The Sisi Trend

It has been three years since the Arab Spring. Back then it was a hopeful time. Rancid autocratic governments were being toppled by what appeared to be youthful, pro-democratic, tolerant, anti-neoliberal populations. The intractable problems of the Middle East -- oil wars, Palestine, the export of Salafi jihad -- suddenly seemed soluble by a mass people movement of the disenfranchised.

But the turds in the punch bowl didn't take long to appear. A totalitarian crackdown in Bahrain fueled by riot weapons supplied by Uncle Sam; NATO intervention in Libya; Gulf Cooperation Council intervention in Syria; a botched Muslim Brotherhood post-Mubarak democratic transition followed by the coup de grace delivered by the SCAF and the return of a more extreme version of the Mubarak police state.

Today David Kirkpartrick and Carlotta Gall report on the different trajectories of the Arab Spring in Tunisia, where Arab Spring protests began, and Egypt, where the Arab Spring was snuffed out. Tunisia at this point looks like a qualified success story with the Islamists cooperating with the secular opposition to craft a new constitution which acknowledges the Islamic character of the state without enshrining Sharia.

Ennahda [the Islamist party] won wording stating that Islam is the religion of Tunisia but gave up on any reference to Islamic law. “Tunisia is a free, independent and sovereign state, Islam is her religion, Arabic her language and republic her regime,” a clause of the preamble reads. The more liberal parties, with strong lobbying from civil society groups, secured guarantees that Tunisia would remain a civil state with separation of powers and pledges of freedoms and rights. “Tunisia is a state of civil character, based on citizenship, the will of the people and the primacy of law,” the counterpart clause of the preamble reads. 

Neither clause can be amended by future governments.

Next door in Egypt a new constitution is being voted on in a plebiscite that was conducted yesterday and finishes up today. The new constitution validates the July 3 coup of Mohamed Morsi and solemnizes the police state. The Muslim Brotherhood, now a criminal organization with its leadership behind bars, has called for a boycott. The constitution is expected to pass overwhelmingly. Sisi, the military man who led the coup, is widely predicted to run for president.

What I felt at the time of the Morsi's imprisonment last summer is that elites around the world were taking note. Violence works. Crack down and crack down hard when you feel your power slipping. That's the ticket. It might be messy, but eventually the masses will fall into line. Elections are necessary only to validate the violence perpetrated by the rulers.

Thailand, though half-a-world away, is going through, I think, a situation not entirely dissimilar from Egypt in the run up to the July 3 coup. If there is a trend that was set in motion by the SCAF in toppling Morsi, then Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra should be watching her back. It could be argued that the trend was on display in Ukraine recently and that Viktor Yanukovich was on his way out, if not for the artful intervention of Vlad Putin.

The bottom line? I see a bull market for authoritarian coups ushering in police states.