people, according to American media, the liberals and the socialists mostly, I guess, who pulled off the big protest in the beginning, right?
It wasn't the Islamists who waged the revolution last spring, but how are they doing?
How are their parties doing in these results?
Sure.
Those parties have mostly coalesced around an electoral coalition called the Revolution Continues.
And they've, from what I can tell, they've done okay, but certainly nothing, not as well as the Islamists have done.
I think, in a sense, the sort of more leftist or the more liberal vote is possibly being split between that coalition and another coalition called the Egyptian bloc, which contains several liberal parties.
So, from what I can tell, you've got basically the Islamists on one side cleaning up, and then you've got the more liberal parties, basically, with a split vote between these two electoral blocs, one of them sort of more leftist in nature and the other one sort of more liberal in nature, the differences being a little bit slightly nuanced.
And the former regimists and their new parties?
Um, they're not doing too.
I haven't heard anything about any of their of their guys winning.
Although, then again, I mean, we're going to new information is coming in every minute at this point.
We'll have a better idea tomorrow.
And another thing to bear in mind also, this is just the first round.
I think it included nine governorates of Egypt.
There's going to be two more rounds that will that will be in about maybe another 10 days and another 10 days after that.
And I think maybe a little bit more, maybe two, two weeks each.
And what was like I said, we're not going to see a final final tally until sometime in mid January.
And now what's happening in Tahir Square, because there have been all these protests and skirmishes in the streets.
We talked about it last week, I guess, on the show.
Yeah, people demanding that the military immediately turn over power to the, you know, appointed but civilian government.
Sure, it's very interesting.
That whole sort of movement seems to have petered out a little bit, there was actually a very untypical rainstorm in Cairo, maybe three or four days ago.
And that coupled with the opening of the polls, put a major dent in that whole copper square movement, you did have a massive demonstration, I think on Friday, with hundreds of 1000s of people calling for an end to military rule, but that sort of evaporated over the course of the last couple of days of elections of elections began.
And another thing to bear in mind is that that demonstration didn't involve Islamists, the Islamists were conspicuously absent from the whole Tahir Square phenomenon that just happened over the course of the last two weeks.
Well, apparently they were in the catbird seat.
Why push it?
Exactly, exactly.
And to be quite honest, you know, I mean, they took a lot of flack for it.
But at the same time, two different things to consider.
One of them is that they've been sort of waiting for this moment for decades.
Not not only are they finally legal, and they you know, they they can now openly meet publicly meet as opposed to having to meet in secret all the time after 50 after 50 years or so.
But they're actually on they're actually poised to do very well in parliamentary elections.
So I can I can certainly see their point in saying, you know, look, we're not going to get embroiled in these new fresh conflicts, literally days before polls are supposed to open.
And another interesting thing also is that from what I can gauge a lot of much of the Egyptian public, that might have earned them some points amongst much of the wider Egyptian public, the sort of silent majority.
But many of whom have have sort of tired of these constant demonstrations in Tahir Square, the constant instability, these occasional flare ups, a lot of people just want stability.
And a lot of people, a lot of people were thankful to the Brotherhood and to the other Islamist groups, but particularly the Brotherhood, that they had sort of that they had sort of steered clear of that whole incident.
So like I said, they took a lot of flack for it from their electoral rivals, a lot of you know, liberals and leftists and others blasted the Brotherhood at the time for betraying the revolution and all of this sort of thing.
But But it seems like it might have been a smart play in the long run.
And I know I think I'm hearing that a lot of people who were sort of on the fence and voted for them, because they sort of appreciated their moderation, their moderate approach to the crisis.
And the Brotherhood itself is basically saying, Look, we're not in a position to change, we won't be in a position to change policy until we actually are able to influence legislation and you know, through Parliament.
So this is this is another thing to bear in mind, you know, rather than sort of trying to trying to smash the status quo with demonstrations and clashes, at the risk of, you know, at the risk of a higher death toll and more chaos.
Wouldn't it be smarter to just wait, do as well as we can in the elections, and then and then influence policy and and basically bring about all these revolutionary demands through through Parliament.
And now how much power is this Parliament, you know, supposed to have?
It's different now than it was before Mubarak was gone, right?
Yeah, well, this is another thing that we talked about last time with these, the government, the government, which is appointed by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, introduced a document about a month ago, laying down these supra, what are called the supra constitutional principles.
And that would basically be these guiding principles that would supersede an elected the authority of an elected Parliament.
And one of those principles was basically gave the Armed Forces power is greater than what the elect what an elected government would have had sort of a almost like a Turkish model sort of thing, where you've got, you know, go ahead and have your Parliament and da da da da.
But if things ever get out of hand, the army reserves the right to sort of step in, and ultimately call the shots.
And that those those principles were were were opposed across the board, by by all political forces, the Islamists, as well as the liberals and leftists, etc, etc.
And there have been big demonstrations against those against those principles in Tahrir Square over the last month.
But what that what exactly the final upshot is going to be in terms of where, whether those principles are going to be are going to be endorsed, or whether they are going to be overruled still remains up in the air.
All right, everybody.
Well, it's Adam Morrow.
We talked to him pretty regularly here on the show.
He's a reporter for interpress service.
That's IPS news.net.
And he's covering the state of the revolution in Egypt as the Arab Spring continues deep into the winter here.
And I don't know, is there such a thing as winter in Egypt?
Oh, it's good.
It got cold.
It's funny.
Just as the elections began, it's suddenly that the temperature dipped by about 15 degrees, and it's pretty chilly.
There you go.
Well, I wonder if that was a negative symbolic type thing or something good.
Maybe people needed a nice cool day out.
All right.
Well, we'll be right back with Adam Morrow.
I got some dumb questions probably after this.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Adam Morrow from interpress service IPS news.net reporting on the Egyptian elections.
And now obviously, I'm oversimplifying because that's the way I think.
But anyway, Adam, basically, what you taught me so far is you have the Islamist bloc, which is made up of the Muslim Brotherhood and then other associated groups.
And then you have a couple of different major parties on the young liberal media savvy side, I guess.
And then you have the former regimeists, all of these guys competing in the election.
And then, of course, the military, the one ring that rules them all.
And I just wonder if you can tell me who all side is the CIA on?
Yeah, well, I think they probably have a presence in most, if not all of the most, if not all of the group, you know, a presence.
Is there a clear strategy as to what Washington, D.C. wants out of this process?
Like, for example, is the CIA working with their old friends in the Muslim Brotherhood and they want to put them in power, maybe have an excuse for a war in a little while?
Or would they rather keep the, you know, bankroll the military in order to keep it stronger than any private power for the long term?
That kind of thing?
Well, yeah, sure.
I mean, I think I definitely I certainly think the the the ruling military council here is compromised.
As we've talked about earlier, I basically think that what happened in January, the revolution was basically thwarted in January when the population was tricked, when revolutionary leaders were basically tricked into ceding authority over to the over to the army, over to the over to the armed forces of the so-called protector of the revolution to grant them basically executive authority to grant them presidential authority.
I think that was a mistake.
And I think that was probably planned from the beginning.
I think that was a contingency.
But if if Egypt ever did sort of break out in a popular revolution, and it was always a possibility, people have been talking about it for years.
But I think the plan was basically that basically try to destroy, keep it down, try to keep it down by force with the use of the police.
And if that line of defense got breached, you would have a second line of defense, which would be the army that would come in, pose as a friend of the revolution, pose as the protector of the people, and basically trick the the revolutionaries into into giving them power.
And I think that's exactly what happened.
And then they managed to maintain that facade for about nine months, people gradually sort of wised up to it.
And now, the Supreme Council here, the Supreme Council, the armed forces is definitely a burnt card.
I mean, most people don't, don't trust it anymore, both from across the political spectrum.
I sort of thought that maybe the recent clashes that we saw last week in Cairo, in and around Tahrir Square, I thought that there was a possibility that maybe that was that had been planned and that the that the army was using unnecessarily heavy violence, unnecessarily heavy, heavy handedness to put down the protest in hopes of triggering some kind of, you know, some kind of some kind of reaction on the part of revolutionaries and activists, just in order so that they can get these, you know, that they can get a get a get violence going to to furnish them with an excuse to to delay the election.
I was actually quite surprised last week, when they announced that elections would be would in fact, be be held on schedule.
Now, some people say that if if the Muslim Brotherhood had endorsed the demonstrations, and had given the green light to its cadres to go out and hit the streets in the 10s of 1000s, or hundreds of 1000s, the situation could easily have become much, much, much worse.
And we could be talking about a death toll in the hundreds, but like we saw in January, rather than the rather than the 4040 plus people who were killed, which is, of course, unfortunate.
But it's certainly nothing like the degree of violence and the high death toll that we saw in the January uprising.
First of all, I guess this is a two part question, the the more liberal revolutionaries that you know, in Cairo, are they worried about, you know, like sincerely worried about their the future of their revolution, if the Muslim Brotherhood and their allies are the dominant force in Oh, absolutely.
Well, absolutely.
Yeah, they're, they're all mashing their teeth.
And it goes without saying to them that it would be a repressive tyranny on the order Mubarak or worse or not as much.
Um, yeah, they'll often say they'll often compare it to the Mubarak regime and say that we're just we're just basically trading one dictatorship for another one.
I think that's unfair, given that, you know, they really haven't had a chance to, to prove the prove themselves yet.
And I don't think it's fair in the sense that I mean, the Mubarak regime was really, really brutal.
I mean, I don't think they're going to be I don't think they're going to be taking people out in the middle of the night and torturing them to death and things like this.
But there's certainly Yeah, there's certainly a deep seated fear amongst amongst the liberals here about about the future of the country, possibly, possibly, and also in terms of in terms of the economy.
For example, Egypt has a thriving tour traditionally has had a thriving tourism sector that that's always accounted.
It's always been in the amongst the top earning sectors of the country.
It's always been a top foreign currency earner for Egypt.
People have to always have come to the pyramids, you know, for as long as you can remember, the pyramids have always drawn huge crowds.
It's also a great got great beach destinations and that sort of thing.
There's a lot of resort tourism going on.
And in the case of a of an Islamist dominated parliament, you might see legislation, basically, forbidding alcohol, instituting, you know, restrictions on dress, which would affect and which would obviously affect a, you know, resort tourism that's based around beaches and that sort of thing.
So what so yeah, there is there is some concern.
Certainly.
Well, what about the liberals in the State Department?
Are they?
I don't know.
And they do things like tell each other.
Oh, yeah.
Ayatollah Khomeini.
He's an old friend of ours.
He's the guy who helped us overthrow Mosaddegh in 53.
He'll be a great replacement for the Shah right before everything goes completely upside down for them.
So I wonder whether, in this case, they're hedging their bets and bankrolling the Muslim Brotherhood, too.
Well, what sort of sounds I'm just curious to know, because I mean, I've been so focused on sort of events, domestic events here.
What sort of sounds has the United States been making in terms of in terms of.
Well, I saw Hillary Clinton basically taking the side of well, I'm there's only a headline in a first paragraph or something.
I don't think I even read all about it.
But it was something about Hillary Clinton insisting that the military government go ahead and turn things over to the civilian government like that here.
Protesters were demanding.
But for me, I mean, that might as well mean she was on her three a.m. phone saying, whatever you do, don't see part of the you know, who knows what the real policy is just because she says that on TV.
So I don't know.
You know, might well mean she meant the opposite.
Right.
Well, I have to say, after what I saw come out of her mouth and the mouth of the president during the 18 day revolution, in which they absolutely sat on the front one day, they would, you know, they would.
It sounded like they wanted Mubarak to stay.
And then the next day they had to they had to prove their, you know, their pro revolutionary credentials and talk about talk about the beginnings of democracy and all this.
I mean, they went back and forth, back and forth.
So they really they were really the American hypocrisy or the hypocrisy of US foreign policy in the Middle East, really was really was really exposed during the revolution here.
And they they lost a lot of credibility.
So I really don't put too much stock into anything coming out of out of the White House, the State Department today, especially when it comes to the Middle East, just because they say that they want elections to be held on time, doesn't mean that behind the scenes, they're actually working desperately to thwart elections.
You know what I mean?
I mean, the disconnect between what they do on the ground and these statements that come out, these official statements that come out is so extreme at this point, that I you know, I don't I can't take I can't really take anything they say seriously.
It's funny is it's not hard to imagine that at some think tanks up there in DC, and maybe even in the State Department right now.
They're thinking, wow, you know, maybe if we went ahead and help the Muslim Brotherhood come to power, we could get them to help out in our war in Syria.
Hmm, yeah, this is a very strange, why not place upside down a boiling cauldron?
That's what Michael Ledeen used to call it.
We need to turn the Middle East into a boiling cauldron.
Right, this creative chaos idea.
Right?
Yeah, no, I'm only joking.
Actually, that's why the punchline didn't really come out too well is because I sort of convinced myself as I was saying it that really, you know, this could, maybe if I went to commentary.org right now, I'd find it, you know?
Oh, yeah, no doubt.
No doubt.
I mean, the Arab Spring has produced a host of these weird contradictions.
We know where you've got, like you like you mentioned, the Muslim Brotherhood fighting against the Assad regime, possibly in cahoots with the US and, and Israel.
I mean, I and Saudi Arabia.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I'm not a Syria expert.
So I don't I can't really break, break it down with, you know, figure out what exactly what's going on in Syria.
But I know it's certainly not as simplistic as the mainstream media would have you believe where it's just these, you know, these heroic protesters and revolutionaries fighting an oppressive government.
I know there's much more to it than that.
And I strongly suspect that they that the revolutionaries there or the protesters or whatever, are certainly being being helped by outside forces.
And let's not forget all of the anti Syria stuff, all the talk about the regime change in Syria that that came out during the during the Bush presidency.
I mean, that was that that sounded loves a lot of people here were fully expecting the next phase would be a would be a push on Syria of some kind.
And now we're now we're seeing it.
So this is another thing, whereas you've got the Arab Spring seems to have began with a bunch of legitimate revolutions, actual organic revolutions that actually erupted from a grassroots level in Tunis, and in Tunisia, and in and in Egypt.
Some of the some of these empire making the most of it the best they can their way.
Exactly, I think the opportunity has been seized by a lot of the people and you know, the these powers that be in order to start their own stuff.
Well, it's not over yet.
Thank you so much for your coverage of this and your time on the show.
Adam Morrow, everybody, IPS news.net.
Thanks again.
Thanks, Scott.
